Chapter 18
Morgan
The next Friday, I come home from work in high spirits.
Or so to speak. In one sense, I return home in no spirits, since Zach hasn’t interrupted my workdays this week in his usual ways.
I finished my purchase orders quickly, worked out some scheduling issues with minimal client fussiness, and even contributed notes Jason DiCrescenzo called “good garden intuition.” Zach, for his part, has graciously understood I was having a good week and hasn’t interfered.
It’s Sawyer’s doing. With my lifestyle, I’m used to considering my jobs more like stopgap solutions for the unfortunate requirement of earning a living wage. Instead, Sawyer’s offer to let me design his yard to my green thumb’s content reminded me I like what I do.
When I took that inspiration to work, it…helped. I spent the week starting to imagine myself doing well here. Even having my own company, maybe, one day.
Morgan Lane, Los Angeles landscaper. Ha. It still sounds kind of ridiculous to me.
Kind of real, though. Like a dream coming to life. Like something I never imagined possible becoming something I can see.
I’m not putting down roots in Los Angeles, metaphorically, despite doing so literally in Sawyer’s front yard. Not yet. I’m just…less wary of settling into my life here, I guess.
Spring in my step, I climb Sawyer’s porch.
I have decided on the perfect way to celebrate career contentment and existential inspiration—pizza.
I noticed a cool-looking old place on Sunset on my drive home, and I’m feeling ninety-nine percent certain I can convince Sawyer to go in on delivery with me. I knock eagerly on the front door.
The woman who opens it is not Sawyer.
She’s older, with gray streaks in her dark hair. Her loose-fitting sundress combines patchwork swatches of patterned fabric. Her smile forms to the light wrinkles lining her cheeks.
“Hi!” she greets me cheerfully.
“Um,” I say.
When she just smiles, I peer past her.
“Hi. Is, uh, Sawyer here?” I manage.
“He ran to the store to get stuff for dinner. I can pass a message to him when he gets back for you,” she offers.
I guess she’s some relative of his. Clearly it was a surprise drop-in, hence him not mentioning it to me and needing to run to the store for dinner.
His mom, maybe? It’s a quick reminder of how little we really know each other outside of our respective hauntings, despite his kindness in offering me his garden.
“Oh, it’s fine,” I say. “You have a nice night. I’ll just catch him later. I’m his, um, tenant,” I explain, not wanting this woman to be concerned when I hole up in the shed outside instead of leaving the property.
Surprisingly, however, this makes the visitor’s eyes light up.
“You’re Morgan!” she exclaims. “You have to come in and join us for dinner!”
Yes, I’m Morgan—Morgan, who is stunned Sawyer mentioned me to his family. My stomach does this inexplicable happy flip. In my years on the move, I’ve all but forgotten how it feels to be remembered.
“Um. Okay,” I say. “Yeah.” I’m relieved for the dinner invitation, honestly, since pizza with Sawyer is evidently a no-go.
I step into Sawyer’s sitting room, where I find the woman isn’t alone. On the sofa sits a sturdy-looking man—her husband, presumably. Sawyer’s father?
“Joe,” the woman says, “this is Morgan.”
Only when Joe stands do I notice what he has in his hands. It’s one of Sawyer’s framed photographs—one of his engagement photos with Kennedy, who is laughing, luminous, her hand in Sawyer’s.
Joe does not look as warmly welcoming as his wife, which is when I start to have a horrible suspicion.
Cold dread flushes through me right as the front door opens and Sawyer emerges carrying groceries.
He falters in the doorway. “Morgan,” he says.
“Sawyer!” the good-natured woman greets him. “I invited Morgan to join us, if that’s okay with you.”
His eyes find mine. Then hers. His mouth flattens. His narrowed gaze pretty much confirms the situation I’ve stumbled into. “Of course,” he says.
“It’s fine,” I hasten to interject. “I don’t need to intrude.” Honestly, a hot-plate dinner with Zach is sounding pretty good right now.
“You’re not intruding!” the persistent woman replies. “We’re the intruders.” She laughs. “We dropped in on Sawyer to pick up some photos of Kennedy. He’s terrible at returning calls, you know.”
There it is—my fear confirmed. Forget hot-plate dinner. I would prefer dining in Sawyer’s dark garage with spooky, no-memory, horror-movie Zach over having dinner with Kennedy’s parents.
“Goodness, I didn’t introduce myself,” Kennedy’s mother says, looking to me with wide-eyed contrition to match her enthusiastic welcome.
“I’m Irene Raymond. Our son, Kennedy’s brother Jordan, is having a baby, and we wanted to put up some photos of Kennedy through the years at the shower.
Sawyer had one of her old albums. Hence the drop-in. ”
I nod, still not sure what to make of myself in this position.
Sawyer moves into the kitchen, depositing the groceries on the counter. “If you’d just told me you wanted the photos, I would have sent them over,” he reminds them gently.
Joe and Irene pause, exchanging a complicated look.
“We wanted to see you, son,” Joe finally says.
Sawyer stops unloading groceries.
I may not know his parents, may not know his former future in-laws, but I know Sawyer well enough to feel how Joe’s words wreck him. He stares down, looking winded, like the weight of loss has felled him where he stands.
“We’re so glad you’re just too busy for us,” Irene joins in, softer. “Instead of…”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Not with us. Instead of being too grief-stricken to return our calls. Instead of rejecting the reminder of people you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.
I recognize her hesitation. It’s not just reluctance.
No, Irene Raymond is merely speaking around the unspeakable.
The loss of a soulmate or a child—like describing the feeling of Zach’s hand slipping into my shoulder or the quality of sunlight filtering through him or the way he summons pop songs into my head—death extends into a realm past language itself.
Irene composes herself, chasing the worry from her expression. “Never mind that,” she reassures Sawyer. She looks to me. “He told us you were helping him fix up the house finally. And that you’re a real artist with plants.”
I flush, flattered. When I glance at Sawyer, he’s very determinedly preparing pasta in a pot on the stove. I have the sneaking suspicion grief is no longer the reason for his focus.
Well, while Sawyer can hide from my eyes, he can’t change the way he’s made me feel. I’m touched. Him thinking I’m gifted, thinking I’m skillful…it’s not just kind. It’s the way I want to be seen. “I don’t know about artist,” I demur. “Sawyer’s the artist here.”
Irene radiates pride for her nearly son-in-law. “Isn’t his work just incredible?” she says. “Kennedy told us she fell in love with him for his hands,” she adds half conspiratorially.
I laugh. I feel like Kennedy knew exactly what her praise implied. “I can understand that,” I say.
Sawyer, I notice, is blushing furiously.
Joe shifts where he’s seated. His manner is stiff, but not unkind. “How long have you two been together?”
Now Sawyer looks up.
I lock eyes with my roommate-slash-landlord-slash-fellow-hauntee.
Holding my gaze, Sawyer dries his—yes, admirable—hands on a dishcloth and comes to lean in the archway.
“We’re not together,” he says. His voice is patient yet firm in speaking to the parents of the woman death ripped from his life, and instantly I remember why I would have preferred dinner with Zach.
“Morgan is my tenant. I told you,” he says. “She’s helping with the landscaping.”
Kennedy’s parents don’t look convinced.
“You know you don’t have to hide your love life from us, right?” Irene says gently. “Just, if that was a story you constructed so you didn’t have to tell your late fiancée’s parents you have a girlfriend, you could just be honest.”
“No, really,” I interject, for I definitely owe Sawyer my help on this one. “We’re just friends.”
Irene’s expression flickers like I’ve said the wrong thing. I look at Sawyer, unsure. Unsure about any of this—what to say, what he wants me to be in his life. Whatever it is, I really, genuinely do not want to intrude on Kennedy’s lovely family.
“Friends is good,” Joe finally comments. “Sawyer could use more friends.”
Sawyer snorts, and I feel the tension in the room instantly release. “Way to make me sound like a loser, Joe,” Sawyer says.
“I just call it like I see it,” Kennedy’s father replies, cracking a smile.
“Well, when we fix this yard up, Sawyer won’t have his creepy house as his excuse not to have a social life,” I chime in, glancing at Sawyer, wondering if I’m crossing invisible guardrails or if he’ll welcome my joining in. I’m deeply relieved when he looks grateful.
“I’ll have to fall back on my miserable personality, then,” he replies.
I grin. “At least you have good hands, though.”
Sawyer’s warm eyes catch on mine. It’s over the line we’ve carefully maintained—past friendship, into flirtation. Sawyer doesn’t look regretful.
I feel the same way.
In the kitchen’s soft yellow evening hue, with the scent of garlic and tomatoes filling the room, color lights his cheeks. For one fragile, wonderful moment, in the midst of loss and memory, everything is suspended, somehow, in the promise of new connection.
Kennedy’s parents’ smiles soften.
Irene passes me, squeezing my shoulder. “Let me help with that dinner,” she offers to Sawyer.
Sawyer nods, his gaze remaining on me.
We imagine our friends and loved ones in the “afterlife” when they die. What I’m learning in Sawyer’s company is that the rest of us experience our own afterlife. We’re the ones who have passed on into somewhere else, this place without the ones we remember.
In the right company, maybe it doesn’t have to hurt forever.