by Tim McGregor
The impact was abrupt, knocking both of them to the red-carpeted floor of the nave. Both gasping in shock, both frozen to the marrow by the touch of two small hands.
Maya screamed, her voice amplified up through the vaulted ceiling. Her mother wincing again, lurching forward as pain shot through her.
Billie looked up, eyes watering. “Grace! Don’t do this.”
“Stop!” It was Noah, shrieking at Billie. “Stop saying that name!”
Billie gripped the pew to prop herself up. “Then you say it,” she said. “It’s you she needs.”
Confused and frightened, Robin’s gaze darted between her husband and the woman. “Who? Who are you talking about?”
“The little girl,” Billie said. “The one who died.”
“Shut up!” Noah clutched at his hair.
Billie straightened up, eyes on the husband. “She won’t listen to me. She won’t hear the Reverend. You have to call her, Noah.”
He was shaking his head, mumbling over and over. “No, no, no.”
“She’s not evil. She’s just scared and alone. And she needs her dad.” Billie’s voice hitched on her own words, cracking.
He dropped to his knees, hiding his tears in his hands. His entire body shaking with each sob.
Billie whispered to him. “Noah, call to her. Tell her it will be okay. Tell her to go to where it’s warm.”
He kept shaking his head.
Then Maya, eyes watching everything, spoke. “She’s afraid she’ll be forgotten. When the baby comes.”
Outside the stained glass windows, even the snow had stopped falling.
“Call her,” Billie said. “Say her name.”
His voice was cracked and hushed, garbled by sobs. The only one who heard was the one it was meant for.
“Grace…”
She hadn’t realized that she was crying. Billie wiped her eyes to clear them but her vision remained blurry and wet. All she could see was a small shadow reaching out for the man on his knees.
And then Robin’s voice, breaking the silence.
“Oh God. My water—”
~
“A boy,” said a man’s voice. “One month premature.”
Billie opened her eyes. The soulless hospital lighting and hard-backed chairs of the waiting room remitted the sensation of being instantly hungover.
Expecting Noah, she was startled to find the preacher standing before her.
“Is the baby going to be okay?” she asked.
“The doctor said he was doing fine, all things considered.” Reverend Joy looked haggard, his collar bent. “The baby will have to stay here for the time being but the doctor is confident that he’ll thrive.”
Billie sat up, straightening her back. “And Robin?”
“Recovering.” The Reverend sat down in the chair next to her. “Noah and Maya are with her now.”
She let herself exhale, relieved. The awkwardness immediately followed, sitting next to the man who had tried to exorcise her from his church. A nurse, tired and forlorn-looking, walked past. She offered them a weak smile before turning the corner.
“Don’t you believe in God?” he asked, in a tone that was neither angry nor condemning. Just curious.
“I never said I didn’t.”
“What you believe in,” he said, “are ghosts. Fairy tales. ”
Billie didn’t reply. She had neither the strength nor the will for an ecumenical debate. Sighing, she said, “You saw what happened back there.”
“I saw a bunch of people screaming in terror and confusion. And then Robin went into labour.”
She could have countered with something about the Holy Ghost but it would have felt like a cheap shot. Let it go. Billie had no need to convince anyone about what she believed in.
She looked down at her boots. Still wet, the suede ruined. At least it was warm in the waiting room. “Do they have a name picked out?” she asked.
His face flattened. “I didn’t even think to ask.”
Billie stood, slowly. Her left knee hurt from slipping on the ice, the cut exposed in the torn material. “If it had been a baby girl, do you know what her name would be?”
“Please.” His voice tinged with disdain. “We’ve had enough fantasy for one night. Let’s not broach another absurd idea.”
“We both know what her name would be,” she said.
His face darkened. After a moment, he said, “I had hoped that we could call a truce. You and I.”
“Call off your parishioner assault team. Then we can talk truce.” Billie stepped away, not wanting to be anywhere near the man. “If they walk into my bar again, I guarantee you will end up with the most haunted church in Hamilton.”
She took the elevator down two floors and crossed the hospital lobby. The sight of Mockler pushing through the entry doors made her quicken her limp.
“Hey,” he said, gathering her up. “I came as fast as I could. Are you all right?”
“No.”
He held her back, looking her over. A bloodied knee poking through the ripped jeans. “Are you hurt?”
“Just take me home. Okay?”
Chapter 24
“ARE YOU SURE about this colour?”
“It’s gonna look great,” she said. “Trust me.”
Mockler ran the roller out and then stepped back to survey the fresh paint on the wall. A shade of white with some ridiculous name. Winter frost or some such thing. “It looks too bright.”
“It’ll tone down once it dries,” Billie said, teetering on the ladder. Cutting the trim between the ceiling and the wall.
They had gotten an early start, arriving just after nine to begin painting the new apartment. The bedroom got a first coat before they moved on to the living room. A little more cutting here, working around the bay window that overlooked West Avenue.
“I hate painting.”
She looked down at him from her shaky perch. “Do you want to switch? I’ll roll, you can do the trim?”
“No thanks,” he said. “You’re better at that than I am.”
“I like painting,” she said, concentrating to cut a straight line with the brush.
“So I can see. You got it all over you.”
Billie looked at her hands. Paint all over knuckles, forearms and elbows. More of it spattered on her jeans. “I said I like it, never said I was neat doing it.”
“What’s there to like?”
“It’s one of those tasks where you have something tangible to show for your efforts.”
He looked unconvinced. “Hey,” he said. “Thanks for helping me with this.”
She blew him a kiss, planting a smudge of white on her chin, and they went back to it, rolling and cutting until the doorbell rang.
He set the roller down. “Pizza’s here.”
Sitting on the floor, their backs to a wall that had been primed but untouched by the white. The open pizza box was from Bella Pizza, the ales from Collective Arts.
“It’s a big space,” Billie said, looking over the room.
“Won’t be once I get all the furniture in.” He reached for another slice. “Where am I gonna put everything?”
She wagged her chin at the south wall. “Put the Hi-Fi cabinet there, then hang your Hopper print over it.”
“Shouldn’t the sofa go there?”
“I’d put the sofa over there. But we can try it both ways.” She wiped her hands on her jeans, reached for her beer. “That vintage furniture you scored from your neighbour is gonna look really nice in here. I’m jealous.”
“Don’t be. The place is yours, too.”
Mockler closed the pizza box and they sat quietly, the smell of paint around them.
Billie picked at the dried crust of white on her knuckles. “You understand that, right? About not moving in together.”
“Sure. You don’t really love me.”
That word.
“Don’t be mean.” She elbowed him, making him laugh. “I know it would be practical to find a
place together, or for you to move in with me. But I don’t want to be practical. It’s too soon.”
“Have you ever lived with someone?”
“A guy?” she asked. “Once. It was disastrous. I like having my own place.”
He picked at the label on the bottle. “If we were to move in together, just hypothetically, would what’s-his-face come, too?”
“It’s Tom, not what’s-his-face.” Billie tilted her head, rolling the idea around. “I guess so. He’s haunting me, not the flat.”
“You’d want him to, wouldn’t you?”
She grinned, guilty as charged. “He’s family.”
Back on their feet, they opened another can of Ice Mist-whatever and went back to work.
“I can’t believe those dicks suspended you,” Billie said. “So unfair.”
“They’re not dicks. Just worried about how it looks. Three months and it’ll all be forgotten.”
“Have you thought about what you’re gonna do?” Billie asked. “Three months is a long time.”
“Dunno. I’ll have to live cheaply for a while, I suppose.”
She dipped her brush, scraped the excess on the rim of the can. “Maybe it’s time to reflect. Think about doing something else.”
“That occurred to me, but I like what I do. As hard as it can be, dealing with families and the trauma they endure, it’s hard to imagine doing something else. You know?”
“That’s an enviable thing, knowing what you’re meant to do.” Distracted, she let a few drops escape from the brush. They hit the floor where the dropcloth didn’t reach, spotting the weathered hardwood. She cursed, wiping it up with a rag.
“What time do you have?” Her phone was in her backpocket but her fingers were sticky with white.
“Just after two,” he said. “You have plans?”
“I wanted to go by the hospital, see how Robin’s doing.” She turned and batted her eyes at him. “Do you mind if I abandon you after this wall?”
“You’re fine. Hell, I got three months to do this,” he said. And then she threw the rag at him.
~
It was the tiniest thing she had ever seen, lying under the protective hood of the incubator. Pink and raw, with long thin fingers. Billie’s experiences with babies was practically nil.
“How long will he stay in this thing?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound too ignorant.
“A few more days,” Robin said, standing next to Billie. Her face still had some puffiness to it but otherwise she looked fine. Happy. “Four weeks early isn’t too much of a scare. We might even bring him home in a week, fingers crossed.”
“Sit down,” Billie said. “You’re making me nervous being on your feet.”
“I need some exercise, cooped up in here.” She eased back into a chair anyway.
It was impossible not to stare at the little guy. The focal point of everything in the room. “How’s Maya?”
“Eager to hold her little brother. She thinks it’s mean that we’re keeping him in a box. ‘He’s not a cat, you know,’ she says.”
“And Noah?” She almost didn’t want to ask. The impact he must have felt, learning the truth.
“He’s happy,” Robin replied. “Well, he’s a nervous Nellie in here, pestering the nurses about what they’re doing. But he’s good.”
“I can’t stop staring at him.” Billie settled back into her chair, mesmerized. “You decide on a name yet?”
“Connor,” said Robin. “Connor Dietrich.”
“Sounds like a movie star.”
The banal noise of the hospital ward crept through the door. Robin reached and touched Billie’s arm. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything you did. I’m sorry we treated you so shittily.”
“Don’t worry about it. It all worked out.” Realizing she was being presumptuous, Billie turned to the new mom. “It did work out, didn’t it?”
Robin nodded. “The house is quiet. No cold spots, no thumping.”
Their gaze turned, as if synchronized, to the baby born at 34 weeks. Billie was tempted to ask but bit her lip. It seemed too personal.
“I think it’s her,” Robin said, startling Billie with a flash of mind-reading. “Or a part of her, anyway.”
Billie agreed with nothing more than a shy nod. It was almost too beautiful to contemplate for too long without losing the dry eyes, so the conversation drifted safely over to the weather and the bitter winds of February.
~
Coffee with Kaitlin, then down to the antique shops on Ottawa Street. She wanted to get Mockler a house-warming present for his new place but didn’t trust her own taste. Jen was the obvious go-to for such a task but she was tied up at the Doll House. So she dragged Kaitlin with her.
“What about something for the kitchen?” Kaitlin asked, ambling down an aisle of vintage melamine dishes and Formica-topped tables. “Dudes never have the right cooking stuff.”
Billie made a squishy face. “I’d like it to be a little more, you know, personal. But kitchen stuff is a good back-up.”
“Flowers?”
“For a guy?”
Kaitlin frowned. “Why don’t you just surprise him when he comes home. Wearing nothing but a bow on your head. Dudes like that.”
“So not me.” Spotting something, Billie held up a heavy bookend shaped like an old pistol, the six-shooter kind used in old Westerns. Bronze, with green felt on the bottom. “How about this? Kinda kitschy.”
“That’s more your style,” Kaitlin said. “Is he into kitsch? Or books?”
The bookend went back to its twin on the shelf. They kept looking.
“So,” Kaitlin said, flipping through a crate of old records. “He’s cool with you not wanting to live together?”
“Yeah. Well, maybe a little put out, but otherwise, he’s fine. He knows I like living alone.”
Kaitlin lifted a record from the rest. The Yardbirds. “I don’t get the appeal. The condo seems way too big now that Kyle’s gone. Too quiet.”
“You thinking about getting a smaller place?”
“No. A roommate.” Flipping further along the stacked records, Kaitlin pulled up another. Showed it to Billie. “How about this?”
A woman with blues eyes, sheltered under an umbrella. “What is it?”
“French pop from the sixties. It’s awesome stuff.”
Billie took the record sleeve, looked at the back, but the text was in French. “Maybe a stack of records is a good idea. He’s got that awesome Hi-Fi cabinet now.”
“Didn’t he get that for you?”
“Another back-up idea.” Billie slipped the vinyl back into the crate. “Do you really want to get a roomie?”
“If I can find the right person. Not a friend, though. Sharing a place is like a stake through the heart for any friendship.”
“You need a roomie like Tom,” Billie said. “Never eats your food, never hogs the bathroom or blasts shitty music.”
“He just looks like something out of a Rob Zombie movie,” Kaitlin countered. “No thanks.”
“Nobody’s perfect.” Billie scanned the shelves around them and sighed. “I don’t think I’m gonna find anything here.”
“Do you want to try Ikea or something?”
“Barf. Maybe I should just go with something for the kitchen.”
“Nothing says love more than a crockpot,” Kaitlin said. “Hey, has that stupid reporter hassled you again?”
“No. Why?”
“That dumb bitch put up a website. Sort of a tip-line for anyone with information.”
Horrified, Billie said, “On me?”
“Not just you, the whole occult-slash-devil-worship scene. You don’t want to see the comments posted there. It’s like a magnet for internet outrage.”
Billie had her phone out. “What’s it called?”
“Don’t waste your time. It’s awful.”
Ignoring the advice, Billie tossed Amanda Troy’s name into the search bar, along with the terms tip-line and occult. An
austere page popped up, an adjunct page to Amanda Troy’s own website. The banner read Occult Tip-line. A phone number and a few posts by the host. Reams and reams of nasty comments.
“Told you not to look,” Kaitlin said.
“Remind me not to doubt you again.” Billie killed the page, dropped the phone back into her pocket and they went out into the cold. Kaitlin suggested a few other shops on the strip and Billie shrugged and let her friend lead the way. Her mind was elsewhere, stuck on the phone number for the tip line, wondering if it rang through to the reporter’s cell or just an answering machine.
~
“Don’t use that shot,” said Amanda. “It’s unnecessary.”
The editor paused the cut, freezing the frame on the monitor. “It’s just a cutaway.”
The editing suite was dim. Amanda Troy sat next to the editor as he showed her the cut for her next piece. It was late and his fingers were crossed that this was the final cut but Troy was exacting. Nigh lethal when it came to her own screen time.
“It’s redundant,” Amanda said, levelling death-ray eyes at him. “And I look bored, like I don’t care. Find another cutaway or cut it altogether.”
The editor swung his chair back to face the monitor. “Fine. We’ll cut it.”
“I’m sure there’s a better shot of me in the footage.” She got up out of the swivel chair, phone in her hand like she had some pressing engagement hanging over her. Which she always did, thank you very much. “Find it.”
“That’s gonna take another hour or so. I wanna get out of here before midnight.”
“Shit,” Amanda sputtered, raising her phone to see the time. “I’m late. Just do it, Randall. Your credit’s on that piece, too.”
She ran out of the dim editing suite, pricey heels clicking on the floor as she disappeared into the hallway.
The editor slumped in his chair, accepting his fate like a condemned man walking the plank. He couldn’t afford to cross the ambitious reporter in her quest for righteous truth. Or cheap clickbait headlines.
Gunning the car up Sanford Avenue, Amanda glanced at the dashboard clock. Three minutes late for the appointed time with her latest informant. An empty storefront on Barton East, near Sherman. Go round back, her informant had texted. The door in the alley would be unlocked. All very cloak-and-dagger, but Amanda didn’t mind. She wasn’t too concerned with tardiness, either. Not with these informants anyway. Eager to divulge secrets or play a part in a bigger story, they would wait until she got there. This one, the latest from the tip-line she had set up, promised to reveal new dirt on her favourite psychic and current public whipping target.
