by A. L. Jambor
"Were things really that bad back then?"
"In those days, a woman alone, a woman who was no longer a virgin, could have been seen as a threat to all the married women in town. She had no family to watch over her, and she lived way out there by the ocean, far enough away that no one would know what was going on, and I know that the lighthouse keeper bragged about being with her whenever he got drunk. I'd hear people talking about her in church and it made my blood boil." Sarah was angry. She kept clasping her hands. "I should have helped her. Whenever I think about it, I feel so ashamed."
Mari reached for Sarah's hand. "There was nothing you could do."
"But maybe if I had, she wouldn't have died that way."
"What could you have done?" Mari asked. "How could you have stopped it?"
"I should have spoken up. She was so alone, and Celia, too."
Sarah wiped away a tear. Her memories of Charlotte were vivid, and her regrets real. A few minutes went by and then she got up and went to the cupboard. She returned to the table with a bottle of wine.
"I don't cook, but I make a fine wine if I do say so myself. Would you join me?"
"Sure."
"It's elderberry, like the ladies made in Arsenic and Old Lace."
Sarah poured the wine into the empty tea cups and Mari took a sip.
"This is good."
"It's my mother's recipe. Don't mention it to anyone. I don't have a license to make it."
Sarah smiled, and Mari felt the alcohol spreading warmth though her body. She also saw a woman who looked a lot like Sarah standing near the kitchen sink. Her instincts told her it was Sarah's late mother, who was beaming with pride at her daughter.
Mari
Mari went home, sat on her bed, and typed her notes about the meeting with Sarah Meade. It pissed her off that so many had their doubts about Celia's guilt but never told anyone. When she finished typing, she lay back on her pillows, stared at the ceiling, and thought about Celia. Would her ghostly friends disappear once she solved Charlotte's murder?
She thought of Fred, the old man she kept seeing in the room on the second floor of Cassie's house. She gave him a history, he was a veteran who suffered from PTSD, hence his imprisonment in that room, and he had a wife and kids who took care of him.
Then there was Fiona, the Victorian woman she saw near the park every time she passed by. Fiona was dressed in a bustled gown, she held a parasol, and she smiled whenever she saw Mari. Fiona tilted her head, and Mari tilted hers. Fiona seemed happy, unlike Fred, who always looked sad.
There were others, like garden lady across the street from Cassie whom Mari had named Bertha. The ghosts looked real, and when she passed people on the street dressed in modern clothes, it was hard to tell if they were alive or dead, unless they were slightly out of focus, like an image enhanced on Photoshop.
Some were working at jobs they'd held, and Mari cringed at the idea of being stuck in perpetuity at a job you hated in life. Others seemed to be caught in some significant moment in their lives, but whatever they were doing, they all seemed very interested in Mari.
Why was she seeing them? She surmised that the blow to her head had unlocked this "ability" and now the idea of being a ghost whisperer didn't seem so farfetched. She'd have scoffed if someone came to the network with an idea like that, but now that she was the whisperer, it seemed perfectly logical.
She looked at the time on her phone and got up. She had promised Phil she'd meet him so they could have dinner. He had only two weeks left on the job, and then he would have to find something and had hinted he would have to move out of Cape Alden. It made her sad and scared and worried. Phil was her anchor, and a fear that she would drift away without him lingered like a gentle wind before a hurricane whenever she thought about him leaving.
She'd been watching Dr. Phil one day when one of his guests suggested that a person experiencing anxiety attacks should let themselves feel the anxiety rather than run away from it. Mari tried it a couple of times, but she never had any life-changing revelations or insights into her fears. She knew she missed her mother, and that Harry's death had created a river of guilt that constantly flowed from her head to her toes. Feeling it wouldn't change that. It wouldn't make it go away.
"It might," Cassie said when they talked about it. "If you hold out long enough. The next time you think of Harry, follow those thoughts and see where they go. It might not be as bad as you think."
But the mere specter of Harry was more than she could handle, and her defenses went up as soon as he appeared in her mind. She felt hopeless, and even more so when she thought about driving away from this tiny, cloistered community. It had truly become her safe harbor.
At five-thirty, she left her apartment and went to Main Street. As she walked to the hardware store, she greeted her spectral companions along the way. When she got there, she sat on the steps of the porch and watched the people go by. Wouldn't they be surprised to know that they weren't alone?
Several older people trailed behind families with kids, deceased grandparents or relatives who couldn't let go. Mari often looked for her mother and wished she would follow her, but so far, she hadn't appeared. It seemed unfair, but she had no control over this. She suddenly realized that she had no control over anything, and that thought led to the realization that killing Harry had also been out of her control.
Shit, Dr. Phil, she thought.
A new stream of consciousness was born as she sat on the step, and scenes from her childhood played out in her mind. Labor Day, 1991. Mari was ten, and her relatives had invited her and her parents to their beach house. They had rented it for the summer, and Mari wasn't thrilled at the idea of spending time with them. She knew she would be the only child in the group, but her disappointment at being alone was quashed when she met Oliver, an old man who did card tricks. He also took quarters from behind her ear.
Mari thought of the old man in Cassie's window.
"Oh, my god," she said aloud.
It was Oliver. Tears filled her eyes. She thought of the other ghosts she'd encountered. None of them looked familiar, but were they people from her own past, her own family, that were here to help her recover?
She was sobbing when Phil got off work and sat beside her. He put his arm around her shoulder and she pressed her face against him.
"It's good to see you, too," he said.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I just figured something out and it's so, it's so, damn it, it's, what's the word? Touching. It's touching."
"Okay."
She calmed down and pulled away from him. Phil looked away as she pulled herself together and watched the people walking by.
"They'll all be going home soon," he said. "I have to tell you something."
Phil had gotten a call that morning telling him he'd been hired by an IT company in Oceanville. He'd start the day after Labor Day so he had to find an apartment. He wished Mari could help him find it, but he knew she couldn't cross the city line.
"I got a job. I start after Labor Day, and..."
"And what?" she asked.
"And I have to find an apartment in Oceanville."
She glared at him.
"I'm falling apart and you're talking about leaving me."
He rolled his eyes and put his arm around her again.
"I'll come to see you on weekends. If Cassie doesn't mind, I can sleep on your couch and we can work on solving Charlotte's murder."
Mari narrowed her eyes. "Why would Cassie mind?"
"Because I'm a man and there are rules about that."
Mari laughed. "She'd never think that about you. She knows you."
He was quiet for a moment, and then stood.
"Are we gonna eat?" he asked.
"Yeah. Where do you want to go?"
Why can't she decide where we'll go?
"We could go to Atlantic City," he said.
"I can't do that," she said.
"I know, I just thought if I put it out there, you might do it wit
hout thinking, you know, like surprise yourself by just doing it."
"I think I'd have a heart attack."
"Right, so how about Morton's? I hear the food is better now."
Mari was still reeling from her epiphany and the idea of being in a crowded restaurant with loud music and inebriated patrons was not at all appealing. She longed for peace and quiet, and looked at the grocery store a few feet away.
"How late is the grocery open today?" she asked.
"It closes at six, too."
"Shit. I thought if we bought some food I would cook." She noted his skeptical look. "I can cook, you know. I used to do it all the time when I lived in New York."
Mari never cooked. She always brought take-out home, but Phil's look annoyed her. She could cook. She just chose not to.
"We could drive to the Chinese place," he said.
"What Chinese place?"
"It's...nowhere."
"It's in Oceanville, right?"
He sighed. "I'm sorry again."
He sat down beside her while Mari brooded. She had to get over this fear. It was ridiculous to be so afraid to cross an imaginary line. Her neck ached, and her legs were stiff, so she got up.
"Let's go to McDonald's."
She walked away and Phil jumped up to follow her. She walked fast and stayed in front of him. That's when he noticed something strange. Mari was looking from side to side as she walked, and her lips were moving. He tried to hear what she was saying, but it was noisy on the street. When they got to McDonald's she slowed down, and he came up behind her as she waved to someone.
"Were you talking to somebody?" he asked.
"Yeah. You remember I told you I can see others and not just Celia? Well, it was a woman. She told me she was my mother's aunt. She died in 1972. She said I look like my grandmother." Phil raised his eyebrows. "I just figured out that they're related to me."
"Who's related to you?"
"The ghosts."
Phil thought about it for a minute.
"Are they here to make sure you're okay?"
Mari smiled and looked into his eyes.
"You believe me."
"Why wouldn't I?"
She leaned against his arm. "Most people would question my sanity."
"I see Celia. Most people would question mine, too."
"So, we have to stick together," she said. She perked up. "And I'm hungry."
The McDonald's was located near the end of Main Street. It was only open during the summer months and closed at the end of September.
"I'll miss this place when it closes," Mari said.
There were three lines and they each stood behind one. Whoever got to the counter first would order. Phil won, and Mari left her line and stood behind him, peeking around his shoulder, and reminding him about what she wanted.
It started to rain as they walked toward the park with their food.
"Let's go to my room," he said.
They ran to the back of the hardware store and up the steps to the second floor. Mari had never seen his room and she'd always wondered how Phil lived. Her excitement at the prospect of finding out grew as she followed him to the second door on the left, and her disappointment at seeing it shattered her expectations.
"This is sad," she said.
"It is, but I only sleep here so it doesn't really matter. I have a table by that chair."
He pointed to an old wing chair near the window. Mari sat and put her bag and drink on the table. Phil sat on the bed and put his drink on the floor.
No one talked while they ate. Mari watched him eating his fries one at a time and taking small bites of his cheeseburger, while she took large bites of her Quarter Pounder. No matter how long she knew him, Phil still remained a mystery. He talked about his mother, but only when he was asked where he kept his stuff now that he lived in one room. One look around that room told her that he lived like a monk. There were no clothes on the floor or trash in the small bin next to his bed. His laptop was closed and stored on his dresser. There were no little scraps of paper around it or anywhere else in the room.
"Do you have Wi-Fi?" she asked when they finished eating.
"Yes. I use it to watch the news after work."
Poor Phil. He watched the news when other men watched porn. She smiled. He truly was a decent man.
She looked out the window and saw that the rain had stopped. She also saw Celia standing across the street.
"Do you think we can solve this before you leave?"
The crime had gone unsolved for over seventy years. Sure, Mari, we'll wrap it up in no time.
"We don't have enough evidence," he said.
Mari saw the clouds parting, revealing the moon as it rose over the ocean. She thought about Charlotte looking at the same moon, running her hand over her pregnant belly, and regretting her choices in life.
"There were so many cuts on her body," she said. "Someone was really pissed off at her."
Phil was quiet, and Mari looked at the people running through the rain on the sidewalk below.
"Do you think the baby lived?" he asked.
"I looked it up," she said. "A baby can live up to ten minutes after the mother dies, so if it was taken right after Charlotte stopped breathing, then yeah, it could have lived."
Phil crumpled his bag and drank the dregs of his soda before putting his trash in the small bin.
"We agree that Celia didn't do it, don't we?" she asked.
"Yes."
"So who are our suspects? Joe or Joan Jackson, Carl Morton, or Josh, and who among them would know how to perform a cesarean?"
"A woman with five children."
"Joan."
They looked at each other and smiled. He looked at her. The rain had slowed and a shaft of sunlight that had worked its way through the clouds cast a yellow glow on her face, and his heart ached. He wanted to touch her cheek and kiss her, to share with her all the things he held in his heart, but instead, he clenched his teeth.
"So we agree that Joan is the most likely suspect," she said.
"It makes the most sense. They did leave without a word to anyone."
"Do you think Josh would have gone without a fight? I mean, couldn't he have stayed with a friend for three or four weeks so he could graduate? I would have been a real bitch if my mother forced me to leave a month before graduation."
Phil pondered what he would have done. "It depends. Maybe he cared more about pleasing his parents."
"His mom, you mean. That wouldn't have meant a thing to me, not at seventeen."
"It would have mattered to me."
"But you were a quiet, shy guy, weren't you?" He shrugged. "Josh was the golden boy. He stood to lose a scholarship to Temple. Temple! It just doesn't make sense that he would go like that, not unless he...."
The thought hung in the air, but they both felt it, the truth, hitting them like a bolt of lightning.
"He killed her," Mari said. She leaned forward. "It was his baby." She shivered. "And when Joan found out..."
"She took the baby," he said.
Mari saw Charlie standing behind Phil. He no longer needed his wheelchair. It could only mean one thing - that Charlie had died.
"He's pissed off," she said.
"Who?" Phil looked toward the door. "I don't see anyone."
"Charlie. He knows we know."
Phil looked at her, and she looked at him.
"I bet that's why he came back here, to keep it covered. He's been protecting Josh and his mother."
Mari stood and came over to Phil.
"I want some ice cream," she said. She put her hand on his shoulder. "I think he's trying to stop me."
"From having ice cream?"
"No, from telling the world. If Josh is still alive, he could be arrested. There's no statute of limitation on murder."
"He'd be old, really old."
She walked past Phil and through Charlie to put her trash in the bin. Charlie vanished when she opened the door.
"Com
e on," she said, and Phil followed her out the door and down the steps.
As they waited in line for the ice cream, she looked up at her friend.
"Is there any way you can stay?"
Phil sighed. He was forty, his prospects were slim, he had no home, an old car, no money, and he was hopelessly in love with her. He knew he would drop the job in a heartbeat if she said she loved him too, but Mari never indicated that he was more than a friend. He had to take this job and get on with his life.
"Phil?"
They reached the counter and this time, Phil paid. As the girl handed Mari her cone, she took it, and watched Phil take his. He still hadn't answered her, and she was still having trouble reading cues. She was going to ask him again, but she saw Fiona at the entrance of the park. She came toward Mari and when they sat on a bench in front of the ice cream store, Fiona stood in front of Mari.
"Good evening," she said.
Mari licked her cone and looked at Phil. He was looking at the stars. Mari looked at Fiona and smiled.
"We won't leave you," Fiona said. "You can let him go."
Fiona evaporated as Mari bit the edge of her cone. The spirits had chosen to stay with her so she wouldn't be alone. Was this the way it was for everyone? Are we all surrounded by our familial deceased, the ones who made us, nurtured us, and protected us? Mari's gaze wandered to the other side of the street. There, under the Victorian streetlight, she saw a familiar shape. Her eyes filled with tears as she understood that all this time she had never been alone.
Phil heard her sniffle and took her hand.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine. I'm good."
The image faded, but that was okay. She would come again if Mari needed her, as she had needed her to take the splinter out of her finger, or tie her shoes, or wipe her nose. Her mama had never left her. She was always just a breath away.
Mari
Mari had agreed to meet Phil at the café the next morning before he went to work. Phil was late, and Mari was anxious. She worried that Charlie, who she now knew was dead, was also dangerous. Celia had caused the accident that killed Harry. Charlie might try to kill Phil the same way, or go after Mari again by causing some sort of freak accident.
