Somebody's Darling

Chapter 19

Jesse wandered around, reluctantly looking for Joel. Part of him hoped he wouldn’t find him so he could keep his appointment with Lucy to himself. Guilt took over, and he knew he couldn’t leave Joel out. He knew Joel missed Lucy, but he didn’t care much about that. Lucy wanted to meet with them both, and God knows she didn’t ask for much. He owed it to her to honor her request.

Joel hung out at Devil’s Den a lot, and Jesse hoped he wouldn’t have to hunt him down there. He finally ran into him along a quiet stretch of Confederate Avenue. Joel shot him his usual look of annoyance mixed with disgust.

“I talked to her,” Jesse said.

“You did?” Joel asked, his eyes lighting up.

“Yeah. She was really scared at first. I tried to see her at the tavern and she looked upset, so I figured I best leave her alone.”

Joel nodded.

“Then she went looking for us.”

“No way!” Joel said. He looked happy, almost childlike. Jesse felt a twinge of guilt for thinking of leaving Joel out. God knows he understood the crushing loneliness of being a spirit.

“Yeah. She walked to the battlefields and then to the cemetery. Joel, she went right up to my grave. She knew it was mine. She knew it was me!”

“Damn. She really is sensitive. That’s incredible!”

“I know. She wants to see us again. She wants to talk to us—you know, ask us about everything.”

Relief washed over Joel’s face. “That’s wonderful. I’d love to talk to her again.”

“Yeah. It was so good to see her. I talked to her a little at my gravesite.”

Joel’s eyes opened wide. “Wow. She’s come a long way already.”

Jesse laughed. “I know. But we still gotta be careful, be gentle with her. She’s still scared. I tried to keep my distance a bit—you know, ease her into it. She said she wants to talk to both of us, but having two ghosts with her might be overwhelming.”

Joel nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. “

“We’re supposed to meet at the Gettysburg College gazebo, nine o’clock tomorrow mornin’. The one outside the athletic building.”

“Okay,” Joel said. “Okay! Sounds good!”

Joel looked so excited that it was hard for Jesse to hate him.

* * *

Lucy sat nervouslyin the gazebo, waiting for Joel and Jesse to meet her. Though she was much calmer about ghosts than she’d ever been before, she was still frightened.

A shot of adrenaline exploded in her body as she saw the two soldiers walking toward her in the distance. She thought she was ready, but her instinct was to run. Lucy drew in a breath, trying to steady her nerves. She knew they wouldn’t hurt her, couldn’t hurt her, but the idea that she was meeting with two dead people was a little creepy.

Lucy felt dizzy when Joel and Jesse got close enough to make eye contact with her. Fear gripped her until she looked into Jesse’s eyes. He smiled at her, and she remembered how comfortable she’d been talking to him yesterday.

“I told ya,” Jesse said to Joel. “The lovely rose of Texas has returned.”

Joel shot him an annoyed look. Lucy was struck by how familiar their exchange was. They were still the same two men she used to talk with before she knew the truth, and the familiarity of their arguing was comforting.

Standing outside the gazebo, Joel turned his attention to Lucy. “You okay, sweetheart?” he asked.

Lucy nodded, touched by his concern. “Yes. I’m fine,” she said in a small voice.

Jesse entered the gazebo and sat down, choosing a seat a little distance away from her.

Joel hesitated at the door. “Is it okay if I come in with you?”

Lucy smiled, and her shoulders relaxed a little. She felt a little silly being afraid, but was grateful for his tentative approach. “Of course.”

Joel quietly entered and took a seat across from Jesse and an equal distance away from Lucy.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said to Jesse. “I know I completely overreacted when, you know, that night at the tavern. I was just…so scared.” Her voice shook a little.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Joel told her. “It was completely our fault.” He shot a look at Jesse, making it clear that he blamed the Rebel for what happened.

“Yes, it is,” Jesse agreed, looking at Lucy and ignoring Joel. “I’m so terribly sorry I scared you. I don’t blame you one bit for swoonin’. You scared the heck outta me when you fell, I don’t mind tellin’ you.”

“Me, too,” Joel said.

Lucy looked at him curiously, and he looked guilty. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I was there that night, too. But, you know, you couldn’t see me.”

“Really?” Lucy asked, more curious than afraid. “Where were you?”

“I was there in the room. Yelling at Jesse the whole time you were talking to him,” Joel said, smirking.

“So you can be invisible?”

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Ghosts can always see other ghosts, but we can be invisible to the livin’ when we wanna be. I was invisible to you after you fainted. I stayed right by you the whole time, though. When you hit your head, I was so afraid you were hurt.”

Both men looked guilty and sad, and Lucy felt the last remnants of her fear fade away.

“We both stayed with you to make sure you were okay,” Joel said. “Jesse was able to get help for you. He managed to knock over the tray next to you, and that’s when Craig came and found you.”

Lucy’s eyes grew wide. “You can touch things? But I thought—”

“Well, sometimes we can touch things. If you concentrate real, real hard,” Jesse told her. “I just got all my strength together, and all I could manage was one quick shove. But it worked. Thank God.”

“Thank you, Jesse.”

“No need to thank me, ma’am. I’m the one responsible for you gettin’ hurt in the first place. I’m real sorry about that.” He lowered his head, and she could no longer see his face under his hat.

“It’s all right,” Lucy said. She thought about what they’d just told her. “It’s so odd to think you could be there without me knowing. Have you guys ever done it before?”

Joel sent a pointed look at Jesse. Lucy gasped, horrified.

“You have, haven’t you?” she cried. “You’ve watched me without me knowing!” She hugged her arms around herself like she always did when she was feeling self-conscious or, in this case, violated.

“Yes. I won’t lie to you, Lucy,” Jesse admitted, wincing a bit. “We have watched you before.”

“How could you do that? Why would you do that?” Lucy asked, looking down. She refused to look at them. She couldn’t bear to think of what they might have seen or heard when she was unaware of their presence.

“Lucy, I swear to you. It was only at the restaurant and usually when there were lots of other people around. I never watched you in your private time, like at home or anything. I-I can’t travel that far anyway, and even if I could, I would never do that.”

Lucy tentatively looked up at him. She remembered him saying that he was physically unable to travel outside the town of Gettysburg, and she also knew he was a true gentleman. He would never violate a woman by watching her inappropriately, even if he had the opportunity. But Lucy was still uneasy with the knowledge of having been watched. Especially by him. Lucy looked up at Jesse, her face reddening with anger and embarrassment.

“People act differently when they think no one is around. H-how could you spy on me when I didn’t know?” She had been so careful about how she acted around him. She’d always tried to put on her best face, both with her physical appearance and in the way she acted. Now there was no way she could ever know what he had seen and heard.

“I’m so sorry, Lucy. I remember the first time I laid eyes on you.” Jesse said looking at her tenderly. ”It was a few months ago. There was this group of kids that came to the tavern on a school trip. I was bored, like usual, and I love watching kids, so I followed them inside.”

Looking down, Lucy furrowed her brow. She remembered that day, that large group of kids. Her mind whirled as she tried to remember what she’d said and done while Jesse was there.

“Nobody wanted to deal with all those messy kids, but you did. You walked right up to ’em, smiling all sweet and lookin’ so pretty, and you took care of them. You talked to them about history. You told them the Confederates weren’t necessarily bad guys.”

Lucy finally looked up. “I remember that.”

“That meant so much to me, Lucy. To hear you tell them that the Southern soldiers weren’t bad. We were just tryin’ to protect our homes and our families.”

Lucy felt her shoulders relax a little. As far as she could remember, she hadn’t done anything foolish to be ashamed of that day. Thank God.

“You’re gonna make a wunnerful teacher, Lucy,” Jesse told her. Lucy looked a bit unsettled that he knew so much about her, so he added, “You told the kids’ teacher about being at Gettysburg College studyin’ to be a teacher yourself.”

Lucy let out a small sigh. She felt slightly better.

“I’m so sorry I upset you, Lucy. I promise you that most of the times I saw you, there were lots of other people around.”

“And the other times?” Lucy asked, feeling her anger rise again.

“Sometimes I’d come look after you late at night. When I knew you were scared, closin’ up the restaurant by yourself.” Jesse laughed. “You know, when you were afraid there might be ghosts nearby.”

Even Lucy chuckled at the irony. She glanced over at Joel.

“It was only a couple of times for me,” Joel admitted. “There was one time when I think you had a feeling we were there.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We were there at night when you were closing up. We were yelling at each other, acting like idiots as usual. You stopped what you were doing and looked around, like you knew you were being watched.”

Lucy shivered a bit. “Yeah. I do get that feeling sometimes. Now I know why!”

“We felt really bad,” Joel continued. “So we left so we’d quit scaring you.”

“I already knew how scared you were of ghosts, so I can’t imagine how you felt when you found out about us,” Jesse said sorrowfully. “I felt so bad about that. I was worried ’bout how you’d fare that first night closing up after you found out we were…you know. So I went to check on you.”

“You did?” Lucy asked.

Jesse nodded. “It was terrible. You were cryin’ and terrified and it was all my fault.”

He looked so sad, so concerned, that Lucy”s anger started to fade.

“I figgered, you’d sensed we were there that one time, so mebbe you’d know that I was there again. Watching over you. I hoped you’d sense I was there and feel better. I even sang to you.”

“You did?” Lucy asked incredulously.

“I was hopin’ it would calm you down.”

“Did it work?” she asked.

Jesse shrugged and said quietly, “You stopped cryin’.”

Lucy thought for a moment. “What did you sing to me?”

Jesse grinned and sang with gusto and a little off key, “She’s the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knew!”

Lucy laughed and clapped her hands. “Of course. You know, you’re making it impossible to stay mad at you!”

Jesse shot her that impish grin that made her heart skip a beat.

“I promise you, my beautiful rose, it was almost always at the restaurant when I watched you. Then sometimes when you were out in public, on the street, I’d catch sight of you. I was sittin’ there on Hancock Avenue when you walked by yesterday. I followed you to the cemetery ’cause I thought you might be lookin’ for us.”

“I was.”

“I know.” Jesse grinned, and Lucy blushed.

“Okay. Thank you for explaining it all to me. I guess I’m glad you were honest,” Lucy said, not sure that it was the truth. She still felt horribly unsettled that they had watched her in secret. “I know the truth about you now. I know…what you are.” She looked at Joel, then at Jesse. Then she said forcefully, “Don’t ever watch me like that again. If you want to talk to me, come see me. And I need to be able to see you. Got it?”

“Deal. I promise,” Joel said. “No more stalking you.”

Lucy looked at Jesse.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Jesse said, making a cross over his heart. Lucy looked irritated, and not amused. Jesse nodded solemnly and said, “I promise, Lucy. I swear. I’ll never do it again. And I’m so sorry that I upset you. I never meant to hurt you, darlin’”

“We’re sorry to put you through all this, sweetheart. Truly. We were trying to figure out how to tell you about us,” Joel said. “We hadn’t planned on hanging around with you so much. I figured we’d ask you to choose, you’d pick me, and it’d be over and done with!” He puffed out his chest and displayed his manliness.

Lucy laughed, and Joel smiled back.

“We never counted on getting so attached to you,” Joel said warmly. “As you might imagine, we don’t have too many people to talk to in our situation.”

“No, I guess you don’t,” Lucy said with sympathy. “You must be very lonely.” Joel and Jesse nodded. “So, spirits can be invisible,” she said, her mind spinning with the implications of that. “There must be ghosts everywhere around here. Does that mean they’re wandering around all the time even when we can’t see them?”

Joel and Jesse exchanged a look.

“Well, kinda,” Jesse began carefully. “There are a fair amount of ghosts around—lots of soldiers in this area, of course, because so many of us died here.”

Lucy swallowed and nodded. The thought of thousands of dead soldiers wandering around scared her, even if she was no longer afraid of the two she was talking to now.

“It’s not as creepy as it sounds, Lucy. Really. I know you’re probably picturing something out of The Walking Dead.”

Lucy looked at him, surprised. “How do you know about The Walking Dead?”

“Days Inn,” both soldiers answered.

“We watch TV over there sometimes,” Jesse explained.

“You do?” Lucy asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Joel said. “We get bored so we go over there and watch TV if people have it on. I especially love Real Housewives.”

“So you just go sit with people when they don’t know you’re there?” Lucy asked, looking uncomfortable with the idea.

“Yeah, we do. But it’s not like we watch people in the shower or anything,” Jesse said.

“Right,” Joel said. “I can’t promise you that no ghosts ever do that, but we don’t.”

Lucy still didn’t look thrilled with what they were telling her.

“There are a lot of spirits around here,” Joel told her, “but they won’t hurt you.”

“Truth is, most ghosts don’t bother much with the living. Most of them kind of keep to themselves. They have their own problems to deal with,” Jesse told her.

“Like what?” Lucy asked.

“Dealing with the past, mostly,” Jesse said sorrowfully.

Lucy looked at him with concern, wondering what had happened to him.

“Is that why you’re still here? You have…things you have to deal with?” Lucy asked.

“Yes,” Jesse told her with a sad smile. “We all do. Otherwise, we would have crossed over.”

“You mean, you’re waiting to cross over to heaven?” Lucy asked.

“Yes,” Joel told her. “We’ve seen it happen to others.”

“You have?” Lucy asked, her eyes growing huge. “How? What did you see? How does it happen?”

Lucy was clearly fascinated by this discussion, and Jesse wanted to be the one explaining it all to her. Joel opened his mouth to talk, but Jesse cut him off.

“It’s amazing, Lucy.” Jesse smiled when Lucy turned her rapt attention to him, hanging on his every word. “It’s like this big, brilliant light shinin’ all over. And you know, the person goin’ just looks so happy. We usually get a feelin’ when somebody’s gettin’ ready to go home. They just seem more peaceful. Then you see this bright, white light and then, well, I wish I could explain what the person looks like. It’s like…I dunno, peaceful is the only word I can come up with, but it’s more than that. You just look at the guy and you know he’s going home to all his loved ones and with God and…he’s jus’…he’s finally going where he belongs.”

“So there really is a God…a heaven,” Lucy said with wonder. “What about…I mean, is there a…”

“Hell?” Joel asked. “I don’t know. If there is, we’ve never seen anybody go there.”

“Hell is here,” Jesse added. “Life can be hell. Death can be hell. Being just a spirit is hell. Well, it was until I met you.”

Lucy rewarded Jesse’s kindness with a smile. “Well, I’m glad I can help.” She wondered if there was anything else she could do. What if she was able to help them cross over? She wanted to know what had happened in their pasts to keep them stranded here, but it seemed such a personal thing to ask.

“What do you need to do to cross over?”

“Hard to say,” Jesse said wearily. “If we knew, I suppose we’d have done it by now.”

“It seems to have to do with accepting yourself somehow. Accepting your past. Forgiving yourself,” Joel said. He spoke with an even heavier sense of weariness than Jesse had. Both Joel and Jesse seemed so kind, so good, it was hard for Lucy to imagine what they could have possibly done that was so horrible that they’d been unable to forgive themselves. They might have done things in the heat of battle that they’d never have done in their ordinary lives.

It was hard for Lucy to imagine either of them killing anyone, but she had little doubt that they had. They’d died in the war and must have been forced to kill others. The thought was sad instead of frightening.

“Joel,” Lucy said, turning toward him. “You said you were a widower. Do you mind if I ask what happened?” She was a little apprehensive about asking him such a personal question, and she watched him carefully for his reaction.

“Not at all.” Joel said. “I wasn’t exactly a widower. I just said that because you didn’t know I was dead. Truth is, she was alive when I went off to war. But, you know, she’s long gone by now.”

“Did you have children?”

Joel grinned proudly. “Yes, I sure did. Two little boys. David and Mathew. It’s been so long, but I still remember those faces. Their little voices.”

“You’ll see them again when you cross over,” Lucy said softly.

“I suppose,” Joel said, sounding tired. “I guess it will happen eventually, but it feels like I’ve been stuck here for an eternity.”

“What was your wife like?” Lucy asked.

Joel turned to her with a look of surprise on his face. At first, she was afraid she might have upset him. Then he smiled at her thoughtfully.

“Nobody’s asked me that in a really long time. I think everyone’s sick of me talking about her.” He paused for a moment, thinking of how to describe the love of his life to someone who’d never known her. “She was the boss’s daughter. Emma. Her name was Emma.”

“I worked in a shoemaker’s shop, and one day in comes this gorgeous woman with long, blond hair. She didn’t like to wear her hair up like most women did back in the day. She was rebellious that way.”

“She was so beautiful and had this killer smile. I was completely smitten with her right away. Then I found out who she was, and I was like, Oh no. She’s Mr. Arlow’s daughter!”

Lucy laughed again. “Was Dad upset when he found out how you felt about his little girl?”

“No! That’s the thing! He was like, ‘What took you so long, boy?’ when I finally asked about her.” He paused again, lost in thought for a moment. “Emma was very sweet. She had a huge heart, just like you, Lucy.”

Lucy was honored to be compared to this woman who was obviously Joel’s whole world.

“But she was also brazen, bold, outspoken.”

“Not like me,” Lucy said.

“Right. She was beautiful in a different way than you’re beautiful, sweetheart.”

“You’re very kind, Joel,” Lucy said with her usual bashfulness. She turned to Jesse. She wanted to know about his past, but she knew it would hurt if she found out that he’d had a wonderful wife, too. Even if she was long gone, Lucy knew it was going to be hard to hear Jesse talk about a woman he loved. “What about you, Jesse?”

“Welp! Back in the war days, when we came ’cross some poor dead soldier, we’d say ‘there’s somebody’s darling.’” Jesse chuckled. “I was nobody’s darling.”

Lucy was relieved that she didn’t have to hear stories about the love of Jesse Spenser’s life, then immediately felt guilty. Jesse had died with nobody waiting at home for him and no one to write letters about how much she missed him while he was away. She felt ashamed that she was happy to hear that Jesse hadn’t been married.

“I didn’t have a sweetheart back home waiting for me,” Jesse continued.

“Well, there’s a surprise,” Joel said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Lucy shot Joel a look of annoyance. Poor Jesse. She thought.

“Well, you must have had some family back home in Texas.”

“Yeah. My mother and father lived on the farm. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters,” Jesse said with a touch of sorrow. “I can’t even imagine what it was like for my mother to get the news that I was killed in battle.”

“You were her baby,” Lucy said with great compassion.

Jesse nodded sorrowfully. “I signed up to fight because I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought I was protectin’ my family, but I can’t help but think it must have ruined my mother’s life. Father, too.”

Lucy didn’t know what to say to that. She wondered if Jesse’s regrets about going to war were part of the reason he hadn’t crossed over.

“I don’t even want to think about what it was like for Emma to get the news. To think of how she had to explain it to the kids,” Joel said, looking devastated. His pain was so raw, even after all these years. “God, we’re depressing company. I’m sorry, Lucy.”

“Me, too,” Jesse said. “Enough about us. Tell us about you! What do you plan on teaching when you graduate?”

“I think I want to teach elementary school, or maybe junior high school. You know, that age group where you still have a chance to get kids excited about learning. I want to make learning fun for them, you know what I mean? History is so fascinating. It doesn’t have to be just memorizing boring facts. It’s about people and stories and adventure, and even heartbreak,” Lucy said, looking at both soldiers. She spoke quickly, animatedly. “If we can learn from the past, we can make the future better! I want to help the kids understand the history of our country, of our world, you know? I want them to be interested, involved, you know what I mean?”

Both men stared at her, and she suddenly felt extremely self-conscious. “What?” Lucy asked, hugging her arms around herself.

Jesse smiled at her. “You’re even more beautiful when you get all excited and talk about your dreams.”

Lucy looked at him like she wasn’t sure she believed him. She turned to Joel, who nodded, indicating he’d been thinking the same thing.

“Jesse’s right,” Joel said. “For once. You’re going to make a wonderful teacher.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said, genuinely touched.

“She will be an amazin’ schoolteacher, but I don’t know how well I’d be able to concentrate on the lesson if she were my teacher,” Jesse said, grinning.

“That’s a good point,” Joel said, chuckling.

Lucy just waved them off. She was quiet for a moment, thoughtful.

“What’re you thinkin’ about, darlin’?” Jesse asked.

“You guys. I was just wondering…what do you do all day? When you’re not spying on unsuspecting women like me,” she said dryly. “Where do you go?”

“Well, we can’t go far, that’s for sure. Like I told ya, we’re pretty much trapped inside the town of Gettysburg,” Jesse told her.

“What happens if you try to leave?” she asked.

“We just kinda disappear,” Jesse said. “Just fade out. Then ya got no choice but to go back.”

“So you just hang around Gettysburg all day and all night? Not being able to touch anything or do anything? That does sound like hell. How do you not lose your mind? You can’t even sleep to escape!” Lucy said, looking horrified.

“Yeah. It’s bad, but it’s not as horrible as it sounds,” Joel told her. “You’re right that we can’t sleep. But what we can do is kind of disappear for a while. In our ghost circles, we call it vanishing. It’s different than turning invisible. If we’re just invisible, the living can’t see us, but we’re still there. Vanishing means we’re not there at all.” Joel wrinkled his nose. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“When you vanish, you’re not conscious,” Jesse added. “You still exist somewhere, but you’re not awake and thinkin’. It’s a lot like sleep, I s’pose. You’re right when you say we’d probably lose our minds if we had to drift around twenty-four hours a day and not be able to do anything. When you vanish, you kinda get a break from existence for a while.”

Lucy nodded, taking in the information. It still seemed fairly awful.

“You can even vanish for years at a time,” Joel said.

“Really?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah, we all vanish on a regular basis,” Jesse told her. “Sometimes several times a day, a week, ya know. So though we’ve been around for over a hundred and fifty years, it doesn’t always feel like it’s been that long.”

“So, can you feel anything?” Lucy asked.

“You mean physically?” Joel asked. Lucy nodded. “Not really. We have all our memories and still feel emotions and everything, but we don’t feel anything physical.”

“So if I tried to touch you, you wouldn’t feel it?” Lucy asked.

Joel shook his head sadly. “No. I wish I could. Do you want to try to touch me?”

Lucy looked a little nervous, but was curious. She’d been so shocked when she first tried to touch Jesse that she didn’t remember much about what it felt like.

“Maybe,” Lucy admitted.

Joel grinned at her. “Give it a try. It’s okay. Don’t be afraid.”

Joel held up his hand, palm out, in front of her so she could try to touch it. He held eye contact with her to reassure her, to make sure she wasn’t scared. “It’ll feel very cold,” Joel gently warned her.

Lucy nodded and took a deep breath. She held up her right hand and placed it against Joel’s left palm. She jumped a bit when her hand went through his.

Joel laughed softly. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

Lucy pushed her hand all the way through and felt a cold chill run up her arm. Then she dropped her hand back into her lap and smiled.

“I did it!”

Joel laughed again. “You sure did! Good job. You’ve come a long way.”

“I’m proud of you, Lucy,” Jesse said. He looked annoyed, maybe even a little jealous.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him. She felt like she had accomplished something huge. If anyone had told her that someday she would willingly reach out and touch a ghost, she never would have believed it.

Lucy pulled out her cell phone from her purse and glanced at the time. “Well, I better get going. I have to get to work.”

When she looked up, she saw that both Joel and Jesse looked disappointed. She felt guilty, but she had no choice but to leave.

“You can’t go yet,” Jesse told her. “You still haven’t chosen a winner.”

Lucy chuckled, having nearly forgotten about the bet. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Come on, darlin’. Sooner or later you’re gonna have to acknowledge the corn.”

Lucy giggled like she always did when Jesse used 1860s phrases.

“Are you planning on eating lunch outside tomorrow?” Jesse asked hopefully.

“I think that can be arranged.” Both men grinned at her. Though Lucy felt sad for them and their current situation, it felt nice to be needed. Now she understood how much her companionship meant to them. They had no one else, at least no one else alive, to talk to.

“Hunkey dorey!” Jesse said with enthusiasm. Joel rolled his eyes, but Lucy giggled again.

“See you guys soon,” Lucy said. She gathered her purse and cell phone and then stepped out of the gazebo. Both soldiers watched her walk away.

Joel suddenly got up and went after her. He jogged up to her and said quietly, “Lucy.”

“Yeah?” she asked, looking at him with concern.

“I just wanted to thank you for asking me about my family. It meant a lot to me to be able to talk about them again. You have no idea how much.”

Lucy smiled warmly at him. “Well, I’m not done asking. I’d like to hear more tomorrow.” She reached over and put her hand on, or through, his shoulder. “I would give you a hug if I could.”

Joel smiled at her wearily. “I would’ve liked that.”