Chapter 2
Sawyer
When we moved in, I worried the heat radiating off the hillside of Los Angeles’s Silver Lake neighborhood would suffocate us or kill our electricity bill.
Everything else was ideal—the view, the eclectic nearby restaurants, the layout ready for the renovation we’d planned.
Would we hate the heat? I worried, wanting everything to be perfect.
Kennedy only scoffed lovingly. “It is perfect,” my fiancée had promised. “We just don’t know it yet.”
Nowadays, even in summer, our home is always cold. In the past five years, I’ve never once used the air-conditioning.
Honestly, no one ever mentions the perks of living in a haunted house.
Wearing my favorite sweater—the one Kennedy got me on our first ski trip—I strike a match. Carefully, I hold the flickering flame to the tall candles I’ve set out on our dining table. The moment I reach the wick, the flame flutters out.
Patiently, and not entirely surprised, I strike another match. I don’t mind if the evening I’ve planned requires a little persistence. Love often does. Nevertheless, this is admittedly one of the downsides of haunted homeownership.
“You all right in there?” she calls from the living room.
I light my next match. The flame holds steady. I gently move the fire to the wicks, lighting one candle, then the next.
My success is short-lived. Without warning, the candles suddenly extinguish.
Undaunted, I pull out the next match. “All good! You know how drafty this house is,” I reply.
“You know it’s not a draft.”
Hearing the undercurrent in Kennedy’s voice, I hesitate, unlit match in hand. Yes, of course I know. I just don’t want to have the conversation I know is coming.
She walks into the room, and I diligently renew my efforts. The flame steadies when I strike the match…the first candle…the second.
When I meet her eyes, I fight the familiar hollow clench in my chest. Kennedy’s unhappiness distresses me but doesn’t dim her beauty. Her long elegant cheekbones, her sensitive deep-brown eyes. Forget heaven-sent. Kennedy Raymond looks heaven-sculpted.
Unfortunately, she also looks disappointed.
“Of course it’s drafty,” I insist. “I need to patch that drywall and replace the back door. It’s so close to being done, though,” I say to her, fighting to remind her of the enthusiasm she once felt for the renovation. It feels a little like striking matches that won’t light.
When Kennedy’s eyes slip from mine, it’s as if those phantom gusts have dashed my efforts. She gazes out the front window.
I know what she sees. Not the work we’ve done or the dream we shared when we bought this place.
Though perfectly located, the two-bedroom was a total fixer-upper.
Which was the plan. With Kennedy’s design experience, we would overhaul the house into our forever home.
We’ve made so much progress, even if unfinished patches of drywall, exposed outlets here or there, the unpainted interior of the guesthouse, and other details exist as lingering reminders of how recent events have somewhat stalled us.
No, what Kennedy sees is the front yard. The vines climbing on the rotting fence have overstayed their welcome. The weeds carpet the ground in high grasses of overgrown California green. It’s the most unfinished part of our home.
“We’ll get to it,” I reassure her.
Kennedy blinks. Her keen gaze returns to me. “Get to what?”
“The yard,” I say, feeling guilty. I’ve put off the project, which honestly intimidates me.
Kennedy’s expression doesn’t change. Her eyes return to the window. “Okay,” she says.
My stomach sinks. She looks…wistful. Restless. Dissatisfied, a frightened voice says in my head.
I wish I could blame the unwelcome whisper on the supernatural. It’s no ghost, though. It’s something much scarier—the truth.
I’m desperate to make Kennedy happy. To…keep her here. With me. Especially tonight. She’s absent more often. Like she can’t stand to be here. I don’t ask her where she goes. I’m afraid of the answer.
“So…” I start, moving toward the candlelit table.
Kennedy looks back. When her eyes focus on mine, it’s like she’s just remembered I’m here. “I got something for you,” she says. She gestures to the credenza in the living room.
I remember when we found the piece out on the curb in Mid-Wilshire’s residential neighborhood. Kennedy prefers old music, but when we found the handsome mid-century modern piece, she was so excited she cranked the radio up and sang P!nk the whole way home.
Under the mirror we hung together when we moved in, I notice a folded piece of paper on the credenza.
I smile. We used to exchange cards every anniversary.
We started when we were in art school, where we met, Kennedy for design and me for pottery.
Kennedy would rarely use her considerable drawing skills except on those occasions.
We haven’t recently, and light leaps into my heart finding she’s restarted the custom.
Except when I unfold what she’s left on the credenza, no drawing awaits. Only unfamiliar words.
Support and Resource Group for the Haunted
My excitement extinguishes. Kennedy has printed out a social media post publicizing the group, which meets in nearby Atwater Village. I drop the paper onto the credenza.
“We can’t keep ignoring this,” Kennedy insists. Her voice strains.
“I’m not ignoring it,” I reply.
The candles whoosh out on the table.
“I just don’t think it’s a problem,” I continue.
“How can you say that?”
The sadness in her voice pulls my gaze from the flyer. Kennedy sounds desperate. Broken. It breaks me more every time we have this discussion. I don’t want her to hurt. I only want her to be happy.
I just don’t know what else to do.
“Can’t we just enjoy today?” I implore her.
I reach urgently for the matchbox on the dining table.
“I don’t care if I have to light these candles a hundred times. You’re worth it,” I say.
The candles endure. Kennedy’s smile offers the same warmth their flames do—none.
Her heart isn’t in it. I know what my fiancée looks like when she smiles for real.
I remember from the day I proposed to her.
The day we got the keys to this house. The day she sledgehammered through the wall to expand the living room.
She looked like nothing in the world could steal her joy.
“This isn’t working, Sawyer,” she says somberly. “I…I know you feel the same even if you can’t admit it.”
“I don’t,” I insist, stubborn. I don’t need support groups or interventions. I just need her.
“Please,” Kennedy implores. “Really look at your life.”
“I have. All I want is for you to be happy.” I move closer to her. “Please. That’s…everything to me. Nothing else matters.”
I reach for her hand. She steps back.
“I think going”—she nods to the folded flyer—“would help us both.”
“They won’t be able to help. You know that.
” The chill in the house drops several degrees, making me shiver in my sweater.
I never knew wind chimes could ring ominously.
I don’t care—I’m getting angry now. I don’t want to fight with Kennedy on our anniversary, but I do need her to understand me.
“There’s no changing this. I like our life, our home.
I guess what you’re telling me is you don’t. ”
Kennedy is opening her mouth when the doorbell rings.
“Dinner,” I preempt her. “Hold on.”
I head quickly through the living room, calming my pounding heart—not easy when I pass the wall in our entryway where we planned to hang our wedding photos. Only the framed invitation hangs there now, promising Kennedy Raymond and Sawyer Wilson would be wed.
The whole house is this way. Every room looks right, renovated minus a few finishing touches, lovingly rendered in geometric white with wood furniture and indulgent flourishes—“Mid-century modern meets minimalist boho,” Kennedy would enthuse, her eyes dancing like she loved the sound of the words themselves.
But everywhere, longing haunts our halls.
On the porch, I find the delivery guy clad in the usual uniform of our longtime go-to neighborhood-institution pizza place fifteen minutes down the hillside on that wonderful winding stretch of Sunset Boulevard nestled with tattoo parlors and independent bakeries, where Kennedy and I had our first date.
The delivery guy is looking nervously over his shoulder. I understand. Nighttime leaves the overgrown garden downright spooky. Ironic when the front yard, I’ve noticed, is the least haunted part of our home.
He startles when I open the door, probably expecting a knife-wielding serial killer to live here. He hastens to hand over the flat white boxes holding our margherita and Sunset Special pies, the same combo Kennedy and I have ordered forever.
“It’s a fixer-upper,” I say grumpily. “My fiancée is a house flipper. We’ve just hit some unexpected roadblocks.”
He nods while I sign the receipt. “Do house flippers also handle exorcisms? ’Cause this place looks mad haunted.”
I return the pen, smiling humorlessly. First Kennedy’s flyer, now judgmental pizza delivery? Everyone’s a critic or comedian of my relationship with the paranormal.
I close the door, dinner in hand. Sighing, I release my frustration. I just want to lay this fight to rest.
When I reenter the dining room, however, Kennedy looks somehow more unhappy. I persevere. “Happy anniversary, baby. Nine years ago today, my life changed forever. I’m the luckiest man in the whole world.”
Kennedy finally moves forward, closer to me. I’m convinced she’s forgiven me, she understands—
Until she steps right through me.
The cold rush shakes me. Kennedy knew it would. Fighting for composure, I turn, finding her watching me from the living room.
“No. You’re not lucky,” she says. “Neither of us are. We don’t have an anniversary, Sawyer. We haven’t in five years.”
Then Kennedy—Kennedy Claire Raymond, my fiancée, who died five years ago on November 5 from undiagnosed heart conditions—walks through the wall. She vanishes somewhere on the other side.
She’ll be back, I console myself. She’ll be back.
My Kennedy. My fiancée. My ghost.
She’ll be back. It’s one of the perks of living in a haunted house. The rest of the world said goodbye to Kennedy Raymond. I haven’t.
Still…I can’t ignore how miserable she looked. How empty. How haunted.
Despite myself, I leave pizza for one on the candlelit table. I return to the credenza, no longer hungry, where I pick up the paper my dead fiancée left for me.