It’s serious. Everything is way too serious. The mood needs to lighten. A joke. A story. Something everyone will think is funny and laugh. Something my mom and her friends cackle over every time they get together. I don’t get it. Never have, but I’ve learned there’s many things I don’t get. “Ever since that night, my mom and her friends like to go out on the weekends, and as a joke, one year, they bought each other breathalyzers so no one would get a DUI.”
I smile to try to take the sting away, like what I said was hysterical, but no one is laughing. Not even me. The fake smile fades and it’s sadly satisfying that I’m not the only one who doesn’t get the joke.
“How old were you?” Dr. Martin asks.
“When they gave each other breathalyzers for Christmas?”
“No, when you first started taking care of your mom.”
“Eleven.” Just like Veronica when she found out her entire life was going to change. The itch I’ve been fighting off for weeks overtakes me, becomes a driving need that makes my vision hazy. I’d love to jump. To find a cliff, to run toward the edge, to fling my body over and fly.
I close my eyes, then flinch as I desperately try to shake the urge. My skin prickles, the itch too much for me to bear. Having nothing more to offer anyone, I glance up at Denise. She nods like she understands me and ends the meeting.
I’m up and out of my seat the moment it’s socially acceptable. Knowing Knox, he has a half hour of good-byes to give. He can do them, and I’ll wait by the car.
I open the heavy wooden door, slip through it and before I can reach the exit door, the door to the class opens. “Sawyer.”
My forehead furrows at the sound of Knox’s voice. I glance over my shoulder. “Take your time in there. I need air.”
Knox closes the classroom door behind him and stares at me as if confused. “Why didn’t you tell me your mom is an alcoholic?”
I slowly assess him, wondering if he pounded a shot back in the Sunday school room. Maybe they keep the stuff hidden behind the Little People airport. “My mom’s not an alcoholic.”
Knox’s easygoing manner is replaced with intentional hesitancy. “Okay. I hear you, brother. But to humor me, do you mind answering a few questions?”
Yes, actually, but I slouch against the wall and give a single nod. Knox leans his back against the opposing wall, right next to a child’s drawing of a man sitting inside a whale. “Your mom drinks?”
“Yeah. Like everyone else does. She doesn’t touch alcohol at all during the week, but on the weekends, she’ll have a few.”
A few bottles … a night.
Knox stares at me, through me, like he can smell the lie. My spine tingles and the need to defend feels a lot like anger. “She’s a single mom with two kids and a stressful job. She does a ton for me and my sister. She’s a good person.” I think of how she’s slaved to take care of us over the years without much help from my dad. “She’s a great person.”
“I never said she wasn’t,” Knox says slowly.
“She can’t be an alcoholic. She only drinks on the weekends.”
Knox rests his head against the wall, his eyes still pinned on me. “When she drinks … can she stop at one drink? Or does that first drink always lead to drunk?”
Always to drunk, and the muscles in my neck tighten and my shoulders roll back as I push off the wall. As if his questions are fighting words. “My mom isn’t an alcoholic.”
Knox tosses his hands in the air. “My bad, my brother. What do you say we go get some food? My treat.”
I shove my hands hard into my jeans pockets. I don’t want to go get food. In fact, I’d tear off my left arm if that meant he’d drive to a quarry so I could jump. The longer it takes to answer him, the more I’m aware that he can read my mind and knows what I long to do—which is why he’s offering food.
“I’m thirsty,” I say, my attempt to speak in terms he’d understand.
“So am I,” he says. “Sometimes we don’t get hamburgers to help you. Sometimes we do it to help me.”
Yeah. I guess that’s the point. Not saying anything else, we both leave feeling parched.
VERONICA
It’s Saturday, nine in the evening, and I’m on the hunt for more EVPs by slowing down and speeding up the frequency of the audio we took at the cemetery. Sawyer was here earlier, but he left at five as he had a meeting at work and then has to help clean the pool areas of the Y.
Mom has moved from the piano to the window seat and she’s intently watching me work. Dad’s lounging on the couch, the remote is on his chest, football is on the television, and he’s sound asleep.
My cell vibrates with a text. Glory: Please be careful. An angel has warned me that something is moving downstairs.
I raise an eyebrow: What does moving mean?
Glory: It means be careful. Did you visit someplace new in your search for spirits? If so, where? I’m scared you’ve brought something dangerous home.
I tap my fingers against the desk, weighing how I should answer. We went to the cemetery on Mitchell Hill.
She takes longer than I like to reply. Have you been avoiding the downstairs?
My lips squish to the side, as I’ve been spending time there with Sawyer … making out.
Glory: V?
Me: I haven’t spent a lot of time there.
I can practically feel her sigh even though she’s miles away. I can only imagine the reprimand playing out in her head—I’m a magnet, I make things worse, the zombie apocalypse is going to happen if I’m downstairs.
Glory: I’m out of town for a festival, otherwise I’d be there. I’m worried, V. You’re in danger. You should stay with Jesse or Nazareth until I return.
I glance over at Dad again. I can’t. Dad just returned from a trip. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in five days.
Glory knows Dad doesn’t believe in anything supernatural so she understands why I can’t leave. Please be careful.
Me: I will be and I think you’re overreacting. I’m fine.
I put down my phone, and while I’m used to Glory’s constant concern about me and this house, this particular warning unsettles me. I tap my fingers against the desk again then stand and move to the window. I flip on the outside light and the backyard is illuminated. Sawyer’s car is gone and so is his mom’s, which means the downstairs is currently empty.
Empty and dark. Neither is good, and the combination for spirits is inviting. If we really did bring something new home, it’s probably moving around the downstairs, curious about its new surroundings. Growing in strength.
Movement in the back of the yard causes me to flinch—the hammock. It swings. My heart stalls. A moment of frozen fear. A ghost? But then as it moves again, I make out a figure. A tiny shadow with a mermaid doll. This is all wrong.
I’m out our door, down the stairs, out the front, then call her name as I go around the back. “Lucy!”
She sits up on the hammock, holding her mermaid doll tightly to her chest. I slow my stride as I approach and force a smile on my face. “Hey.”
“Hi.” Her eyes are puffy, like she’s been crying, and my lips turn down.
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head, the way small children do when they are mad or in fear. I steady the hammock and sit, keeping my feet grounded so we don’t swing. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. We keep each other’s secrets, remember?”
Lucy combs her fingers through her doll’s hair then glances at the wide-open back door of the house. “I don’t like being alone in there.”
I remember feeling like that at her age. All the lights are on in her apartment and the back door hangs open. It’s my home, and while the second and third floors have a welcoming glow, I’ll admit there’s something sinister about how the dim light reflects from her part of the house. “Is your mom gone?”
She barely nods then holds her doll over her nose, eyes peeking through, as if hiding.
“Why didn’t you come upstairs? You k
now you can hang with me.”
Lucy raises the mermaid doll higher so I can no longer see her eyes. As if doing so has made her disappear. Bereft that I have no idea how to get through to her, I lean back in the hammock and watch the fading evening sky above. I suddenly have a ton of respect for Sawyer as I had no idea how much patience it must take to care for a six-year-old.
Movement, and Lucy snuggles next to me. Her head on my shoulder, her mermaid doll she still clutches now lying on my stomach. The evening is cold, her skin colder and I wonder how long she’s been out here alone.
I wrap an arm around her and try to rub some warmth back into her freezing body. Above us, dark clouds float past stars and I must be tired as I usually find joy in the night sky, but all I can think about is how warm it is upstairs.
“I saw you and Sawyer kiss,” Lucy finally says in a quiet voice.
“Does that bother you?” I ask.
She shakes her head against my arm. “He says you’re his girlfriend.”
“I am.”
“Mommy left.”
I go still, scared to even breathe. How her little voice shaking indicates this wasn’t a mom trusting her six-year-old to watch cartoons as she ran to the corner store for a few minutes. “Did she say anything to you when she left?”
“I think she forgot me.”
My throat thickens at her deep sorrow. “Maybe she didn’t,” I lie. “Sawyer texted me and told me to find you. Maybe she contacted him.”
Lucy lifts her head and there’s confusion there. “She said not to tell Sawyer, to stay in the apartment and she wouldn’t be gone long. But she’s been gone long so she must have forgot.”
“When did she leave?”
“After Sawyer left.”
Lucy shivers, and I’m done being patient. She needs to be under two pounds of blankets and have a gallon of hot cocoa in her stomach. “Well, Sawyer will be home soon, and in the meantime, I need help decorating my Christmas tree. So let’s go to my place.”
She shrinks against me. “I don’t want to get in trouble. I don’t like it when Mommy yells.”
Well, I don’t want Lucy to die of exposure. “Everything will be okay.”
I stand from the hammock, and Lucy takes my offered hand. As I walk toward the first-floor apartment to shut the back door, there’s a sudden yank on my hand. I glance down and Lucy has dug her feet into the ground and she’s pulling hard on me. “Don’t go in there.”
“I’m just going to shut the back door so no bugs get in.” Or wandering robbers.
“Don’t!” Lucy snaps. “The monster is in there. He’s making Mommy worse.”
I convulse with her words and feel ice hardening my veins. “What monster?”
“The one that changes, the one that comes in the middle of the night.”
I don’t know a monster like this. “When exactly do you see this monster? How is he making your mom worse?”
She yanks so hard on my hand that she loses her grip and falls flat on her bottom. The cruel ground causing the air to rush out of her body. I crouch to help her, but she smacks my arm and the feverish look on her face causes me to flinch.
“The ghost there is bad!” she shouts. “So bad! He watches me! He watches me!”
My heart beats so furiously that it pounds in my ears. I glance at the first floor and the way the blinds are uneven in the window makes it appear as if the apartment is sneering at me, mocking my growing fear.
No, this is my home. I will not be scared of it. I step toward it, and Lucy scrambles to her feet and rushes me. “Don’t! Don’t go!”
“I’m just going to shut the back door.”
“Don’t leave me!” she yells. Tears fill her eyes, escape down her cheeks, and her fear, her grief, tugs at my heart. “Please don’t leave me alone.”
“Okay,” I say, “I won’t go.”
She allows me to swing her up onto my hip, and Lucy buries her head in my neck. I gently hug her close as I walk her away from her back door, to the front of the house and the safety of the second floor.
* * *
Lucy can barely function in Sawyer’s sweatshirt yet she’s doing her best to set out my Peanuts nativity scene near the Christmas tree. The sweatshirt is the one he had loaned me the night we first kissed and I have yet to give back as it smells like him and I love the reminder of our night together. When I offered it to her as a blanket, she hungrily pulled it over her head and wears it like a hug.
I stand by the window, watching for Dad. My anxiety level is higher than it should be. When I came up with Lucy, he went down the stairs. He wasn’t happy that a six-year-old was left home alone, especially for so long. Nor was he happy when I told him the back door to the first floor was wide open. Then there was the pièce de résistance—Lucy’s sob-filled rant about stalking monsters. There’s been no sign of Dad since he disappeared into their kitchen.
My cell is in my hand, and I look again at the message Sawyer sent me minutes ago: On my way.
Guilt niggles at me as Sawyer told me how important it was for him to be at work as he’s had to take off too many days due to his mother’s schedule, his swim schedule and AA meetings, but what else was I supposed to do? Lucy needs her brother.
A knock on my door, and I’m relieved when I see Sawyer on the security monitor. I cross the room, open the door, and I ache with how haggard he appears.
“Hey,” I say. “I’m sorry to have texted you. I know you needed to work.”
“Don’t be.” He walks in and pulls me in for hug. “I’m glad you did.”
A brush of a kiss along my temple causes my heart to flutter, but then he lets me go and heads for his sister. “Hey, Luce.”
Lucy brightens and abandons Snoopy as the Little Drummer Boy and runs into him. He lifts her and she winds her arms that have been swallowed by his sweatshirt around his neck.
He hugs her tight and after about a minute of her strangling him, he takes her to the couch. Sawyer has to pry and gently coax Lucy from being buried into this chest. He does it yet keeps her on his lap.
“Where’s Mom?” Even though it’s apparent Sawyer is attempting to sound lighthearted, the strain is clear.
“She left.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
Lucy shakes her head.
“She told Lucy not to tell you,” I say. Lucy’s head swivels toward me, her expression clear that she believes I’m a traitor, but I soften the blow. “But I told her that your mom reached out to you so she didn’t mean it.”
Lucy exhales while Sawyer’s face hardens. He knows the first part is the truth, the second part a lie.
“It’s late and we have to go visit Dad tomorrow.” Sawyer tries again for light. “How about a quick bath and then I’ll let you watch cartoons on my phone with me in my room?”
Lucy edges away from Sawyer. “I want to stay here. The ghost here isn’t mean. The ghost here is nice.” She looks to me then. “Right, V?”
“You told my sister that there are ghosts in this house?” Sawyer’s voice is low-pitched, and eerily steady. Storm clouds rage in his eyes.
I fiddle with my bracelet. For the first time in my life, I’m unsure of my thoughts … of my actions. “Lucy told me that first night that she was scared of ghosts.”
“And you told her that they aren’t real, right?” he presses.
I stare at him, he stares at me, and a sickening sensation fills my stomach. “I told her that there was nothing to be scared of.”
His jaw twitches as he hears what I didn’t admit—that I didn’t deny the existence of ghosts and that her nightmares and her fears might have something to do with that. He stands and walks away from me toward the window seat where Mom sits. He stands next to her with his arms crossed and stares past the glass as if that can help his anger.
Mom looks up at him and then at me. “He’s angry with you.”
I nod because he is, and I understand why. Lucy shifts on the couch and studies me.
“I saw you nod,” Lucy whispers. “Are you talking to your mom now?”
Sawyer turns his head and looks at us. “I didn’t hear you, Lucy. You’ll need to speak up.”
“Because I wasn’t talking to you,” she answers.
He goes back to staring out the window and while he looks incredibly tall and strong, he also appears very lost. I ache for him. He’s seventeen, and he’s a dad to his sister and a parent to his mom. I’m not sure anyone would know how to fix this, and I’m certainly not helping.
I crouch in front of Lucy and she reaches out and touches one of my curls.
“Can you see my mom?” I whisper.
She shakes her head. “Can you see the monster downstairs?”
Lucy appears crestfallen as I shake my head as well.
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t real,” she whispers, and her words, for some odd reason, break my heart. Lucy says there’s a monster living downstairs, Glory has said the same thing, and a sickening sensation causes me to flush hot.
There’s something in this house, something evil, and it’s threatening Lucy. My eyes stray to the two shells and rolls of sage still on the kitchen counter.
“If you use that sage, it will drive me out.” Mom appears in front of me and her eyes are angry. This fury baffles me, causes a pit of sadness that I’ve disappointed her, but I’m confused as to what to do.
“Lucy’s scared,” I whisper.
“And you’ll be alone. Is that what you want?”
Alone. Anguish rolls through me, painful shards of glass tearing through my soul. “No.”
“No to what?” Sawyer asks from across the room and my head whips in his direction. Crazy. It’s there, just a hint of it in his expression. He senses something’s not right—not right with me. My heart pounds that I’ve been caught—by him.
The door opens and Dad plows in. He’s a focused steamroller and the whole world stops when he sees me, sees Sawyer, and then his eyes fall on Lucy. Worry. Dad wears it like a second skin. He worried for years about Mom, has worried incessantly about me, and now he has taken on the heavy burden of worrying about Sawyer and Lucy.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Dad says to Sawyer, “but I walked through your apartment. Everything looks in place.”
Echoes Between Us Page 25
