Chapter 15 #2
The rest of the lights brighten to life.
Morgan grins. She shuts off the burner where our dinner simmers.
“I guess I have a pretty nice afterlife as well as a nice life,” Zach says.
With our electricity and good moods restored, Morgan serves us dinner—“us” meaning the corporeal members of our promising trio.
It’s delicious, especially so for stovetop mac and cheese.
In the years since Kennedy died, I’ve withdrawn from dinner parties, unable to force pleasantries or play grieving widower when I’m not—when my Kennedy is just invisible to everyone else.
Now, though, I suspect I may have missed eating with company.
Zach watches us without jealousy. Kennedy explained to me once that they couldn’t taste or smell. “Do you think you could make a connection with my dad, too?” Zach asks, hopeful.
Morgan pauses over her steaming macaroni. Her mouth twists. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she replies gently. “If he were to see you, then…”
“He’d be like me,” I finish, hearing what she’s really saying.
“Haunted by a loved one. Unable to move on. Forced to eventually say goodbye a second time.” I can’t help the edge in my voice.
Is her reply out of compassion for Zach?
Or pity for poor, wounded me? Pity can come perilously close to judgment.
Morgan hears the undercurrent in my voice. She looks over, finding me frowning at my mac and cheese. “You’re doing the right thing,” she says, trying to comfort me.
Then, why does the right thing hurt so fucking much?
The thought shoots sharply into my head. The pain in my chest is suddenly unbearable. I can’t put on the calm, enduring face. Not now. Not with Morgan telling me how to say goodbye to the woman I love. In a flash, my pain turns to anger.
“How could you possibly know that?” I ask. “You think because we have enough of a connection that I can see Zach, it means you know everything about me?”
The lights hum and churn with Zach’s surprise. Morgan holds my gaze. If my outburst startled her, her poker face is impressive. “I know you’ve tried to hide your grief in this haunted house for years,” she shoots back. “You’re just mad I’ve brought it into the light.”
“Of course I am!” I shout. Everything is rushing out of me now, emotions and confessions I wanted to hide. It’s the problem with stone walls—they can let horrible pressure mount before they crack. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I was happy before,” I fume, pain-choked, heart pounding.
“You weren’t happy, Sawyer. I know you well enough to know that.
” Morgan’s indignation has vanished. She only sounds sad.
“This house is a mausoleum. You can’t live here.
You’re surviving on savings that will run out eventually, and then what?
Forget making pottery for money. What about making it for art?
You used to be an artist. Now, you’re…” She shakes her head.
Suffocating silence fills my haunted house.
“I don’t know,” Morgan finally says. “But you’re not happy.”
I feel suddenly like Kennedy or Zach. I’m not made of stone. I’m transparent. Morgan has stared right through me to my shattered heart.
I hate it. I hate how much I’ve let myself unravel over the past five years.
My work history is nonexistent, my life funded by the savings from several major contracts I landed when Kennedy was still here.
My friends were our friends—when they reached out to help me grieve, I let them.
When they invited me to return to life, I ignored them, until eventually the invitations stopped coming.
I speak to my parents in the platitudes they want to hear.
Everything’s fine. House is coming together.
No dating yet. Everything’s fine, I promise.
Morgan somehow sees everything.
It embarrasses me and enrages me. It’s not my fault my life was destroyed.
It’s not Morgan’s, either, obviously, but sitting here, helplessly lonely, I want to fight whatever stole Kennedy from me. Since I can’t, I’ll settle for fighting with Morgan.
“Oh, so you’re the expert on a perfect life? Come on,” I shoot back. “You’re so afraid of commitment you can’t even buy a full set of plates. You move from city to city before anyone cares about you enough to want you to stay. That’s not living, either. Hell—”
When I gesture to my other houseguest, the kitchen lights surge dangerously.
“—between the three of us, Zach is the most alive,” I say.
Immediately I know I’ve wounded Morgan. Her face closes up like the withered leaves of the dead plants outside. Exuberant, daring Morgan, who marched into my kitchen with her macaroni and cheese like she owned the place.
She feels seen, too. She feels vulnerable, too.
She doesn’t like it, either.
I’m guilty and I’m glad. Glad someone else is suffering with me. Guilty that I’m the cause. I wanted Morgan to understand the pain, yes, but I never, ever wanted to hurt her. Regret’s cold shock consumes me instantly.
It only makes me want to retreat deeper into myself.
Morgan wishes me free of my mausoleum, free to return to the world when Kennedy is gone.
But why should I? What good would I do? This conversation proves I’m too damaged to rejoin the living.
Like one of my own creations, once shattered, my sharp pieces are only capable of injury.
What if there’s not enough gold in the world to make me whole?
I’ve ruined my fragile friendship with Morgan, now. I’ll inevitably drive her away. Maybe then things will go back to the way they were.
Except, when Morgan stands sharply, defiant, I realize I don’t want her to leave.
The back door slams shut behind her, and I flinch.
Zach remains. So does the power in my house. “She’ll forgive you, you know,” he says softly.
I shrug. “I don’t care,” I lie.
Zach shakes his head. “Special connection, remember, dude? You care,” he insists. “And I know more about Morgan than that she snores. She acts selfish, but when people need her, she’s there for them. She shows up.”
While I meet his ghostly gaze, Zach starts fading from visibility.
“You need her,” he says.
Then he disappears, leaving me alone, wishing he wasn’t right.