Chapter Six
Harriet
I stare out the window behind my couch with my chin resting on my folded arms, watching as heavy clouds gather over the harbor.
I’ve been trying to occupy myself with my favorite things—a fresh (see: nonexpired) box of peppermint tea, a coordinating pair of cotton pajamas, a blanket warm from the dryer, and a bowl of popcorn the size of my head—but my brain keeps drifting back to a train garden with two little girls at the edge of the tracks.
I don’t remember the last time I thought about the gaudy lobby of my parents’ law firm.
Not because of some long-buried trauma. It just never felt like a place I should remember.
For all its grandeur and commitment to Greek-inspired architecture, it never awed me as a child.
It felt like walking into a showroom. Someplace cold and devoid of life, where everyone talked in hushed whispers.
But that’s the memory Nolan decided to take me to. Or follow me to, I guess, since he says he doesn’t control where we go. It all seems a little convenient to me, but I’ve never been haunted before. I don’t know the rules.
I frown at my wavy reflection in the window. Experiencing that memory as an outsider had been disorienting. I thought I’d drifted away from the little girl in the red dress with the wild hair, but I think I’m the same as I’ve always been. Impulsive. Fanciful. Messy.
A disappointment.
Watching from the sidelines, I could almost feel the scratch of that horrible velvet between my shoulder blades.
My mother always made us wear matching dresses for the annual holiday gala.
She still dictates what I wear for it, unable to release her iron grip on control.
I’m sure there’s a tiny piece of premium cardstock in the envelope I haven’t bothered to open yet with my orders detailed in crisp handwriting.
Floor length. Navy blue. Pearl earrings.
My mom does enjoy her pretty pictures.
I turn the memory over from every angle, examining it.
What was significant about it? Why did we visit that time?
That place? Did I need to see my mother’s disapproval?
That was hardly something novel as a child, and it only got worse as I grew into adulthood.
Did I need a front-row seat to my father’s ambivalence? Same story.
I heard my mother mention Aunt Matilda. Their relationship was always fraught with tension, but it deteriorated as I got older. By the time I was a teenager, they weren’t on speaking terms. And by the time Aunt Matilda died suddenly of a heart attack, they hadn’t seen each other in years.
I trace my fingers along the edge of the window, feeling the press of cold air from the other side. Somewhere in the harbor, a boat drifts by, Christmas lights wrapped around the mast.
Maybe it was Samantha. Samantha, who I haven’t seen in six months.
How did we go from little girls holding hands to sisters who barely acknowledge each other?
It feels like the second act of my mother and Aunt Matilda, but with less ferocity.
We’ve traded the heated arguments for stony silence.
In a lot of ways, that feels worse. We argued when I took over the Crow’s Nest, though anyone who had been observing us probably wouldn’t have noticed.
We were calm. We never raised our voices.
But that didn’t make the barbs we lobbed at each other any less painful.
She thought I was being childish and I thought she was being cold-hearted.
I wanted to hold on to my aunt’s legacy with two hands and she was ready to throw it away.
I remember the way her face fell when my frustration got the best of me, angry, spiteful words spilling out of my mouth.
Why can’t you care about this? Why can’t you care about me?
Clipped questions, delivered beneath stained glass lights.
A lifetime of letting people down and not being the right thing cracked me right open, and all my hurt spilled out.
Why didn’t we go back to that memory? The one where I said things I didn’t mean and made my sister cry? If I’m the villain Nolan thinks I am, maybe we should start there.
I pick up my phone from beneath my nest of blankets and scroll to Samantha’s number. I hesitate, then grit my teeth and tap out a quick message.
Thinking about you, I finally settle on. I hope you’re doing well.
It sounds like something my mom would write and I wince as I hit send. I debate for another minute, then rapidly tap out another message.
Miss you, Sammy.
There. That’s a step toward reconciliation or … something. Nolan should be proud of himself. One little haunting and I’m already making behavioral changes.
Not that he’s been particularly helpful since we got back.
As soon as we stopped rolling through the ghost version of a spin cycle, we were exactly where we’d started, just as he’d said.
Sasha called a question from the back, I yelled an answer, and when I turned around, Nolan was gone.
The only trace of him was his discarded coffee cup in the bin beneath the counter and the goose bumps on my arms.
You feel it, even if you don’t understand it.
Well, he was right about that. I understand exactly nothing. Magic and memories and stoic men without a sense of humor.
“Stupid ghosts,” I mutter, flopping back on the couch and staring at my ceiling. “Coming and going as they please. Not explaining a single thing. Being infuriatingly vague and mysterious.”
“I’m hardly mysterious.”
I shriek and roll to the side, landing in a heap on my living room floor. My dryer-warm blanket tightens like a noose around my legs. Nolan watches calmly as I struggle to free myself, two mugs of steaming tea in his hands.
He lifts them in silent explanation.
“You left tea on the counter,” he says, watching me battle my quilt. “I made us a cuppa. Hope you don’t mind.”
If I were feeling calmer, I’d be delighted by the way he says cuppa. As it is, I’m trying to convince myself I’m not about to be murdered.
Again.
“I do mind.” I wheeze. “I mind very much.”
He frowns at me. “You don’t want tea?”
“No, I want the tea. I just don’t want an intruder to make it for me.”
“Intruder,” he says, heaving a weary sigh. “This again.”
“Yes, Nolan. This again.”
“If you didn’t want the tea, you shouldn’t have left the mug out,” he says. He peers over his shoulder at my kitchen. “Though you do seem to take issue with putting things away properly.”
“Nolan.” God. How long has he silently been lurking in my home?
Poking through my things?
“What?” His face twists in agitation, his eyebrows a heavy slash over his dark eyes. “You’re that upset about the tea?”
“I don’t have a problem with the tea. I have a problem with you materializing out of thin air. Again!”
“I didn’t materialize,” he says, offended. “I called hello. I started the kettle. You didn’t hear me? I made enough noise to wake the dead.”
I narrow my eyes. I can’t tell if that’s a joke or not. “Are you trying to be funny?”
“Funny is not something I’m often accused of, Harriet.”
I believe it. “Listen. I’d like for you to knock at the door like a reasonable—” I almost say human being. “Like a reasonable ghost,” I finish. I finally manage to untangle my legs from my blanket nest, kicking it away. “How long have you been in my house?”
“Ten minutes or so,” he answers, his gaze fixed on my bare legs. His eyes narrow, the line between his brows deepening. He gestures at my legs with one of the mugs. “What the hell are those?”
“What?” I quickly look down, expecting to see an angry horde of fire ants marching over my kneecaps by the severity of his expression. Instead, I just see my pale skin and my oversize socks, one slightly higher than the other thanks to my cartwheel off the couch.
“Those.” He nods toward my midsection.
I pinch my camisole. It has tiny candy canes printed all over it. I love it. “These? My pajamas?”
He scoffs. “Those aren’t pajamas.” His eyes don’t move from the fabric around my middle.
“I got them in the pajamas section,” I defend.
They’re buttery soft and deliciously comfortable.
Matching pajama sets have always been a guilty pleasure of mine.
Something about the silky smooth materials and the utter departure from practicality.
It feels indulgent when I wear them. Something just for me.
I climb up from the floor, adjusting the matching shorts that hit mid-thigh. Nolan makes a choking sound.
“I got them on sale at Nordstrom,” I offer.
“What the hell is a Nordstrom?” he asks, sounding dazed. His gaze drifts back to my legs. His jaw clenches tight, the faintest brush of pink appearing at the top of his scruff. I didn’t realize someone could hate coordinating sets so much.
“It’s a store.” I shuffle my socked feet and debate wrapping myself in my blanket, then immediately discard the thought. It’s his problem, not mine. I don’t need to be ashamed of my festivity.
I prop my hands on my hips and try to find the often-elusive assertive part of myself. “If you had knocked at the door as requested, maybe I would have had time to put on something more reasonable.”
He drags his attention back to my face with reluctance. His expression is thunderous. “What?”
“The door,” I repeat. “I want you to use it when you visit. You’ve scared me twice now. You can use the door.”
“You’re serious?”
I nod, resisting the urge to take it back.
To tell him it’s okay. To make it easy and comfortable and fine.
I’ve always been good at accommodating the needs of others, but I guess something about yesterday’s memory sparked a long-buried desire for rebellion.
I’ve been inspired by a tiny wooden boat, clenched in the fist of my six-year-old self.
I wish I were still as brave as that little girl. As hopeful, too. I lift my chin.
“I don’t think it’s too much to ask for.”