Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Luna left her laptop on the hallway table to go up in the attic.
She opened the door and flipped on the light switch.
The attic had lost the bitter cold with the new roof. A silver lining to her winter debacle.
Luna looked around in search of the tape measure.
Her eye caught on the space she’d found her mother sitting in when she’d first arrived, going over all the pictures. Most of which were still scattered about.
An attic wasn’t a space that needed to be tidy, but it also didn’t need to look like the bottom of a dumpster.
Luna scooped up the pictures without a lot of care and dropped them in the box from which they’d come.
When her hand landed on the image her mother had cooed over, Luna froze.
Paul had been a nightmare. A man they had all hated.
He’d taken such pleasure in punishing them. The familiar memories that were never far away when Luna thought of the man, surfaced. Ugly pages in a book Luna never wanted to read.
She thought of the belt he liked to use.
Felt the sting of it hitting her.
Sensed the shame in how Paul looked at her half naked with a belt in his hand.
Karen saying after the fact that they shouldn’t have done whatever travesty they’d done to deserve it.
Luna stared at the picture as another memory swam in and out. Ash in an urgent care and Karen lying to the staff about him falling.
God, she’d forgotten about that. She couldn’t have been more than six.
But when had Paul hit their mom?
Oh, they fought. Loud, angry fights but Luna could only remember one time her mother walked away with a bruise.
The last time.
They’d broken up and reconciled repeatedly but it wasn’t until Karen was punished that she called it done.
The lights in the room flickered, dragging Luna away from the awful memories.
The creak of the door to the attic pulled Luna’s gaze down the stairs.
She paused. “Is that you, Ethel?”
There wasn’t an answer.
“If you start answering me, I’m going to have to check myself into a mental facility.”
Still no answer.
Luna looked around the room and saw a wastebasket.
She grabbed it and tossed the picture of her mother and Paul in it.
When she found another one of him, she tossed it . . . then another and another, until all the photographs were back in the box, omitting the man.
If only she could rid herself of all the echoes.
Luna stood tall, her back hurting from bending over the box for a good hour.
There was entirely too much crap in the attic. Maybe a garage sale would be a better idea. Force her siblings to take what they wanted and get rid of the rest. Not a lot of it meant something to any of them. Why not clear out the space? Maybe Luna could find a hobby. Painting or something.
She started to warm to that idea.
The lights flickered again.
“What? Do you need your privacy?” Luna asked the room.
She made it halfway down the stairs before remembering why she’d gone up there in the first place.
Back up she went and poked around until she found the tape measure.
It sat on a box labeled “Journals.”
Luna opened it.
It was small, and there were only three bound journals in it.
She recognized her nana’s handwriting immediately and smiled as she made her way out of the attic with her nighttime reading material in hand.
“He was supposed to be here by six,” Luna complained to Nate over the phone.
The sun was staying up longer as winter started to lose its grip to invite spring in.
Nate was looking forward to the Pacific Northwest in drier weather.
“What’s the excuse?”
“Something about unloading the trailer and traffic, and a warehouse closing early.”
“Do you think she’s lying?”
“No,” Luna said instantly. “I think she’s repeating whatever Ben told her. Now she thinks he isn’t going to pick her up until the morning.”
Nate knew the situation wasn’t funny. Yet hearing Luna moan about a few hours, considering the sheer number of days Karen had been there, was amusing.
“Do you want me to come over and take your mind off of the delay?” he asked.
Luna’s heavy sigh was practically felt over the phone. “No. I’m fine.” Her voice sounded muffled.
“Where are you right now?” he asked.
“In the backyard. Today was such a beautiful day. Not too cold, the sun was shining. I’m looking out over the lake.”
He imagined her holding the phone to her ear, her head leaning to one side with a quiet smile on her face. That was the view he wanted. “I seem to only be there when it’s dark, snowing, or raining. I don’t think I’ve really taken in the view.”
“You will.”
Nate leaned into her promise.
“Where do you want to go in celebration?” he asked.
“Of finishing the case?” she asked.
“I was thinking more about having your house back to yourself, but sure. We can call it a closed file celebration.”
“A furniture store.”
Nate started laughing. “A what?”
“I’m painting and redecorating the room my mom was in.”
“I was picturing soft candlelight with epic views. But if you’re looking forward to the meatballs at the IKEA cafeteria . . .”
There it was . . . the laugh he wanted to hear more every day.
“Those are pretty good,” Luna uttered.
“But hardly a celebratory meal,” Nate expressed. “Okay . . . furniture store and food. I can come up with something.” An idea already started to form.
“Guess who made a visit yesterday,” Luna said.
“Considering the number of people that we both know is less than ten, I don’t have a clue.”
“Ethel.”
It took Nate a second for the name to register.
“We . . . you’ve officially given her the name?”
“Had to,” Luna exclaimed. “Asking Ethel if she’s the one flipping the lights on and off keeps me from freaking out.”
Just hearing about it ran chills up his spine. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday. I was in the attic, quite literally cleaning up the mess my mother made up there. I came across some photographs that were better off in the trash when Ethel started her light show.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t a coincidence?” he asked.
“No. But considering none of the digital clocks in the house were flashing and in need of being reset, I have to think the attic lights were isolated.”
“A bulb burning out?”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Sarcasm laced her words. “All bulbs that are dying like to do so with company. The light in the stairway must have been talking to the bulbs hanging from the rafters.”
“I get it.”
“The lights did pull me out of my memory lane funk.”
“That’s good.”
Nate could tell by the noise behind Luna’s voice that she was walking. “I’m trying to keep in mind what Jorden said about Ethel being a good thing.”
“The medium?”
“The woman who doesn’t want to be a medium. The woman who doesn’t fully believe she’s a psychic. Things I didn’t put much weight into until we met her. She predicted my mom coming and turning my life upside down. Not by name, but close enough.”
“Is your life upside down? I know your mother’s a lot, but . . .”
“Sometimes it feels like it is. She’s certainly opened old wounds that I thought were healed.”
Nate leaned his head back on his sofa and stared at the ceiling. “Wounds can’t heal if someone is still dripping poison into them.” And if there was one thing he’d noticed from the Canning family dynamics, Karen had a vial of poison in her hand, or more accurately, on her tongue, at all times.
“That’s so true.”
Nate sighed. “She’ll be gone soon, hon. Then we’ll go to Legoland for furniture and put this behind you.”
He heard a door close and Luna laugh.
“I’ll call you tomorrow and hopefully be able to plan that date,” she said.
“Okay . . . try and get some sleep.”
“I will. Good night.”
Nate looked at his phone.
His home screen was a picture he’d taken of a sunset somewhere in middle America on his drive to Washington state from DC.
He needed a picture of Luna.
Luna holding her black cat and talking about ghosts.
No one could have ever convinced him that this would be his life.
Yet here he was . . .
Nate pulled up the images that had been shared between Clarissa and Tony on their trip to Leavenworth.
One captured Luna waving a finger puppet of a shark in his face.
Tony and Clarissa had started singing “Baby Shark.” The earworm didn’t go away until they drove home.
Nate set the picture as his wallpaper and lock screen and then put his phone aside.
He needed to come up with something much better than IKEA and meatballs.
Luna deserved more than that.