by Jodi Picoult
"You didn't even finish that."
He turned around. "Lia."
Ross would have known she was behind him even if she hadn't spoken; the scent of flowers was in the air. She ground out the butt with her loafer, her fingers fluttering at her sides. She was wearing her polka-dotted dress again, this time with a beaded cardigan, as if she were embarrassed to be seen in the same clothing and wanted to freshen it up.
"I've been looking for you," Lia said.
Her words didn't match her stance; she looked ready to bolt. There was something about her--something helpless, boxed-in, that seemed familiar to Ross. "I've been looking for you, too." As he said it, he realized how much this was true. He had been searching for Lia in the reflection of store windows, in the cars that pulled up beside him at traffic lights, in line at the drugstore.
"Did you find your ghost yet?"
"Not my ghost," Ross clarified. "A ghost." He got to his feet, smiling. "Why were you looking for me?"
Lia spoke in a rush. "Because . . . I didn't get to tell you the other night . . . but I look for ghosts, too."
"You do?" This was such an unprecedented, enthusiastic response that it took Ross by surprise. Most people who believed in paranormal phenomena admitted it grudgingly.
"I'm an amateur, I suppose, compared to what you do."
"Have you found anything?" Ross asked.
She shook her head. "Has anyone?"
"Sure. I mean, beyond spirit photography and mediums, there's been research from Princeton and the University of Edinburgh. Even the CIA did valid studies on ESP and telepathy."
"The CIA?"
"Exactly," Ross said. "The government even concluded that people can get information without using the five senses."
"That isn't proof of life after death."
"No, but it suggests consciousness is more than something physical. Maybe seeing a ghost is just a different form of clairvoyance. Maybe ghosts aren't even really dead, but alive somewhere in the past, and . . ." Ross's voice trailed off. "Sorry. It's just that . . . most people think what I do is crazy."
"I get that a lot too." Lia smiled a little. "And don't apologize. I've never met a scientist who doesn't get all excited about his work."
A scientist. Had Ross ever been called that? It set off fireworks of feeling inside him--pride, astonishment, fascination. Certain that anything he did was going to ruin this moment, he reached for a cigarette as a delay tactic, and offered one to Lia. Her hand rose like a hummingbird, then darted behind her back. It had hovered long enough, however, for Ross to notice the thin gold band she was wearing.
And there went his world, crashing down again.
"He won't know," Ross said, meeting her gaze.
Lia stared at him. Then she took a cigarette from the pack and let Ross light it for her. She smoked like she was swallowing a secret--this was a treasure to be hoarded. Her eyes drifted shut; her chin rose to expose the line of her neck.
In that moment it did not matter that she was someone else's wife; that she was still looking over her shoulder; that whatever few minutes Ross had with her would only be borrowed. This might well have been the beginning of a mistake, and even that could not prevent Ross from letting her leave just yet. "Let me buy you a cup of coffee," he said.
She shook her head. "I can't--"
"No one will find out."
"Everyone comes to this diner. If he knows I was with you . . ."
"So what? Then you'll tell him the truth. We're two friends, talking about ghosts."
Wrong answer. Lia paled visibly, and Ross saw right through to her fragility again. "I don't have friends," she said quietly.
No friends. And you're not allowed to have a cup of coffee, and you have to sneak out in the dead of night. Ross could not even conjure a mental image of this tyrant who dominated Lia so completely. In today's world, what husband would do such a thing? What woman would think so little of herself to let it happen? "What if I cover your head with a paper bag and tell everyone you've got leprosy?"
She fought a smile. "I can't drink coffee through a paper bag."
"I'll ask for a straw." Lia was weakening, he could see it in the sway of her knees. "One cup," Ross pleaded.
"All right," she agreed. "One cup." She took a long drag of her cigarette, her throat contracting as her eyes pinned him. "Have we met?"
"Two nights ago."
"I meant before that."
Ross shook his head. "I don't think so," he said, but he felt as if he'd known her forever. Or maybe he wanted to know her forever. Was there a difference?
He wanted to ask her why she was afraid of her husband. He wanted to ask her what had brought her to the diner today, at the same exact moment that Ross had come there. But he was afraid that if he said anything at all, she would disappear like the threads of smoke that hung between them.
"Do you really think there's a ghost there?" Lia asked.
"On the Pike property? Maybe. If it is an Indian burial ground."
"An Indian burial ground?" Lia seemed stunned by the idea. "I don't think so."
"Do you know much about the area?"
"I've lived here all my life."
"And there's never been anything to suggest that the land might have once been part of an Indian settlement?"
"Whoever told you that is making it up."
Ross considered this. It was entirely possible.
"But this Indian . . . it isn't your first ghost," Lia stated.
"It will be, if it ever shows up."
"No, I meant, this isn't the one that made you want to look." She ducked her head, her hair swinging forward to cover her face. Her part was crooked at one spot in the back, as if her hand had jumped while holding the comb. "My mother died the day I was born. She's the one I try to find, sometimes."
He realized then that Lia's acceptance of the paranormal was not born out of open-mindedness, but--like his--out of desperation. That what he recognized about her was, quite simply, the same pain he saw in himself.
Lia held out her forearm, pushing away the sleeve of her sweater, where a web of scars netted the flesh. "Sometimes I have to cut myself," she confessed, "because I'm so sure I won't bleed."
It had been so long since someone understood. "My ghost," Ross said, his voice swollen and unfamiliar. "Her name is Aimee."
Once he had started, he could not stop. He spoke of the things he loved about Aimee--the ordinary ones, like the wide pool of her smile; and the others, like the spot where her elbow was always rough and the way she could not pronounce the word "drawer." He spoke of the flash and fury of the accident, without any of the particulars that would only break him apart all over again. He spoke of what it felt like to learn that some mistakes were made in indelible ink. He spoke until his throat was raw and all his grief had been laid at Lia's feet like an offering.
By the time he finished, she was crying. "Do you really believe that you can love someone very much, very very much, even though you're a world apart?"
The words were torn out of her; Ross knew better than to believe this question came from his pain alone. "How can I not believe it?"
She started to back away. "I need to go." Ross instinctively reached for her--and just as quickly, just as automatically, Lia moved out of range.
"Lia, tell me what he's done to you."
"He adores me," she whispered. "He loves a woman who doesn't really exist."
Whatever Ross had been expecting as evidence of mistreatment, this was not it. Could you love someone so much that, even without meaning to, you hurt them?
Lia brushed the edge of his sleeve, the tears on the tips of her fingers leaving a patch of cold. "When you find Aimee," she said softly, "you tell her how lucky she is."
By the time Ross lifted his head, she was walking away. There were questions writhing inside him: What could she possibly have done that made her feel so unworthy of her husband's affection? And if Lia loved him, why did it seem to be breaking her heart?
Ross had not meant to upset her. He'd only wanted her to understand that she wasn't alone. "Lia," he called out, hurrying after her, but she only glanced over her shoulder once and began to walk faster. Her cigarette butt smoldered on the sidewalk.
"Hey." The waitress he'd spoken with earlier stuck her head out the diner's back door. "You still looking for a table?"
Ross followed her inside. He was ushered to a booth that hadn't been cleaned yet. As he slid into the banquette he handed her one of his cigarettes, as promised.
She laughed, tucked it into her sleeve, and wiped down the tabletop. "You flying solo today?"
He glanced out the window. "Yeah. I guess I am."
The waitress scooped her tip across the table. She pocketed the bill and the quarters, snorting at the penny that was left behind. "It always pisses me how people think I'm a piggy bank," she muttered. "Like I'd want this in my pocket any more than they do."
"A hundred of them will get you a cup of coffee."
The waitress jingled her apron. "And a hernia." She slid the penny toward Ross. "Heads up. You keep it, for luck."
As she disappeared to get him flatware and coffee, Ross picked up the coin. He flipped it in the air, caught it, spun it on its edge. It wasn't until after the penny fell, heads up once again, that he noticed it had been minted in 1932.
That afternoon Ross mentally listed what he knew about Lia: Each time she'd run into him, she seemed painfully shy. She was fascinated by the supernatural, but was afraid of her own shadow. Freedom, for her, came at night. She was married to a man whose love kept her in a box.
And, oh, she had been broken. She hid it well, but Ross knew from personal experience that once you had put the pieces back together, even though you might look intact, you were never quite the same as you'd been before the fall.
Ross fast-forwarded through the tape he'd recorded a few nights ago, replaying the conversation he'd had with Az Thompson. The problem was, he was more interested in the mystery of Lia Beaumont than the question of whether or not this property was haunted.
He had never collected on that cup of coffee she'd agreed to have with him.
Ross scraped the edge of the remote against his stubbled chin. There wasn't a damn thing worthwhile on the tape. What would he tell Rod van Vleet?
The telephone rang, jarring him out of his reverie. He grabbed for the receiver before it woke Shelby and Ethan. "Hello?"
There was no one on the other end, but the connection was there. Ross could hear it, couched in soft static. He cradled the receiver against his shoulder. "Lia?" he murmured.
It was her; he would have bet everything he owned that it was her. She might not be able to meet him, but she knew where to find him. This was her way of letting him know.
Ross did not hang up. He fell asleep with the phone nestled against his ear, the first true sleep he'd had in days, thinking as he drifted off that he had not realized how very exhausted he was.
Thousands of years ago, the Abenaki had ranged from the northwest of Vermont to the southeast, as well as western Massachusetts, parts of New Hampshire, and even Quebec. They called the area Nd'akina, which meant Our Land. Their tribal name, Abenaki, meant People of the Dawn. They referred to themselves as Alnobak, or human beings. At one point, they numbered forty thousand.
They relied on agriculture, and their villages had been located on the floodplains of rivers. Hunting and fishing supplemented their diets. For most of the year, they lived in scattered bands of extended families, but during the summer they would gather. They had no central authority, which meant that in times of war, the Abenaki could abandon their villages, separate into smaller groups, and resurface somewhere far away to counterattack. Often during war, they retreated into Quebec, which led many colonials in New England to think of them as Canadian Indians, and gave them an excuse to take most of their land in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont without compensation.
There were, in 2001, approximately 2,500 Abenaki left in Vermont.
But whether any of them had ever lived on the Pike property was still a mystery to Ross, even though he'd tried six different Internet search engines and nearly every historical reference book the Comtosook Public Library had to offer.
He lay his head on the desk, frustrated. Shelby came up behind him and began to knead his shoulders. "Any luck?"
"You do this for a living?" Ross sighed.
"I'm going to assume that means you didn't find anything." She sat down on the chair beside him, glancing quickly at the reference desk to make sure Ethan was still occupied with his Game Boy. "Vermont isn't exactly known for its record-keeping precision," she said. "Most of the old documents are gathering mold on the floor of the town clerk's office. And even those are pretty much the story of the English who settled the area. I don't imagine that Native Americans saw the need for property deeds a thousand years ago."
"Yeah, and look at where it got them."
"You going to quit, then?"
"No." He glanced at the screen, luminous and humming. "I'm going to try to read up on some of those Brits. See if their accounts mention any Indian settlements."
"Suit yourself. I'm going to take Ethan home."
Ross watched his sister from a distance, chatting with the new librarian who'd come in to take over the shift, slipping the strap of her purse over her shoulder, touching the crown of Ethan's head when she spoke as if her hand had simply been drawn there, a magnet to its pole.
"Shel," he called out, as she waved to him from the door. "You ever hear of anyone named Beaumont?"
"Is that one of those English settlers?"
"No." Ross found his hands moving over the keyboard as if they had a mind of their own. The search engine he opened up had nothing to do with historical documents. It was the much more mundane White Pages for the town of Comtosook.
The librarian who'd just come on duty looked at him over her bifocals. "There's a biology library on the UVM campus named after a Beaumont. Sometimes we do book loans with them."
"Sorry, Ross," Shelby said, shaking her head. "That doesn't ring a bell."
She pushed Ethan out the door as Ross typed the name into the computer.
BEAUMONT, ABEL. 33 Castleton Rd.
BEAUMONT, C. RR 2, Box 358.
BEAUMONT, W. 569 West Oren St.
He had not really expected to find Lia's name listed; her husband didn't seem the type to grant a woman equal billing. There was no way of finding the Beaumont on the Rural Route, but the other two were local. He signed off the computer and gathered his things.
"Success?" the librarian asked, smiling.
Ross found himself whistling. "You could say that."
It frustrated Az to no end that he needed some pissant piece of paper to fish in waters that belonged to no one. Who was some game warden to tell him he needed a permit with a stamp on it in order to sit himself down on the shores of the lake and catch as many trout as he could fit into his belly for dinner?
But he had it, all the same, tucked into the pocket of his shirt just in case he attracted company at six in the morning. He sat back and threaded a shiner onto his hook, then cast toward a patch of water that seemed darker than the rest.
He left his bail open, so that the minnow could swim away. The fishing line was a neon equator, splitting the lake into two. Az closed his eyes and balanced his rod between his knees. Growing old was still a surprise to him; funny how he could not remember what he had for dinner last night but could tell you, in exquisite detail, about the constellation of speckles on the back of the first trout he ever caught. He could not always catch the name of a friend on his tongue but there were faces from the past that he knew as surely as if he'd sculpted them himself. His spine had curved in the past few years, to the point where Az wondered if he would literally come full circle before it was his time to go, but his mind was so clear he could sometimes feel its serrated edges in the moments before he let loose and sank to sleep.
Az grunted at the absolute lack
of activity on his line. Patience, that's what his father had taught him, along with which shallows netted the best bait and how to cast so softly a fish heard the splash of the hook only as a memory. But Az didn't have much patience these days. Patience required time, and he was running out of that.
The sun, bloodshot eye, lit the lip of the lake. There was a sudden spray of fire overhead. Explosions rose like Roman candles, sliding the sky from night into day.
The ground trembled beneath Az as a second round of charges went off at Angel Quarry, dislodging more granite to be mined into kitchen countertops and grave markers. His fishing line began to spin out as a trout grabbed onto the shiner. Az counted once, twice, then closed the bail on the reel and began to pull in with a steady hand.
The fish thrashed into his basket, all the colors of the sunrise caught in its scales. Another detonation ripped across the lake, and this time, Az could see bass leaping in small surprised circles, desperate to escape this unplanned earthquake.
He baited his hook with another shiner. Sometimes, things just needed a little shaking up.
Meredith huddled over her microscope, examining a single cell from an embryo that had been recently conceived in a test tube. This one did not seem destined to inherit cystic fibrosis--a small miracle, given that the couple's other four attempts to conceive a healthy child had failed. She arched her back and smiled: this one would make it. This one would be a survivor. And Meredith should know.
Lucy had been one of those against-the-odds babies. Not because of a genetic disorder, but simply by circumstance. Eight years ago Meredith had broken off a fading relationship with her mentor, a biomedical engineering professor who had been too busy to accompany her to her mother's funeral in Maryland. Her mother had only been in her fifties--it had been a heart attack, unexpected and very fast. As devastated as Meredith had been, her grandmother had been even more upset, and it fell to Meredith, at twenty-six, to take care of the details of death. She could still recall the surreal trip to the funeral parlor, where she was asked to pick out the color of satin lining for her mother's coffin; to choose from a catalog of Vermont-granite headstones. She remembered the graveside service, where Granny Ruby had listed against her, the old woman's slight weight forcing Meredith to stand tall and solid.
