“Well, no wonder you’re so unhappy and unsure. Control is an illusion. No one has it. I don’t even have it. You can’t wish for control; you can only learn to play your part in a world where nothing is truly certain. And you do have a part to play. Do you really think that if you didn’t have the Sight you could guarantee yourself a perfect child with no flaw or defect, or that you will be the perfect parent? No one has the control you say you want with regard to having a child. People who decide to bring children into this imperfect world take the same chance as you do every day. They always have. And who’s to say our world isn’t made the richer by having people within it who are less or more than normal—whatever normal is. You’ve been given an ability few people have, and you’ve done nothing but ignore it and complain about it. There are a great many people in this world who would give anything to know this life isn’t all there is. You and I know without a shadow of a doubt that there’s more, that we aren’t just a twinkling light in the universe one moment and then nothing the next.”
Brette turned her head to face the water and the pearl horizon. The flaming sun was sinking low into the line of separation between water and firmament. In another moment it would disappear. If she blinked, she’d miss the snatch of time that the green flash might electrify the sky, for just that breath of a second. She closed her eyes to hold on to the hope that it wasn’t just a legend. When she opened them, the orange orb was gone and only a subtly glowing shadow marked the spot where it had been. She turned to Maura.
“I don’t know where to begin to do what you are suggesting,” she said.
“Begin by letting go, Brette. Ellen was afraid her whole life. She was the one whose life was ruined by spending too much time thinking about the Sight. She never married, never had children. She lived a life of fear. She was so afraid of what the Sight might do to her that she never stopped to consider what she might do with it.”
“But I don’t want to live my life half in this world and half in the next.”
Maura reached across the little table and squeezed one of Brette’s hands. “That is not what I am telling you to do! I am not telling you to rush after every Drifter you see to ask them what they want. I am suggesting that you keep your eyes and hands and heart open to what God might bring your way. A baby, a fuller life, a lost soul now and then who needs a word of encouragement. You and I can offer it in a way few others can.”
Brette had never thought of herself as having anything remarkable to offer the world. “There’s a woman in New Mexico who thinks I’m a fraud.”
“So do you spend much time worrying about what other people think?”
Brette smiled. It felt good. “You make all of this sound easy.”
“It is much harder to pretend than it is to simply be who you already are.”
The two women were quiet for a moment.
“There’s a Drifter on the Queen Mary who I was sure was the ghost of a woman who died falling overboard a long time ago. But it’s not. I don’t know who it is or what she wants. She won’t show herself. But she wants something of me.”
Maura said nothing for a moment; she seemed deep in thought. “How do you know it’s a woman, then?”
There was no doubt in Brette’s mind that the Drifter was a woman. “I just do.”
“Well, I’ve never known a Drifter to stay hidden when it wants something. That’s very interesting, actually. I’m pretty sure you can guess what I would do.”
“You’d go back to the ship and ask.”
“Here’s the thing, Brette. Most of us don’t ask the right questions. And I don’t mean just people with an ability like ours, I mean in general. You’re probably thinking you need to ask that Drifter what she wants, but the question really is not what she wants but why has she stayed behind?”
Brette thought for a moment. “I’m not sure that she knows why.”
“And that is precisely why you might be the one to perform a great act of kindness by figuring that out.”
“Is that what you do? Do you help them figure out why they’ve stayed behind?”
“I’ve always believed if it was in my power to help someone out, it was wrong of me to stand by and do nothing.”
“But how? How do you help them? They never want to listen.”
Maura picked up her teacup. “It’s you who needs to listen.” She took a sip. “Your Drifters, as you call them, don’t want advice. They don’t want someone to tell them they don’t belong here. They truly already know that. When you are afraid to do something, the last thing you want is someone telling you to stop being afraid and just do it already. Certainly you can relate to that.”
“Yes,” Brette murmured. So many questions she’d had for the last twenty-five years seemed to be finding their answers.
“My mother exploited them, Ellen ignored them, and your grandmother tried to tell them what to do. All I’ve done is listen to them. I know what fear is like, especially when you feel like you’re all alone with it. What the lost souls lack most is validation, not courage. You’d be surprised how brave you can become when someone simply affirms that what you are feeling is real.”
Images of the Drifters she’d come into contact with in recent days came to her mind. The mother at the baby shower. The man with the beard on the walk with Keith. The young woman in white on the ship’s bridge. Brette had not considered for a moment offering empathy. A ribbon of regret twirled about her mind. “When you listen, do they cross over, then?”
“Sometimes. They don’t haunt my every step if I show them compassion, if that’s what you’re afraid of. They usually move on in one way or another.”
The gathering twilight was turning the sky a sleepy shade of violet. “I need to go back to that ship,” Brette said. “If I go tomorrow, will you come with me?”
Maura set her teacup down on the table between them. “Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“This is how you begin to learn how to be you. And just because she appeared to you doesn’t mean she would appear to me. You need to go alone.”
“But Keith said he’d come with me. He wants to come with me.”
“That’s very nice of him. But not a good idea. Have him wait in the parking lot if he insists on driving up with you. I doubt this Drifter will seek you out the way she did the first time if you aren’t alone. Be a shame to drive all the way up there for nothing.”
“I suppose.” Brette thought for a moment. “I’m not sure what to do when I get there. This Drifter doesn’t actually speak. I’m not sure how to listen to her.”
Maura again seemed to find this detail perplexing. “Is it true the ship is full of lost souls?”
“I saw several. One spoke to me. I don’t know how many there are, probably not as many as ghost hunters would have us believe. But yes, the ship seems to be a thin place where Drifters filter in and then stay.”
“And the one that you saw that did speak to you. What did she say?”
“I asked her why she and so many others were on the ship. This was when I was still looking for my friend’s wife. She told me, ‘She lets us stay.’”
“‘She lets us stay’?” Maura echoed. “Who is this ‘she’?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“You might want to think about who that ‘she’ is. I would imagine she is the one who sought you out. Think about it, Brette. Why would this ghost care about the supposed drowning of someone else?”
“I don’t know,” Brette said quickly.
“No, no,” Maura said. “Your problem is you want the answer as soon as you pose the question. Think about it. Why does this ghost care about that other woman? There has to be a reason.”
Brette had no idea how to tackle that question. “What if I can’t figure it out?”
“I don’t think that question matters until you’ve tried.”
“
They don’t usually care about anyone but themselves . . .” Brette said, partly to herself and partly to Maura.
Maura stood and started to head back inside.
“Wait! I’m only just starting to get this!” Brette said.
Maura half-turned. “We’ve a lifetime left to us to get to know one another better, Brette. Anyway, this bit with you and the ghost on the ship, it’s not my nut to crack. It’s yours. And your mother promised me your grandmother’s stroganoff for dinner.”
Brette rose to follow her.
Nadine asked Brette to stay for dinner, but she wanted time to think. She knew she’d be going back up to the Queen the next day. She needed to do some pondering.
“You’re not returning to Mexico right away, are you?” Brette asked as she fished her car keys out of her purse.
“Your mom has given me the nicest room in the inn and a return flight for Friday if I’m agreeable to a little vacation. I think I am. José and the vines can manage for a few days without me.” Maura turned to Nadine. “And it’s nice to be with family again. I’d forgotten just how nice.”
“I’m sorry about all the lost years,” Nadine said.
Maura waved a hand to dispel the regret. “Years are never lost. You and I know exactly where they are. I’ll walk you to the door, Brette.”
The two women made their way to the front entry. “I know you think you’re not up to this tomorrow, but it’s always better to feel a little underequipped than to go into a situation thinking you know it all,” Maura said.
“I’m so glad you came,” Brette replied. “I can’t begin to tell you how much.”
“Your mother was insistent that I come. I honestly thought I was done with everything having to do with this family. I haven’t been back to the States in five years. But your mother wouldn’t take no for an answer. That’s mother-love for you. Even my mom, with all her problems, loved me. She would’ve walked through fire for me.”
“Did you ever . . . did you think about having children?”
“I thought about it all the time. I wanted them, Brette. I would have had ten were it up to me. But I only ever had miscarriages.”
Brette heard the sorrow in Maura’s words. And a silent admonition not to let fear rob her of a full life. “I’d like to stop by the inn tomorrow on my way home from the Queen Mary. You’ll be here, won’t you?”
Maura assured her she would.
Thirty-nine
RMS QUEEN MARY
PRESENT DAY
A cloudless, Tiffany-blue sky canopied the Long Beach harbor as Brette and Keith drove into the Queen Mary’s parking lot. As Keith switched off the ignition, Brette turned to look at the ocean liner’s black, white, and red length ahead of them as the vessel sat at the dock, her prow pointed toward the open sea.
“You still want to go on deck alone?” Keith asked.
“Just until this Drifter and I have a chance to connect. I will know better after we’ve had a little time together if I can text you to buy a ticket and come on up.”
Keith exhaled a breath of mild disappointment. “You are quite sure this . . . ghost can’t hurt you?”
Brette curled her fingers on the door handle, eager to step on the gangway now. “She’s not like that.”
“But you don’t even know who it is.”
Brette could not explain how she knew the Drifter she was hoping to reunite with would never hurt her. “I’ll be fine. Keep your phone close. I will text you the minute I think it’s okay for you to come.” She leaned toward him to kiss him on the cheek.
“This is a good idea, right?” he said.
“Of course.”
Keith cupped her chin in his hand. “You just look tired, Brette. I mean, you’re beautiful as always, but you look tired.”
She knew she did. “I know. I think this might be the beginning of me finally figuring it all out. Not just for me, but for us, too. I’ll be all right.”
She stepped out of the car into the midmorning sunshine and began to walk to the dock. Brette had told Keith everything Maura had said when she got back to the condo the evening before, including the shift she was feeling inside about having a baby. Today was the start of letting go of fear and grasping instead the strings of hope. But it had been an arduous journey to this point. And she hadn’t slept well.
She’d spent hours on the Internet, scouring online articles and blog posts about the inexplicable way the past clung to the Queen Mary. She’d made notes of what she had learned about the ship and the people who had been a part of its history, and everything she’d read or been told about the 1946 war brides. She refamiliarized herself with the ship’s storied lifespan as a luxury liner, a warship, a transport for immigrant brides and their children, and a floating hotel, so that she could imagine every kind of passenger or crew member or guest who would have walked its decks. She went over every minute of her first trip to the ship—every pressing touch, every swirling presence, every ardent nudge.
As she lay in bed in the deepest hours of the night, an idea came to her, unthinkable at first, but the more she pondered it, the less impossible it seemed. When she awoke that morning, with the outlandish notion still spinning about her and gathering strength, she thought for a moment of calling the B and B and asking Maura what she thought.
But no. This was her grand moment of making peace with the skill that had been woven into her being. Maura would tell her as much. This was to be her discovery and no one else’s.
She didn’t even tell Keith what she was going to do when she got on deck. First she would need to reconnect with the Drifter who had met her the first time and tell it she knew Annaliese was alive. Then she needed to find the Drifter on the bridge who had spoken to her and ask her another question.
She knew what she would do next, assuming she was right. She could only hope it was the right course of action. It seemed like it was. Maura had said earthbound souls hunger to be understood.
Brette paid for her pass onto the ship and then made her way to the entrance and the elevator that would take her to the main gangway. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She stepped off the elevator and let the other ticket holder who’d ridden with her walk ahead so that she could step onto the burnished deck of the promenade alone.
She closed the distance from current-day concrete to weathered wood and stepped over the seam, taking a few steps to the right so that she wasn’t blocking anyone’s way but so that she could stand still and wait if she had to. Brette had no sooner made this adjustment when the hairs on the back of her neck and on her arms were suddenly charged with electricity. A gust of energized air swirled about her, and Brette felt the unmistakable pulse of welcome. A guest walking by put a hand to his fedora to keep it from being tugged off.
“I’ve come back,” Brette whispered.
The warm presence pulled her away from the windows and toward the length of the promenade as if it wanted to take her down to the stern.
“I have news for you,” Brette murmured as she responded to the gentle tugging and moved forward. She was being led to the back of the ship. “I know Annaliese is alive.”
But the drifting presence pulled Brette along and out to the outside and the white metal steps that would lead to the isolation wards and the placard that bore Annaliese Kurtz’s name.
“She’s not dead!” Brette muttered, mindful of other guests and not wanting to attract attention.
Still the ghost led her down to the old sick bay and the corner room where the list of the dead hung in quiet testament to the frailty of the human body.
Annaliese Kurtz, suicide, February 1946
“She’s alive,” Brette said. “Surely you must know that!”
The ghost seemed to hover suspended between the poster and Brette, between the words on the placard and Brette’s words.
“I don’t know what it is you want. Ann
aliese isn’t dead. You have to know she walked off the ship. And I don’t know what was in that little cabinet in the stateroom. Whatever it was is long gone. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, but I can assure you Annaliese is still alive. She’s fine.”
Still the ghost hovered, as though Brette were the one who lacked understanding.
She had to talk to the Drifter on the bridge, and she could only hope that she wouldn’t meet with resistance.
“I need to ask someone a question,” Brette whispered. “It’s important.”
She turned to go and felt nothing barring her way. She sped out of the isolation ward, ascended the steps, and made her way back to the promenade deck. Minutes later, after covering the length of the ship and climbing more stairs, she was inside the captain’s bridge. Guests taking the self-guided tour were listening to headsets and taking pictures. No one seemed to care that Brette was looking about the room as if she’d lost something.
The Drifter from before was nowhere in sight.
“Please, please, please,” Brette mumbled to the air around her. She stepped out onto the other side and scanned the length of the ship as far as she could see. Only other mortals were milling about. She hadn’t wanted to spend an hour or two combing the decks looking for the ghost of the young woman, but it seemed like that was to be her only option. Brette turned to head back into the bridge and nearly ran into the Drifter with the flowing gown. She was perched on the stanchion that kept guests from messing with the ancient navigational instruments.
“Please just stay a moment,” Brette whispered in the Drifter’s direction as a couple of tourists snapped a few pictures and then turned to go. When the bridge was empty, Brette turned to the Drifter to quickly ask her question. She was fairly sure she now knew who the young woman had meant when she’d said the time before, She lets us come. What Brette wanted to know was why.
“Please,” Brette murmured to the apparition of the young woman, who was staring at her. Time was of no consequence to the Drifters. She knew she could continue their conversation as if none had passed. “You said to me last time I saw you, ‘She lets us come.’ Why does she let you come here? I need to know.”
A Bridge Across the Ocean Page 30
