by Zizi Cole
***
I couldn’t believe what she had told me. Lex had just admitted to me that she had been carrying my child and never told me. She had never told me that she had lost our child. Ten years and I was just finding out. How was I supposed to deal with that? I knew that there had been a chance of her getting pregnant before we left for college, but I didn’t think she did since I’d never heard anything. What was I going to do about what Lex told me? It hurt more than I cared to admit. How was I to feel about the fact that she had never gotten over us? She picked another man because he reminded her of me. She could have called me. I would have moved her to California or I would have moved to New York.
I had known that she was going to break up with me that night. I just hadn’t known why. She had been acting different and seemed to be pushing me away for days before she ended it. I had thought she was being selfish. That she wanted to go to college as a single woman. I never expected her reason to be because she wanted me to live my dreams. She never ceased to amaze me.
I don’t know how many times I thought about showing up at her door in New York and begging her to take me back. I would tell her I loved her and hoped she would come back to me. I should have gone after her no matter what she had said, but my damned pride got in the way. I was too proud to admit that the night she broke up with me, I had been planned on proposing to her. I had the ring in my pocket when she ended things. The same ring that I still had in my pocket. The ring had become my talisman - it never left my pocket.
When she told me what she went through with that piece of shit, I wanted to rip his throat out. He didn’t deserve to live after what he did to her. And she said he did it because she watched my football games? How the hell did he know who I was?
I was certain that he didn’t let go as easily as she said he did. He may have outwardly let her go for appearances, but I knew scumbags like him. They never let go when it wasn’t their idea or decision. This new information gave him a motive. He may not have murdered her parents, but I was one hundred percent certain that he had something to do with it.
I could feel her relax and I knew she was asleep. I knew everything there was to know about Alexandrea Cooper. I knew everything from her young years since we grew up together but I had made it my mission in life to know where she was and that she was okay. I had dropped the ball on that mission when she was with Michael. It had hurt that she was with someone else. I also knew that he was the only other person she had ever even dated besides me.
Now that she had confessed almost everything to me, I knew that I needed to do the same for her. But being in an abusive relationship and being a borderline obsessive stalker were two different things. Okay, maybe stalker was too strong of a word for what I was. Once she found out that I was keeping tabs on her, she would never trust me again. And when she found out what my job really was, would she look at me differently? Would she think I was crazy? When I had been approached, I thought my partner was crazy. But I had seen so much, I couldn’t, wouldn’t think anything was crazy anymore.
I tried to go to sleep, but questions kept running through my head. How was I supposed to protect her from something I hadn’t seen? What steps did we take next? How could I end this quickly so she would remain safe? What the fuck was I going to do about one Michael Wallace?
***
A week later, I was sitting in the hot tub with Mia. This time we had bikinis on. She had thought it was funny that first day to sit in there naked. Mia tended to be amused by things that made me uncomfortable. The next time we’d worked out, she brought her bikini over and left it here. That was fine with me. She’d always kept one here before anyway, so why should it be any different now?
We had only been working out for a week, but I could feel myself becoming stronger. I wasn’t sure if it was the confidence I was getting from learning how to protect myself or if I was actually getting stronger in such a short amount of time. Mia told me that my body was getting used to the rigorous workout and I would be actually seeing results if we kept it up. I planned on keeping it up.
“So, has Jake warmed back up to you yet?” Mia asked casually.
I shrugged. He had been spending most nights at my house since the break-in and had quit sleeping on the couch. I had told him if he was going to stay at the house, he could have the guest room for as long as he wanted. So he’d been sleeping down the hall from me. I was still having the nightmares and waking up screaming almost nightly. He would come in, sit with me until I was calm, and then he would go back to the guest room. The nightmares were fairly consistent in the fact that I was seeing the same thing. The only difference was that my mother wasn’t always in them.
“We don’t really talk anymore,” I told her. I tried to be casual about it, not wanting her to know how much it was affecting me that Jake had distanced himself from me. “But he’s here pretty much every night.”
“I see. Maybe he just needs to come to terms with what you told him. You said you told him that you’d been pregnant with his baby, lost it, and never said a word about it. Which you never told me about either,” she pouted.
“Don’t pout,” I scolded. “It’s unbecoming. Besides, I didn’t tell anyone. I suspect that Momma knew because she would have gotten the insurance bill from that first prenatal appointment. If she did know, she never said anything to me about it. And you know my Momma, she was pretty open about everything. If she didn’t like something I did or disapproved, I would know about it immediately.”
“Speaking of your mom, have you seen or talked to her lately?”
I nodded. “A couple of times. The first time she just smiled at me with that heartbreaking smile that she’s had since she died. The next time she told me to stay strong and patient.”
Mia’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “You? Patient? Did your mom know you at all?”
“Apparently not. She had to have been talking about Jake, but it’s hard telling. She’s being vague. When I ask what she means, she just disappears.” I shrugged again.
“Any more incidents with flowers or people breaking in?” Mia asked.
“Not since Jake’s been staying here. Whoever it is, I think they know that he’s here. Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m being watched, but I never see any actual signs of being watched. And before you ask, no, I haven’t told Jake.” I sighed.
“You need to tell him. He’s here to help protect you,” Mia reasoned.
“I know, but like I’ve said, he hasn’t been much for talking lately. And I don’t want him here just to protect me. I miss the friendliness and the companionship that we had.”
“I know, but until he quits being a stubborn ass, this is what you’ve got. I still think you need to tell him,” she insisted. “You also need to tell him about your mom’s ghost.”
“Tell Jake what?” Jake asked from the doorway. “And what about your mom, Lex?”
Mia and I looked at each other. She had a shit-eating grin on her face, and I realized she had set me up. She knew that he was there before he had spoken. We would be having a talk about that later. I also could tell by the look on her face that she wasn’t sorry about this little incident. We climbed out of the hot tub and grabbed our towels. As I was wrapping my towel around me, Jake shifted like he was uncomfortable.
“I’ll meet y’all in the kitchen. I’m gonna start a pot of coffee,” he turned to leave, then looked sharply at Mia. “Don’t even think about leavin.’ I think you need to be here for this conversation.”
He strode out of the pool room. I glared at Mia again. She wrapped her hair in a towel, then wrapped another around her body. The towel was long enough that it covered her all the way from the top of her chest all the way past her knees. When she caught me looking at her, she gave me a huge, innocent smile.
“Cut the shit, Mia,” I said. “You did that on purpose. He barely looks at me, now we’re going to be stuck having an awkward conversation.”
“You two need to get over this. I don’t
know what kind of shit storm’s coming, but you two need to work together.” Mia had a distant look in her eye. Then, she smiled a genuine smile at me. “I’ve seen you two getting along. We just have to get over this hump.”
When Mia had said that we would need to work together, I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that she was right. How did she think we were going to get over the hump if he hated me so much that he couldn’t stand to look at me? I sighed. This was going to be a hard conversation to have.
“Let’s go face the music,” I said, looping my arm through Mia’s.
In the kitchen, Jake was sitting at the table in the breakfast nook. He had a cup of coffee in his hand and he was staring at his cellphone. There were two other cups of coffee sitting on the table. One was the color of caramel, the other was black. It was obvious he knew how we liked our coffee. We glanced at each other and took our respective places at the table. Jake didn’t look up from his phone, even after we’d sat down. He finished typing whatever he was typing when we entered the room, and set his phone on the table.
“Okay ladies, I know that things are being kept from me and I don’t like it.” Jake started. “So who wants to go first?”
I stared at him. I couldn’t believe how he was talking to us. He wasn’t our dad. He had the nerve to say that he didn’t like us keeping things from him? He’d been hiding whatever those mysterious phone calls and texts were about from me. It wasn’t my place say anything about it, but damn it, I wasn’t going to have him talk to me like that.
“We are keeping secrets from you? Why don’t you start by telling me about all those phone calls that you can’t answer in front of me? Or those mysterious meetings that you go to? What are you looking up on the computer that you feel necessary to hide from me? Why do you close the lid to the laptop when I come into the room? What’s all that about?” I exploded. “Why don’t we talk about the fact that I spilled my guts to you and now you’ve turned your back on me? You act like you hate me. Hell, you can’t even look at me most of the time. Why wouldn’t I keep shit from you?”
Jake just stared at me. “You think I hate you? Honest to God, Lex, I don’t know where you got that idea. I’ve told you, I could never hate you. It hasn’t changed. You act like I should’ve been fine with all the revelations that you gave me that night. I’m not, okay? You casually dropped that when you left me, you were pregnant! With. My. Child. You didn’t tell me. Then you lost it. You went through all that pain and suffering by yourself. You didn’t tell me. I should have been there, but, that’s right, you didn’t tell me.”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Jake cut me off. “No. You brought this up, you’re going to shut the hell up and listen. You had your say the other night. Now it’s my turn. You had time to deal with the loss of the baby. I didn’t have that chance. Fuck! I didn’t know. I’m just trying to deal with it now. I’m also trying to keep your fucking ass safe. You were right the other night. Someone or something is out to get you and I don’t want to see you hurt. If I can’t stand the thought of you dealing with a miscarriage alone, what makes you think I want to see you dead?”
“I don’t want to see you like your parents. Seeing them like that was hard on me too. I do not want to see you like that. I don’t want to see your throat ripped open. What have I been up to, you ask? I’ve been using all the resources I have available making sure your selfish ass is safe. Yes, I did just call you selfish. But as long as your fucking ass is alive, you can be as pissed off at me as you want to be. I don’t care. But get this straight, Alexandrea Marie Cooper, I never want to be accused of hating you again. You are just going to have to trust me on the rest of it.” He finished. He took a deep breath.
He took a sip of his coffee, shook his head, and got up and went to the cabinet. He pulled out the whiskey and a snifter. He poured two fingers of whiskey and drained it in one drink. He refilled the snifter and drank that, too before pouring yet another finger and carrying it back to the table. He took a big drink of his coffee, then dumped all the whiskey into it. After taking a drink, he looked at us. “Now, who wants to go first?”
9
I sat there stunned by Jake’s outburst. In all the years I had known him, he had never raised his voice or gone off like that. I was sorry for causing him the pain. I hadn’t thought that it would hurt him that much. Was I selfish? Yeah, I guess I was. I had never told him about the pregnancy because, deep down, I knew what he would do. Was I protecting his heart or was I selfishly keeping it to myself? I shook my head. Now was not the time to debate whether I was selfish or not. He was sitting there glaring at Mia and me. He was being impatient and I could tell he wasn’t going to stay quiet for long.
“I’ll start,” I said, glancing at Mia again. She wasn’t getting off the hook, but I figured I would bite the bullet and go first. “You know that whoever has been in the house, hasn’t been here since you started staying. At least, he hasn’t been inside. I feel like I’m being watched though.”
He frowned at that. “When did you start feeling like you were being watched?”
I shrugged. “A couple days ago, I guess. I thought someone was following me leaving the therapist’s office the other day, but I didn’t actually see anyone. And occasionally, I feel like someone is looking in the windows.”
“Okay, from now on we’ll keep the blinds and windows down. That’ll keep anyone from looking in the windows. We need to make sure you aren’t alone anywhere either. If you need to go somewhere, I will take you. If I’m not around, then Mia can probably take you. Or, you can wait until I’m available to go,” he decided. “Now, what did you need to tell me about your mom, darlin’?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him this part. This was where he would think I was completely batshit crazy. I glanced at Mia and she nodded at me encouragingly. I looked around the room. That’s when I noticed her. I looked straight into my mother’s eyes. She did one slight nod. If she thought I should tell him, I should trust her. She’d never steered me wrong when she was alive, why would she now? I acknowledged her with a slight nod.
“This is really hard for me to tell you. I should have said something when it first happened, but you have to understand, I thought I was crazy,” I rambled. I took a deep breath. “I can see Momma’s ghost.”
Jake’s frown deepened. “You what?”
“I can see Momma’s ghost. She’s standing behind you right now.” I told him as he turned quickly. “Maybe I should tell you that I can also hear her. She’s the one I was talking to that day in the kitchen when you caught the end of my conversation.”
Understanding dawned in his eyes. I could tell that he had wondered about that day since it had happened. He didn’t say anything at first. I was waiting for the talk about being crazy. He just sat there, thinking. His finger started tapping on the table. I looked over his shoulder at my mom and she grimaced. She always hated when he did that. I smiled. Then I heard her voice whisper in my ear.
“Tell Jacob that he better stop that damn tapping before I hit his hand with a wooden spoon.”
“Uh, Jake, you might wanna stop tapping your finger before Momma gets a wooden spoon and smacks your knuckles with it,” I told him.
His fingers stopped tapping immediately. He looked me in the eyes. He believed me. I couldn’t believe he actually believed me. I felt relief wash through me. If he believed me, then maybe things would be okay again eventually. He looked over at Mia. No, he definitely hadn’t forgotten that she had beans to spill as well.
“Your turn,” he said.
Mia fidgeted in her chair. She was obviously uncomfortable with what she needed to admit. I was starting to get another feeling that she was going to say something that I didn’t like, as well. The longer she sat there, the more uncomfortable I was becoming. I couldn’t imagine what she was getting so antsy about.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “I just want to throw this out there since y’all decided to clear the air with me here. But I didn’t know a
bout the miscarriage, either. I mean, I knew that she wasn’t completely okay, but I didn’t know what was actually going on. I knew because I had dreams that she was hurting. I just didn’t know what they meant. I have visions. I’ve had visions for the majority of my life. If you just take a second to think about it, that makes sense. The thing that I haven’t really had a chance to develop or learn about is this ability that seems to be manifesting. I have been doing research since Aunt Emma and Uncle Joseph died. I think this ability is called astral projection. I was there for the murders-”
“You mean you know who is behind this and haven’t said anything?!?” Jake exploded.
“No! I couldn’t see him. But l did see what he did to them. I also know that he watched Alexandrea sleep. But I don’t know anything about him or how he pulled it off. I also don’t know how he made Lex think that she committed her parents’ murders. I’ve been trying to figure it out. She was in her bed the whole time. Yet, she saw the murders happen. She knows too many details not to have seen it. I don’t know how he did it. Maybe it was... I don’t know. I’m going to keep researching it. I’m wondering if he didn’t just implant his memories of it into her head. There were minor details that were wrong. Like, the fact that she saw her mother die first. Maybe it was a mirror image of his memory,” Mia explained.
She turned to me and grabbed my hand. “I need to tell you something, Lex. I’ve wanted to tell you this for years, but my mom told me that I absolutely couldn’t tell you under any circumstances. But I feel like this changes everything. I think you should have been made aware a long time ago. Our mothers are magical. They had magical abilities growing up. Not the magic that you saw on TV, but real magic. They’re able to do spells and stuff. They just chose not to, for our sake. They thought we would be safe not knowing about the magic world. Our dads both knew about it as well. I don’t know if they had magic - they’ve never said. The only reason I knew about it is because I started having visions and Mom wanted me to understand what was going on. She didn’t want me to be afraid of what I can do. You’ve probably had some magic all this time as well, but it wasn’t triggered. Or maybe you mom cast a spell to bind your magic or abilities, I’m not sure. Please don’t hate me for not telling you.”
