Ghost Downstairs

Chapter Thirteen

That night after dinner, Ren nestled with her on a parlor sofa, the New York Times crossword spread over their laps. They stared at it without speaking or filling it in.

Finally Lina said, “I have an idea for putting her to rest.”

“Oh?”

“I have to come clean about killing Mr. Ambaum.” She whispered the sentence, not wanting to broadcast it to anyone wandering past.

“That has nothing to do with me or her.”

“But it does, sort of. You’re a victim of the same type of horrible mistake I made. I can’t help thinking it, every day.”

Ren kissed her on the neck. “Look. I’ve thought of it too. But I see it as balance, justice. Maybe if we love each other, it redeems those mistakes— yours and hers.”

“Things don’t look very redeemed. Do they?”

His silence, and the way he dropped his gaze, was answer enough.

“I have to come clean,” she said again.

“Doesn’t the man’s family already know?”

“I don’t mean them.” She sat up and turned to him. “Will you come with me?”

* * *

They walked toward the alley together in the dark. Before reaching the property line, Lina stopped and kissed Ren. “Thanks for doing this.”

“My pleasure.” He stroked her cheek. “Wish I could do more.”

They turned and kept walking. Ren disappeared as soon as he stepped through the gate. Lina went on, car keys in her hand, purse thumping against her hip. She got into her car at the curb, started the engine, and blasted the air against the foggy windshield to clear it, giving Ren time to climb in. “I guess I have to take it on faith that you’re there,” she said, setting her purse on the passenger seat. “Here, hold my purse.”

A moment later she muttered, “Sorry,” and moved it to the floor, deciding it might be rude to make a ghost share space with another object even though he couldn’t feel it.

She released the parking brake, peeled the Impala out of its spot, and turned toward I-5.

Forty-five minutes later she pulled up in front of her mother’s house in Tacoma. The porch light and a few interior lamps shone onto the chilly night, and her mom’s beat-up Buick sedan sat in the driveway. “Looks like she’s home.” Lina took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Oh, Ren, don’t let me screw this up.”

She waited, but nothing moved or whispered in answer. She could have been completely alone.

She got out of the car and pushed through the squeaky front gate. Hoping Ren was beside her, she knocked on the door—which always felt strange, even though she hadn’t lived here for over ten years and therefore couldn’t just walk in.

Her mom opened the door, bathing Lina in a burst of warm air and canned television laughter. She wore her big glasses with the red frames, which she only put on when no men were around. “Lina! What you doing here, baby?”

“I’m sorry to just show up like this.” Already Lina wanted to backpedal and escape. “It’s not really important. I only wanted to talk for a minute.”

“Well, come in, honey.” Her mom let her inside, her parted lips drooping in what Lina recognized as her anxious look.

Lina sat on the sofa, and her mother muted the TV. A romantic comedy from the eighties played soundlessly on the screen. Lina watched a girl crimp her bangs and paint her lips frosted pink. “All I…all I wanted to say was…” She clutched her purse on her lap and looked down at it. “You remember at Thanksgiving, Wade told us about a nurse who gave a patient a lethal injection by mistake?”

From her seat on the edge of the armchair, Lina’s mother squinted at her. “Not really, sugar. What’s this again?”

Lina reminded herself that Ren was watching. She tried to behave in a way he would approve of, instead of screeching with frustration and stress. She looked directly at her mother. “It was me. I accidentally killed a patient at Everglade. That’s why I left.”

Horror distorted her mother’s face. She gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, baby! Oh, no! What’s going to happen to you?”

Lina hadn’t known what to expect, but she felt a sweet comfort at her mother’s concern. “Nothing, Mom. Nothing. It’s okay. I mean, it isn’t okay, but I’m not in any trouble.”

“But that’s killing someone! That’s—isn’t that manslaughter?”

The comfort receded. That word was not one of Lina’s favorites lately. “The family didn’t press charges. They understand it was a mistake. I promise, I’m not in any legal danger.”

“Are you sure? Should you have told me?” Her mother twisted in the chair, pressing her knees together as if in pain. “If anyone comes asking me about what you did, wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t know?”

Lina felt cold now, and her voice came out that way. “Mom. No one’s going to ask you about me. I just wanted to tell you. I hadn’t told you guys, and I felt bad. All right?”

Her mother cringed and pressed a palm to Lina’s leg. “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry! God, I know, you must feel awful. I’d never get over something like that! See, honey, this is why I could never be a nurse. I’m not brave like you.”

Lina’s mom had always been the master of the hapless backhanded compliment. “I’m glad you understand how I feel,” she said, knowing the irony would sail over her mother’s head.

“You say you haven’t told your dad?”

“Not yet. I will.”

“Listen, honey.” Her mom shifted into her “giving advice” voice. She leaned forward and planted her fingertips on the coffee table. “I wouldn’t if I were you. You know how judgmental he gets. Nobody’s ever good enough for him. A thing like this—God, I hate to imagine what he’d say to you!”

Lina’s heart sank as she heard her own fears spoken aloud, even in a voice she tried not to trust. “But shouldn’t I be honest? Wouldn’t that be best?”

“I wouldn’t, honey. You’re braver than me, but I wouldn’t.” Her mother took off her glasses and pressed her eyelids with the blunt tips of the frames. “God, sweetie. How miserable. You sure no one’s going to arrest you? I won’t get hauled into court to answer questions, will I?”

* * *

Lina got back into the Impala ten minutes later. “Well. That was delightful.” She imagined the amusement in Ren’s eyes and looked forward to seeing it when he reappeared at the house. “Still, I guess I feel better.”

But as she sped home at seventy miles an hour, dread darkened her relief. “What if she’s right about my dad?” she asked the invisible and possibly absent Ren. “I’m not done until I tell him, but what if that’s the cost? My dad despising me and never speaking to me again?”

By the time she pulled up to the curb near the house, she had decided she couldn’t risk waiting to find out. If the axe was going to fall, she wanted it to fall tonight, fast and clean. Get it over with.

So although it was eleven o’clock in Philadelphia, she excavated her cell phone from her purse, switched it on, and dialed his number. She took shallow breaths as she waited for him to answer, listening to the clicks of the car’s engine cooling.

He picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Dad?”

“Hey, Lina.” He sounded congenial if confused.

“Sorry it’s so late. I hope you weren’t asleep.”

“Nope, I was up. Going over taxes. Only got a few days left to file them. Are yours done?”

“Oh—yeah. I think I get a refund. Just a small one.”

“A CPA could get you more, I bet. I know some guys over there. I’ll email you their names.”

Already she wasn’t doing enough to please him. Her mother had been right. Lina slumped back, the seat belt still cutting into her shoulder. “Okay. Thanks.”

“So what’s up, missy?”

She had to go through with it. Ren was there. She had sworn to him she would. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Oh?”

“Back in September, you know I left Everglade Hospital.”

“Yeah. How’s that going?”

“It’s all right, but…I need to tell you why I left.” Her seat belt was making it hard to breathe. She unfastened it and let it coil away. “Do you know the difference between sodium chloride and potassium chloride, medically?”

“Table salt versus deadly poison?” Her dad chuckled. He was a corporate financial officer for a shipping firm, but he knew his basic science. He knew a little about everything, and a lot about many things.

“Right, more or less. Well…I switched them accidentally.” Lina covered her eyes with her hand. “I injected a guy with poison. By mistake, because I’m a klutz, because I wasn’t paying attention. He died. He had cancer already, but still, he died when he shouldn’t have, and it was my fault.”

“Oh, Lina.” Emotion infused her dad’s voice, but she couldn’t tell yet what kind of emotion.

“I’m not in trouble,” she said, miserably. “They weren’t even going to fire me. But I couldn’t stand being there anymore. I don’t know why I thought leaving would fix things. I mean, when I didn’t even dare tell you guys until today…”

“My poor kid.” Sympathy. Was it sympathy? “Why didn’t you tell us?”

She thumbed away a tear from her cheekbone. “I’m sure you aren’t happy to learn your daughter’s a killer.”

“Lina.” It was sympathy. Love, even. “How many lives have you saved? How many people have you helped? You’re allowed to make mistakes, you know.”

“I am?” she squeaked.

“Honey, last year I submitted a report wrong, just by mistake, and it ended up costing the company eighty grand. I felt pretty stupid, I guarantee you that.”

“At least nobody died.” She sniffled.

“Only because you’re in a riskier profession than me. Because you’re braver. And hell, I’m proud of you for that.”

Finally she breathed freely again. “Mom said that too. That I’m brave, anyway.” She laughed a little. “She also said I shouldn’t tell you, because you’d judge me.”

“She said that?” Her dad growled his distinctive noise of irritation. “Lina, I never brought this stuff up, because I didn’t want you or Wade to see any more conflict between us than you already saw. But you’re a grown-up now, and I want you to know, it makes me mad as hell, the insecure crap she says to you two. Sometimes I swear she has absolutely no faith in you. That’s what galls me the most about her.”

Exhausted, Lina smiled through her windshield at the cloudy night sky. “I’m sorry for ever believing it.”

“That’s why I moved so damn far away. I couldn’t stand watching her do it up close.”

I must have inherited that from you , she thought. Being tempted to leave a bad situation instead of suffering it out. But it would sound hurtful if spoken aloud, and anyway she was suffering this one out. So instead she said, “Hey, here’s something I haven’t told Mom. I’m seeing someone.”

“Oh yeah? That’s great! Hope I get to meet him.”

“I hope so too. I mean, I know you liked Brent, but…”

“Who? Oh, Brent. He was just fun to go golfing with, that’s all. What about this new guy? Does he golf?”

Lina laughed. “I don’t know. I’ll ask him later.”

“Okay. Well, I better finish the taxes, but I’ll want to hear about this guy sometime. All right?”

“All right.”

“Thanks for calling. Don’t feel bad.”

Lina thought of the exploding radiator and Mrs. B’s oxygen tubes, and her mood sank again. Not feeling bad was rather off the table. “I’ll try,” she said. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too. Bye now.”

Lina turned off the cell phone and leaned back in the car seat, all her limbs heavy with relief and anxiety. “So. Is that it? Do you think it worked?”

Ren didn’t answer, of course. They were still outside the property by at least half a block.

“You’re there, aren’t you?” Panic crept into her voice. “I didn’t just let you go?”

The risk hadn’t even entered her mind until now. She had thought only that by repenting for her own manslaughter she might somehow undo the ill effects of Julia’s—set Julia free, or turn her into a benign ghost, or maybe even fling open Ren’s prison to let him walk as a human anywhere he wanted. She hoped her own attachment to Ren might work that type of wonder. “But I might have erased you both,” she whispered. “Please tell me you’re there. Oh, God, Ren, tell me you’re there.”

A frantic tear splashed down her cheek as she dove out of the Impala and sprinted to the front gate. “Please, oh please, oh please.”

She fumbled with the iron latch, wrenched open the gate, and flew forward onto the front path, then spun around to wait for him. The seconds dragged as if she were underwater and unable to breathe.

The azalea bush rustled at the corner of the yard. Ren came out of the shadows, strode over, and held her.

Lina clutched him and tried not to burst into sobs. “Where were you? I thought…”

“I’m sorry. I was there. I couldn’t come in the front gate, someone might see me, so I got in through the bushes.”

“You were with me?”

“The whole time.”

Lina exhaled, and gulped in a new breath. “You’re still here. Good. It wouldn’t have been worth losing you.”

A maple branch as thick as Lina’s shin swooped down, in a total absence of wind, and raked their heads with its mossy claws. She and Ren ducked and stared up at the tree. Lina sagged in dismay.

Ren said, “And we didn’t lose her, either.”

Lina felt too defeated to be afraid. She turned and dragged her feet up the front steps. “She can pile everything in the house on top of me. It doesn’t matter. I need to sleep.”

* * *

The next day an unremitting drizzle saturated Seattle. Ren and Lina sat on the living room floor after dinner, their backs to a sofa, gazing out the windows at the dripping maple tree. His arm draped her shoulders, his hand playing with her hair.

“How do we make her stop?” Lina asked.

Another twirl of her hair around his fingers. His gaze lingered on a faraway point outside the glass. “That, indeed, is the question.”

“Let’s ask her. Let’s call her out.”

“Could be dangerous.” He sounded reluctant.

She seized his hand in mid-caress. “More dangerous than radiators exploding? Than staple guns shooting themselves at us?”

His lips flattened and he yanked his arm away. “Yes. Much more dangerous, if those were just her opening acts.”

“Then what do we do?” She wanted to scream the question, but out of courtesy to the old folks in the next room she kept her voice to a clipped hiss. “Tiptoe around and never say her name? Hope she chooses something soft to fling? Wait for the next catastrophe, and pray to God it doesn’t injure another old lady?”

“I don’t know,” he shot back. “She’s never been this strong before, and nothing has ever gotten rid of her.”

“Maybe you haven’t tried hard enough.”

“I will try anything . But I won’t risk your life.”

“Let me decide about my life.”

They had turned to glare at one another, planting their fingers in the carpet. Lina stared him down for a few breaths, then wilted, her chin to her chest. “I won’t leave you. I can’t. I won’t, it isn’t fair. Don’t make me.”

He tempered his growl to a whisper. “I don’t want you to. But I don’t want anything to happen to you, either.”

“We can’t have it both ways. Not here.”

Ren grimaced and let his head fall back on the sofa cushions.

Lina edged closer and put her cheek on his shoulder. “You must have come up with some ideas. There must be things you haven’t tried.”

“Only because they might hurt people.”

“Everyone’s gone tomorrow night. They’re taking the seniors to the cinema.” Lina watched him swallow, a ripple of his throat before her eyes. “Marla said I didn’t have to go.”

“Tomorrow. Saturday?”

“Yes.” She sidled closer and put her arm across his waist, as much to give herself strength as to show him repentance. “I don’t want to hurt anyone either. But we have to try something. It has to stop.”

He turned his head toward her. His lips parted, but he didn’t speak for a few seconds. “If you really want,” he finally said, “I have an idea.”

A shot of nauseating fear invaded Lina’s stomach. But she nodded.

* * *

She tried to make him tell her the plan that night. He would not. He was concerned Julia would overhear and act too soon. They had to stay quiet, wait until everyone else was safely out of the house. So Lina settled beside him in her bed as usual, she in her nightgown and he in his ghost shirt, trousers, and socks. Neither attempted a seduction. They shared only a goodnight kiss, delicately, as if trying to touch a spiderweb without destroying it. Kisses break a lot of spells in fairy tales, Lina found herself thinking, and didn’t dare follow that train of thought any further.

* * *

The next day crept by at half its proper pace. Lina ambled around the house, looking for work to keep her occupied. She tried to read the newspaper and found it impossible to care about any of the articles. Her eyes kept wandering to the date at the top corner of the page. April tenth. Something about the date tickled at her mind. Someone’s birthday? Anniversary? Did she owe someone a card? She explored the calendar in her thoughts and crossed off birthdays for her brother, her mother, her father, and Ren, along with her parents’ anniversary (not that they would celebrate it anymore), without finding an April tenth. Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except what would happen tonight. Probably that was what bothered her about the date. It might soon appear in her own obituary.

She had been relieved to tell her parents about Mr. Ambaum and receive their sympathy (however tactless in her mom’s case), but now she began to fear that those conversations had not been her key to peace at all. Today, walking around in a cold shadow, she feared her confession was actually going to serve as the deathbed type—a final tell-all, a repentant goodbye to her next of kin.

She went upstairs, turned on her computer, and settled chilly fingers onto the keyboard. In the event of my death , she typed in a new document, then sat there motionless for several minutes. She had nothing particularly valuable to leave to anyone. She couldn’t write down what really happened to her, since she didn’t know yet. Marla and Alan would guess the truth, but this letter was for her family, and how could she explain it to them ?

I want you to know it wasn’t suicide , she typed, and Ren didn’t do it either. We loved each other, and I was happy, but other forces

She stopped and erased the whole paragraph in a rattle of the delete key. She closed the document without saving it and flopped face down on her bed, where she dragged over the pillow Ren usually rested on. She clasped it to her nose, inhaling the scent of his cologne. He had worn it more often lately, since she had told him she liked it, and now the fragrance traced a lightning path to her heart.

There was no trace of his skin or hair in the scent, nor any way to capture that particular musk, since whatever he left behind from his own person vanished as soon as he went outside the lines. It was a sensation she had noticed a few times; a trace of moisture on her skin suddenly evaporating as, somewhere at that moment, he left the property. Though she had originally laughed at his unusual reason to go without birth control, now it just seemed macabre. She took another deep breath of the scent, then flung the pillow aside, jumped off the bed, and went downstairs, where she crammed her attention into sight-reading a Liszt concerto on the grand piano.