“What do you mean, Rosalind?” he asked, confused.
He scooted back and untangled himself from my arms and legs before rising. A tense, anxious energy radiated from him, enveloping the room as he paced. I could tell he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to hear this, but the words were out there now, so I knew I had to just get it over with.
“When I was in Seattle, I met with Charlotte, Helena’s daughter. We talked a lot about her mother and father, and what happened the day you died.”
He fell hard into the armchair like he was unable to carry his weight. “What was said?” he asked so quietly I nearly didn’t hear him.
I looked over at him. He was becoming less solid by the minute. This conversation would take out all the energy he had left. I couldn’t help but wonder if it would also give him all the reason he needed to move on and disappear forever. As much as I wanted to be selfish and keep him here with me, he deserved to know—he deserved a chance to move on and not be tied to this place for eternity.
“We talked about a lot of things. Charlotte is wonderful. A kind, lovely woman. She’s Helena’s youngest daughter. She didn’t have a great relationship with her mother; she said Helena was a jealous, cold woman. Helena liked to brag to her friends about the malicious things she did, and she argued a lot with her husband. Charlotte had overheard a lot of stuff growing up.”
I stopped and looked over at Archer, concerned about how he was handling all this. He looked stricken and sad, and all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around him and comfort him. I knew just by looking at him he was fading, so physical touch probably wasn’t an option.
“Go on.”
I took a deep breath before continuing, knowing I was about to wreck him, knowing I had no other choice.
“Helena was responsible for the end of your first engagement. She wanted you and spread the rumor among Lucinda’s family that you were engaging in a sexual relationship. She knew this would be what they needed to send Lucinda away.”
His eyes looked wetter than normal, and I guessed he would have cried then if he had been able to.
“I… I didn’t know. I don’t know how I was so fooled by her.”
“You obviously had a gut instinct something was off with her though, because you’ve thought all this time she was involved in your death. You would’ve never even considered it if you really believed in your heart she was a good person.”
“Perhaps.”
“The man she was with on the ship, his name was Richard. They were having an affair, and she later went on to marry him. She was pregnant with her first child the day you died.”
Archer looked absolutely shell-shocked at this information, and in that moment, I wanted to take it all back.
“Keep going,” he ground out between his teeth, the muscles in his neck corded in tension.
“She realized she was stuck with him and would have to marry him. Instead of letting you go, she decided if she couldn’t have you, no one else would either. I’m convinced she was mentally unstable. She persuaded Richard to kill you.”
Archer interrupted with a string of curses under his breath that I couldn’t make out. I flinched at the rage that came off him in waves.
“Keep. Going. Rosalind.”
I didn’t want to, but he deserved to know it all. “Archer, you being on that ship was a coincidence she worked in her favor. Charlotte never heard how it was accomplished, she only knew he did it for Helena, and he regretted it every day of his life. The guilt never went away, it slowly killed him, and because of what they did, you were always present in their marriage. It wasn’t a happy one, and it seems like Helena did not lead a happy life, no matter how it may have appeared.”
I looked at him, and he sat bent forward with his arms resting on his thighs, his head between his hands, his hands tugging at his hair. A thick silence sat between us for a few minutes, and when he realized I had nothing left to add, he raised his head and looked at me with the most tortured and sad eyes, his anger somehow spent.
But I also saw something else there too. Relief and acceptance. He finally knew the truth. I sensed he would find peace in it. We continued to sit for what could have been hours. I never checked the time; it wasn’t important. I just waited for him to be ready to talk.
Eventually, he got up, straightened himself out, and walked over to me, placing an airy kiss I barely felt on top of my head.
“Thank you, Rosalind. Thank you for getting me the answers I couldn’t get for myself, for granting me the closure I never thought I would have.”
Archer smiled at me as he dissipated and I was left with his unique scent, something so patently him even death and time couldn’t erase its essence. I’d come to crave that scent, to love it, to despair of it when it came and I knew it was only a matter of time before it was gone completely.
Tears fell and covered my cheeks. I was emotionally exhausted and scared. I didn’t want to believe it but had to accept this might have been the last time I would ever see Archer, if the information I gave was what he needed to move on. Something essential inside of me began to crack and break apart at the thought that I would never see him again. I knew even then those fissures would never be repaired.
Twenty-Eight
An entire day and night had passed without me seeing or hearing from Archer. It was scaring the shit out of me. What if I had provided him with the closure he had needed during our last conversation and now he had gone into the light, so to speak? The thought I would never see or talk to him again broke me. My heart splintered further apart with each minute that passed without me hearing from him. Archer had become so important to me, my best friend, someone I didn’t think I could live without.
I was exhausted and wasn’t up for hanging out, and I wanted to give Archer whatever space he needed to process what I told him, but I also desperately needed to know if he was still here, how he was doing, if he was handling all the information. I rolled onto my back, grabbed some pillows from the other side of the bed to prop under my head, and decided to talk to him.
“Archer, you there?” My voice trembled.
“Yes, Rosalind, I’m still here.” It was so strange hearing his voice without seeing him, and I didn’t think I would ever get used to it.
“Oh, thank fuck! I was so worried you were gone for good.”
“No, I’m still here. There was no bright shining white light or someone from my past to meet me.”
Archer tried to make a joke of his situation, but there wasn’t anything funny about it. He went quiet after this, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and I couldn’t tell from his voice what he was thinking or feeling. So I just lay there and waited.
“I want you to know I’m relieved to know what happened to me. While it’s good to know how I died, to not have it hanging over me anymore, I don’t think closure was what I needed to move on from here.”
Archer paused again for a moment, and I got the impression that he was trying to gather his thoughts, trying to figure out a way to articulate all the things he must have been feeling since my revelation.
“Maybe there isn’t anything that will allow me to leave. I’m fine with the possibility now.” There was a finality in his voice, a true acceptance of his circumstances.
I couldn’t help the smile that took over my face. My heart seemed to grow and expand in my chest. A light-headed sensation followed quickly on its heels. Sweet relief at the knowledge that Archer wasn’t going to up and disappear left me replete.
I lay there in contented silence, sleep starting to take over me, when I felt a breeze pass over me. My eyes fluttered open in time to see Archer appear in the corner of my room. I sat up quickly, covering myself with my sheet out of instinct before I realized that I was fully, if lightly, clothed in a lacy camisole and panties.
“Sorry if I startled you,” he said as he made his way over to the armchair and plopped down in it, leaning back and resting his ankle on the opposite knee. “I just wanted to see y
ou and make sure you were doing okay with all this. I don’t think we’ve ever let more than a day pass without seeing each other.”
“I’m so sorry, Archer. With everything I dropped on you last time, I just wanted to give you space, let you figure out what you were thinking and feeling without having to feel like you had to discuss it with me, you know?”
“I do know and I appreciate it. I’m grateful you went to find the information. You didn’t have to, and you will never know how much it means to me.”
Archer paused there and a contemplative, almost troubled look passed over his face. He wasn’t as happy as I would have anticipated he’d be after learning the answers to questions he’d been asking himself for decades.
“Ros,” Archer began before stopping.
He broke eye contact, looked down and covered his mouth as though he wanted to hold the words in a little longer, as though both restraining them and releasing them were physically painful. He dragged his hand down his face and sat up, spine straight and stiff, decision made.
“Do you ever think your mom is around you? Do you ever feel her presence the way you did mine?” Archer finally managed to force out of his mouth, words tinged with apology and regret over questions he knew would be a knife to my chest.
I flinched and my throat tightened painfully. Archer leaned forward, his arms dropped to his thighs, and he pinched the bridge of his nose before his eyes lifted to mine, remorse etched into their depths. Still, he didn’t retract the question and the heavy weight of the silence pulled me down into myself and my thoughts.
“Ros?”
I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to find a way to talk through the grief gripping my throat like a vise. I swallowed reflexively, and then again. I just continued to shake my head, not necessarily a denial of his questions. My bed dipped then under the weight of another body sitting upon it. The light pressure of fingertips gripped my face, caressing my cheek before exerting more pressure and gently forcing my face up.
I inhaled deeply, finding comfort in the scent that was all Archer, the one that was now tied with the feeling of home. I found courage in his nearness, a safety in his presence next to me, solid and as real as anything I had ever felt before. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes to that pair of green ones I’d come to adore. The tenderness and understanding I found there gave me the push I needed. I nodded my head at him and opened my mouth.
“No, I don’t think she’s around me at all. I’ve never felt her around. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I wished for it, prayed for it. That she could just come back for one more conversation, that I could tell her I loved her one more time.”
Archer leaned in toward me and swiped under my eyes, wiping away the tears that had begun to fall. “Do you still wish she were around? Now that you know me and know it’s possible?”
I sighed and shifted so close to Archer that we were now touching, connected from waist up. I leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder, still not used to how solid his body sometimes felt, but deriving comfort from his proximity nonetheless.
“When you and I first met, I searched for her in everything. I figured if it were possible for ghosts to exist, it wasn’t that farfetched that maybe she was here and hadn’t found a way to make contact. But the longer I went without getting any sense of her presence, the more I thought about what it would mean if she were still here.”
I turned to face Archer, compelled to look into his face when I said this. “It would mean she didn’t move on or have any real peace in the last eleven years. It would mean that she had some kind of unfinished business. And I know for a fact that she had accepted her death, and I don’t think she had any regrets at the end. So no, I don’t wish she were still here. I wouldn’t wish that for anyone, Archer.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it then, needing to be connected to him.
“If you died now, would you have unfinished business? Would you be able to say you left the world with few regrets?” Archer’s voice was barely above a whisper breathed into my ear, his words made rough by pain.
I looked away, over his shoulder, out the window and into the mist-filled night. I considered his words carefully, knowing the truth that hid too close to the surface. I thought back to our conversation about fear and knew he had to have seen so much more of everything I tried to deny and ignore than I had ever wanted.
It all began to build: the grief, the pain, the fear, and the regret. So much regret. As the tidal wave of the emotions I suppressed for the better part of a decade pressed upon me, I broke and became the flood.
My bed shifted as Archer moved, and I couldn’t help but wonder how this was possible, how he had gained so much power and strength that I could feel him as though he possessed a living body. Strong arms wrapped around my waist from behind and pulled me until I hit a solid mass. Legs bracketed mine and he rested his chin on my shoulder. Archer’s scent enveloped me and somehow his body surrounding mine warmed me from the inside.
“Shhhh, Ros. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
The tenderness that laced his words did what nothing else was capable of doing. It calmed the raging storm inside of me, and slowly, as he held me tightly, the sobs subsided into quiet tears tracking down my face. And still he held me.
Then the words I’d held inside for eleven years but never spoken spilled out past my lips. And I didn’t regret them.
“I have so many regrets,” I said in a voice that could barely be called a whisper. It didn’t matter how quietly I spoke, I knew Archer would hear every single word. “I miss her so much, Archer. So fucking much. The pain, it never goes away. So I push it down, as deep as I can. Then I cover it with anything that I think will keep the thoughts of her at bay.”
“Does that work for you, Ros?”
“No, it never works for long, and then I feel like I’m drowning all over again. Why, Archer? Why does it hurt so much? Why does it hurt the same as it did the day she died?” My voice cracked under the weight of all my pain.
His arms tightened around me. “I don’t know. Have you ever talked about her or her passing?”
“No, not really. I always shut it down. My father never wanted to talk about it, and as time passed, it just became too hard to talk about. Now every time my mom is mentioned, it’s like a wound being ripped open all over again, only I discover it was never fully healed and it’s just festering and infected.”
“Let’s start to treat and heal it. Let’s start with your regrets. What regrets do you have in regard to your mother?” Archer’s voice was all gentle inquiry.
“I feel like I’ve been living my life in a way she wouldn’t have agreed with. She was so brave, adventurous in her own way. And honest. She was so honest. She would hate that I was living half a life, too afraid to take the risks necessary to have the life I want. I regret the choices I’ve made, or really, the choices I’ve abstained from making at all.”
“It seems to me that you have been taking risks lately, you have been making changes to your life,” Archer said in my ear.
I thought about all the choices I had made, beginning with taking the leap to come to this place, and I knew he was right. I wasn’t sure if I could even count those as regrets anymore.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“What else, Ros?”
“The test.”
Those words were the only ones I was able to get out before a new wave of tears began. Archer said nothing in response, he just nodded his head. He never forgot a word I’d said in any of our conversations, so I knew he knew exactly what I was referring to. We both sat in the silence and let those words and their implications hang in the air.
My hair stirred with what could only be described as an exhalation. “What about the test scares you, Ros?”
I breathed in deeply.
Once. Twice. A third time.
I wasn’t at all surprised that he knew it was fear that held me back. “I can’t help but wonder why my mom never got the tes
t. It wouldn’t have made a difference either way, her cancer was terminal. I sometimes tell myself that if she didn’t need to know, I don’t either. But I know I haven’t had the test because what if I am genetically predisposed to it? What happens then? Is it just a matter of time? Will I never realize my dream of having kids because I’m afraid of passing it on to them? Maybe not knowing is better.”
Archer reached up and cupped my face, turning my head toward his until we were only breaths apart. “You will never know unless you talk to a physician. I’m sure the test exists so that you can take measures to prevent it from happening. This will always hang over your head if you don’t get it done.”
He paused there, and fear flashed in his eyes before he shuttered them and hid it away. “Ros, promise me. Promise me you will get this test done. Your mother would never have wanted you to live with this kind of fear in your life.”
His pleading, the urgency in his voice moved me in a way I never knew possible. I nodded my head then, agreeing without considering the ramifications of the decision, but knowing that only Archer could make me see how right this choice was.
Before I could speak my assent out loud, he leaned forward and kissed my forehead before resting his against mine. In that moment I had the sudden desire to wrap my hand around his neck and bring his lips to mine. I gasped at the sudden impulse and moved my head away from his, breaking the contact I refused to admit I wanted so badly.
“What else, Ros? What else do you regret?” Archer’s hand fell away from my face and wrapped back around my waist.
“I regret not talking about her for so long. I’ve hidden it all away, only acknowledging her in scheduled moments. I cut Josie out from that part of my life, even though my mom was such a big part of her life too. I’ve kept her memory locked up so tight, and it still hurts, and I don’t even understand why I did that anymore.”
“You did it because you were young when you lost her and you didn’t know any better. But here we are, and I would love to hear about your mother. So let’s topple another regret. Tell me about her.”
Through the Mist Page 18
