Chapter Fifteen
Lina returned to the scene when she had collected herself, before anyone came looking for her. Alan, Gary, and Consuela had left to take the seniors to other facilities, where they would stay until they found a new residence. Marla, her eyes swollen, stood watching the blaze dwindle under the efforts of the firefighters. A few uninhabitable slabs of charred brick remained, housing two-story-high piles of ash and rubble.
“I’m sorry, Marla.” Lina’s lips felt dry and dulled.
Marla glanced at her before returning her gaze to the dying flames. “Not your fault, honey. And I’m not letting anyone think it was.”
Wasn’t it, though, in some sense? Lina stood beside Marla and watched the firefighters spray down the remains of the living room. The grand piano, the carpet where she had danced with Ren, the ceiling where the mistletoe had hung—all destroyed. And Ren…
“They haven’t found anyone,” Marla said, as if divining Lina’s thoughts.
“Didn’t really think they would.” Lina wouldn’t cry here. Not yet. Not until she knew. But how would she know?
The fire crew hauled blackened maple branches to the side of the yard, clearing a path for the hoses. The grand old tree was ruined too. Mr. Ambaum, a mansion, two ghosts, and a maple tree. Someone had to lock up Lina before she killed anything else.
“I called your mom,” Marla said. “Told her about this. She said she’ll get the guest room ready, and you can go on down whenever you want.”
Lina folded her arms. “I won’t go tonight. Tomorrow maybe.”
“Yeah. I won’t be sleeping either.” Marla sat down on the curb. Lina joined her.
They stayed there another hour, until the fire was out and the onlookers had gone home, and only one fire truck and one police car remained. Then Marla got up to talk to the police, leaving Lina to wait. Lina looked at her watch in the red glow from the trucks. Only midnight. Only four hours since she had seen Ren. Four days since they had last made love. Just over two months since their first kiss, that half-drunken pounce at the breakfast bar, unless you counted the mistletoe, in which case it was a bit under four months.
Lina hugged her knees and hid her face against her lap. When would she stop counting? How long would it be before she went a whole day without calculating the hours? Would she ever remember him and smile, rather than wanting to wail and tear things apart?
Marla’s footsteps came back. Lina lifted her head. “They say it looks like a gas main broke,” Marla said. “Happens now and then.”
Lina’s eyes trailed over the wreckage, and she nodded. She faintly remembered, now, telling Marla what had happened, in a hysterical ramble, when the Drakes had arrived.
“Someone mentioned the houseboy, so they asked about him, but I…” Marla’s voice weakened. “I said he was out of town tonight. That you were in the house alone, taking a nap.” Perhaps seeing the emotion in Lina’s eyes, Marla crouched and took her elbow. “Come on, kiddo. We got things to do. Got to get the seniors settled, and tell Mrs. B.”
Lina resisted, not wanting to rise.
Marla’s grip held firm. “God knows I wish he’d come back too,” she whispered. “But if he was able to, he would have by now.”
With that death knell reverberating in her ears, Lina closed her hand around Marla’s, one finger at a time, and got up. Together they walked away from the empty, smoldering property.
* * *
Some of the seniors went home with their families. The Drakes found arrangements for the rest in other facilities. Lina rode beside Marla as they drove to one of these houses in the middle of the night and helped the graveyard-shift staff get the bewildered seniors into their new rooms. Of course it was harder for any of them than for herself, Lina tried to believe. They had all lived in that house longer than she had. As for possibly losing Ren, well, Marla and Alan had known him far longer.
Yes , but I loved him. They have each other. He was all I had .
They arrived at the hospital at five a.m., and Lina collapsed on a bench in the waiting room, unable to keep her eyes open, though also unwilling to sleep and face the certain nightmares. Marla marched to the nurses and asked them to check if Mrs. B was awake, and demanded to see her if she was.
Mrs. B was asleep. Marla grumbled, walked off, and came back with scones, a pair of apples, and cups of coffee. Lina sat up and accepted the coffee. My first breakfast since he died , she thought, then scowled. Not really. He’s been dead since 1936.
Marla left again and this time came back with T-shirts and sweatshirts from the gift shop. “Don’t know about you, but I’m tired of reeking of smoke,” she said.
Lina took the clothes to the restroom. She stripped off her long-sleeved T-shirt—the same one she had worn when she had first kissed Ren at the breakfast bar—and used the pink liquid soap to scrub the smell from her hair, face, and arms. Cloudy gray water dripped into the drain. She dabbed her skin dry with paper towels and wrung out her hair over the sink. She put on the white T-shirt with the Seattle Seahawks logo, and the navy blue sweatshirt with a ferryboat and an orca on it, but she still smelled the smoke on her jeans. She imagined she would be smelling that smoke for months, no matter how clean she got.
A little before six o’clock, a nurse told them Mrs. B had woken up. Mrs. B’s happy smile at seeing them, eyes crinkling under the oxygen mask, changed quickly as she saw that something was wrong. She hummed an inquiring sound.
Lina sat in a chair beside the bed and took Mrs. B’s hand. Marla sat on the other side and began talking. Mrs. B’s eyes widened, and her heart monitor beeped faster, and she uttered cries as she learned what had happened to the house.
“And we…” Marla flashed a distressed glance at Lina. “We can’t find Ren. He was probably in there…”
Mrs. B gasped. Her arms, dragging their delicate IV tubes, went around Lina, bending Lina’s head to her chest. It was impossible for Lina not to burst into tears at such kind treatment. She heard Marla start crying too.
Ren had told her once about the worst day of his existence, along with the second-worst. At the time, Lina had thought about her own life and tried to decide what her worst day was, and couldn’t have said in certainty—the day Mr. Ambaum died, or the day she burned herself when she was twelve, or the day her parents announced their divorce? They were all contenders. But now she had a winner. No question.
I hope you’re still going to come read to me, no matter where I end up , Mrs. B wrote on a pad of paper after their flood of grief subsided. Lina nodded, gave the old lady a smile and a kiss, and excused herself to wash her face.
She sat on a couch with aged purple upholstery in the hospital’s waiting area, staring out an east-facing window and watching the dawn break on this landmark day. As the water on her face evaporated, it left her skin taut and dry, as if she were shriveling. Marla stood nearby, looking out at the sparkling city, the evergreen-swathed hills, the Cascade Mountains silhouetted by the yellow sunrise. “Everything’s so beautiful,” Marla said.
Lina wasn’t sure if irony lay behind the words or not. She could have made a case for agreement either way.
Her eyes drifted shut, and soon she found herself walking down the hallway at Everglade Hospital, her high heels clicking on the tiles. The shoes were the same jade green as her dress, whose tailored fabric hugged her ribs and waist in a perfect fit. The glass of a fire extinguisher cabinet reflected the gleam of her blond curls as she passed.
Rounding a corner, she collided with Sara, another nurse. Lina apologized and pulled herself to her feet. After dusting off her skirt, she made sure none of the medicated brandy had spilled, then carried the flask into her patient’s room.
Ren, an ancient man, lay in his bed, frail and shrunken. His hair, entirely white, grew in patchy curls like a baby’s. He wore a blue-dotted hospital gown, the same type Mr. Ambaum and most other patients wore. His room’s window was a rectangle of glassy black, as if the hospital lay engulfed in a dark forest rather than in the middle of Seattle. She looked at it and shuddered. The blackness pressed on the windowpane as if it wanted to get in. Her hands shook as she imagined being swallowed up in that eternal night.
She turned to her task at hand, focusing on work to bring herself back under control. She leaned over his bed and placed the flask at his lips.
He opened his eyes and smiled. His hand, flecked with liver spots, stopped the flask before the brandy could flow into his mouth, and lowered it to the bedspread.
Gasping at her mistake, Lina dissolved into tears. “I killed you,” she wept. “I should have been more careful. I was trying to help, that’s all, I swear. Oh, God. I want to die.”
He shook his head. “What you gave me was better than any afterlife. Come on. Discharge me, nurse lady. We need to get out of here.”
She lowered her face to his arm, sobbing. “No. I’m scared. I can’t let you go out there. Please come back.”
A breeze stirred her hair and cooled her skin. She lifted her head in a panic, but soon calmed. Rather than the inky dark forest, sunshine and fresh air surrounded them.
She recognized the place. St. Mary’s Cemetery, Port Townsend.
Ren looked young again, and wore an Edwardian-era black suit jacket and bow tie over his usual shirt and trousers. He gazed curiously at the ground ahead. “Hmm,” he said. “I think you better have a look at this.”
She turned to see, but then a warm wind howled across the hill, stealing his voice, tearing off leaves and knocking over an empty flowerpot on a gravestone. Even as Lina reached for him, the gale hauled her off, tore her free, pulled her back to Seattle.
Lina opened her eyes with a jolt.
Marla still stood there. The sun had risen a mere inch above the horizon; Lina could only have slept a few minutes.
“Marla.”
Marla turned. “Hmm?”
“I know this is crazy. But we have to go to Port Townsend.”
* * *
Puget Sound sparkled in the morning sun as Lina and Marla rode the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston. They stepped out of the car for the short journey and leaned on the upper deck’s railing, the chilly wind whipping through their hair.
“What is it you reckon we’ll find?” Marla’s spine slumped with exhaustion, but kindness still emerged in her voice.
“I don’t know. I just have to see the grave again.”
When the boat docked in Kingston, Marla and Lina drove off the ferry and onto the peninsula.
They passed white clapboard churches in the countryside on the way to Port Townsend. Flowers and ribbons and purple banners decked their front steps, and families in suits and pastel-colored dresses emerged from cars in the gravel parking lots.
“It’s Sunday morning,” Lina remembered aloud.
“Easter Sunday,” Marla said.
“Is it? Oh, that’s right.” Lina thought of chocolate bunnies and egg hunts, innocent childhood joys she would never feel again. Did growing up break every adult this way? Or had her dalliance with a dead man pushed her too far past any normal person’s limits for peace of mind?
The Olympic Mountains to the west, usually a ragged silhouette from Seattle, loomed high and clear now. Snow gleamed on the blue slopes. Wildflowers flashed along the roadside in pink, yellow, and purple. Between the fir trees, Lina glimpsed wide, rippling saltwater, sunlight scattered on it like broken glass. The beauty acted as a balm to her grief, but her mind refused to settle down from its racing circles. Something awaited her over here; she sensed it like a taste in her throat. But would it be a horror greater than before? Was that even possible?
In Port Townsend they parked on the silent street outside the hilltop cemetery. The sea-scented air, warmer today than on her previous visit, embraced Lina as she walked through the gates. Marla hung back several paces, inspecting other tombstones, probably to give Lina some time alone with Ren’s grave.
The stone still lay there. The sight of it, solid and gray and engraved with his name, bruised Lina’s heart, suffocating her timid hopes. She knelt, staring at it in agony. “That’s it?” she whispered. “You’re dead, you always were, nothing changed?”
The tombstone stared back blankly, the sun blazing upon the name Sean Reynolds and the death date from seven decades earlier.
She glanced over her shoulder helplessly. Marla had wandered away, far off to the western wall of the cemetery. Lina could crumple and sob if she wanted to.
But crying would solve nothing. What she yearned for was an explanation. Had the dream meant anything beyond wishful thinking? Had someone sent her here, and if so, why? Could nobody advise her, at least, which direction to steer her life now that he was gone?
She sank to her knees. Dew seeped through her jeans, but she didn’t care. If she sat here long enough, perhaps that wind from her dream would blow her back to Ren’s side, to whichever alternate existence he now resided in.
A strand of dead grass landed on the second letter of his name, thrown down by the breeze. Lina reached out to flick it away. When her finger touched the grave marker, the stone cracked soundlessly, like a mud flat drying in the sun. As she pressed her hand to it in distress, hoping to halt the damage, the cracks multiplied and splintered. Within seconds the stone fell apart into gray dust as if it had been made of wet sand.
Lina rose, horrified, eyes fixed on the heap of dust. Had she just destroyed the last trace of him?
“Well,” his voice said, behind her. “I guess that means I’m really back.”
She sucked in a gasp and spun around, almost falling in the slick grass.
Ren stood in the sunshine, grinning, wearing the same old-fashioned suit he had worn in her dream.
“Oh, my God,” she squeaked.
He held out his arms and she threw herself into them. He chuckled, staggering backward with the force of her embrace. “Hey, darlin’.” He spun her around; the sunlight flashed past them counterclockwise.
“Who the… Ren ?” Marla yelled. A moment later Lina heard the thumping jingle of her keys as she jogged over to them. She felt Marla’s arms fold over hers as the hug expanded to encompass all three of them. Then Marla dropped away, lauding the miracle in nonsensical words while Lina held him tight.
She buried her face in his chest, crying and laughing at the same time. Her dazed mind proclaimed that this was really happening; it was not just another cruel dream. The thought resounded and repeated until it became solid enough to believe. And why not? Here he was in the flesh, smelling of wet grass, sea air, and warm sleepy male. She kissed his neck and tasted skin and dirt, healthy and outdoorsy.
When she blinked the tears out of her eyes and focused, the first thing she saw was a smear of green and brown on his shirt collar—grass stains and dirt. The spotless white ghost shirt would finally need to be washed.
“What happened?” she asked.
“What are you doing way over here?” Marla asked.
“Why didn’t you call us?” Lina added.
Ren held up his hand, buying a space in which to answer.
“I’m sorry. I just woke up. I know you must have worried.” Marla whacked him on the arm. “Hell, yeah. We thought you were dead. Deader than before, I mean.”
“I don’t think that’s a problem anymore. I, uh…” He squinted in the sun, looking around the cemetery. “I slept all night, I guess. I woke up a little while ago. On my own grave, in the suit they buried me in.” He tugged at his bow tie, unraveling it into a kinked ribbon of black that shone in the sun.
Awakening on his own grave, whose tombstone had now collapsed into dust? Eerie and chilling, yes, but also phenomenal, wondrous, perfect. Did it mean what she hoped? Lina grasped a fold of his jacket between her fingers, rubbing it, half expecting it to fall apart like the tombstone had. But the fabric was good as new, not a speck of mold or decay.
She looked up at him. “How on Earth…” she asked, unable to articulate the entire question.
His eyes twinkled, tea-brown in the daylight. “I’m guessing our ritual did the trick. We worked some kind of serious magic—with a little help from the rest of the dead.”
“Wait,” Marla said. “So you’re here, outside the house, and you can touch stuff? Walk around like a normal guy? Just like everyone else?”
He stood taller, his chest expanding with pride. “Evidently.”
Lina’s legs had gone weightless with joy. “It worked? You’re alive?”
“According to my folks, yes. I thought it was a dream at first, but…” Ren’s voice turned husky. He thrust his hands into his pockets and gazed down at his parents’ graves. “I was in the garden in our old house. It looked just like it did when I was a kid. They hugged me and said they were happy, even though they’d have to wait another lifetime to see me again.”
Lina wobbled, and planted her feet wider to support herself. “I knew it. I dreamed about this place. Marla, that’s why I said we had to come out here.”
Ren slid his arm around Lina. “Connected, are we? Always figured as much.”
“I’ll be damned.” Marla looked him up and down, fist on her hip. “Well, it sure is good to see you, kiddo, but does this mean Julia’s out here too?”
“I doubt it,” he said. “My guess is, she moved on. After putting in a good word for me, or so she said.”
Lina hugged him around the chest, her heart beating a wild and joyful rhythm as the magical pieces fell into place, constructing a new and beautiful reality. She could tell him later about the horrors of last night, about her struggle with Julia in the fire. They could theorize later about how it happened. Perhaps the enchantments broke down as the house burned, malfunctioning and letting the two ghosts switch places for a short time, Ren becoming ethereal and Julia becoming tangible. Later, Lina could learn if he had really been there, telling her to run, and she could tell him about seeing Julia in tears afterward. She would pass along the thank you, and then find out all the details of his own strange, mystical night.
They could make sense of it later, if sense could be found in a miracle. But for now, holding him was more than enough. She lifted her head for a kiss. Ren, ever obliging, tilted his head and locked his mouth to hers. Recalling her bleak tally of final kisses and embraces, she melted in euphoria to realize that from today she could ditch those dates and start counting forward again.
They both stumbled sideways as Marla shoved them. “I’m mad as hell, you know.”
Ren lifted his face, keeping his arms around Lina. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“Like hell you’re sorry. You’re going to build us a new house. We’re taking you out of that kitchen and putting you to work with a damn hammer.”
“Absolutely. It’s the least I can do.”
“Who are you going to pretend to be?” Marla added. “You thought of that? Did you get a magical Social Security number along with your new life?”
“Not that I know of.” He sounded amused. “But we’ll find ways. You figured out how to hire a ghost all these years. I bet you’re up to the challenge.”
Lina nuzzled her temple against his chest, smiling at Marla.
Marla still tried to scowl. “Everything looks great to you now ,” she said, “but life’s not going to get easy all of a sudden, you know.”
“I know,” Ren said. “But at least it’ll be life.”
Marla regarded the two of them, then shoved his arm again. “You’re both nuts. Anyone hungry?”
“Very,” Lina said.
“Starving,” Ren admitted.
“Come on.” Marla turned and walked to the car.
Ren and Lina stumbled a few steps that way, trying to kiss at the same time.
“We need to get you into some new clothes.” She took hold of his loosened, outdated tie.
“Funny.” He slipped his arm around her waist and hitched her close. “I was thinking we needed to get you out of yours.”
“Hmm, really? You know, we’ll need a place to stay tonight. Perhaps a hotel.”
“The honeymoon suite might be appropriate.” He paused under the cemetery’s entrance arch for another kiss.
“What are you saying?”
“Well—”
Marla blared the car horn and stuck her head out the window. “Get in! ”
They smiled sheepishly at her, and Lina pulled Ren toward the car. He hesitated at the door. Lina looked up at him.
“In a safety-deposit box,” Ren said, in a rush, “I’ve got an engagement ring that an old woman left to me, at the house, when she died. I haven’t lost everything, I’ve saved some things. I have accounts, under other names, and—never mind. It’s yours if you’ll have it, the ring. If you’ll have me, I mean, if—”
Half a minute later, Marla was forced to shout out the window at them again, because Lina had thrown her arms around Ren and tangled him in another kiss.