Chapter Nineteen #4
“Que Sera, Sera” was all over the radio in early 1956, and when it came on, Becky tried to assume its attitude.
But when “Heartbreak Hotel” came on, she felt the rawest, loneliest parts of her oozing out of her pores.
She had, in fact, been heartbroken by what had happened between her and Cal.
She had, in fact, been so lonely she could die—but she didn’t stay that way for long.
She had her practice, which she found gratifying when she wasn’t being asked to help people locate family heirlooms or safety deposit box keys.
Cal was around, if she needed him. And she had Skip, who, even at twelve, needed her every day of his life.
She loved that. It got her out of bed in the morning, kept her blood flowing.
She was more lenient with him since the separation.
As long as he stuck to his curfew and kept his grades up, she let him stay out with his friends in the evening and have them over as much as he wanted.
That included Vincent and Sam, sometimes, and Theo Bach from over in Camden.
Tom, too, though not as often lately. Tom seemed quieter now, withdrawn.
She felt terrible for him. He hadn’t asked for any of this and probably didn’t understand what had happened any more than Skip did.
That the boys didn’t know their two situations were connected seemed so strange to her, though she understood the necessity (and convenience) of it.
She worried about how it would play out down the road, but there was nothing she could do about that now.
Tom didn’t come around for weeks, sometimes.
It was easier, not having him there—but she also had to stop herself from calling the Salt house now and then to check on him—to check on both of them.
Then there was her roommate. The one she’d once worried might burn the house down.
She found Everett’s reading glasses all over the house and brought them to him.
He learned how to work the Electrolux. She filled his hot water bottle when the old bullet wound in his shoulder acted up.
He helped her in the kitchen peeling potatoes, which he was surprisingly good at despite his arthritis, and shucking corn, which he pretended to be better at than he was.
At his recommendation, she read Twin Sombreros, and they discussed the actions taken by the book’s unlucky hero, Brazos Keene.
At her suggestion, he read Death on the Nile.
He hadn’t seen the ending coming, he said.
She asked if he’d enjoyed it. “Not especially,” he said.
“But that Poy-Rot is in the right business.”
—
She was in the parlor late one morning, on the heels of another appointment, when Everett appeared around one of the pocket doors.
“Do you have a moment?” he asked. Wearing the bolo tie she’d bought for him, the tassel-less loafers. His white beard looked combed.
She beckoned him in.
He came just a few steps and stopped. Held his hands over his stomach. “You’ve done so much for me. I’m extremely grateful. And I was wondering if you could—if it were possible…”
“Anything,” she said.
“My ears aren’t as bad as Cal says. The heat vent in my room connects to the one in here, and the voices carry. I know what goes on. I was, to be frank, actually wondering if you might be able to help me reach some people.”
She did her best to hide the surprise in her face. She said yes, of course, and invited him to sit down at the hexagonal table. Even though they were the only people home, she closed the pocket doors. Readied the room and sat down across from him.
He took a moment. “You know I had a wife once,” he said.
“Dora. Right after I got called up, in Cleveland, I had four days before my train, and that’s when we met.
We couldn’t see any reason not to get married.
I liked the idea of it, because if I was going to die, I wanted to be married.
But I didn’t die. I came back, and we had three children.
I couldn’t shake the war, though, and was a wretched husband, a wretched father.
They put up with me. And then we had to bury Robert.
And Grace. And then I had to bury Dora—Cal and me both had to do that, in ’29. ”
He’d never said nearly so much to her about his past. And then he went on: he was seventy-six and probably going to die before too long, so he thought it made sense to find out ahead of time if his family wanted to see him or not.
He didn’t want to look forward to a reunion if there wasn’t going to be one.
The flame of the votive she’d lit danced in his pupils.
She saw with startling immediacy the awful fight she’d had with Cal years ago, when he so adamantly didn’t want to be put in touch with his family—and here his father was asking her to do that very thing.
She blinked away a tear that was blurring her vision.
“I’ll try,” she said. She asked Everett to close his eyes, and she closed hers.
She waited a moment, then mentally said her introductions to the spirit world, and, having asked him for them, the full names and approximate death dates of all the departed (he was able to narrow the dates down to the month) and invited them to come forward.
Nothing.
She cast the invitation again. The void could feel like a canyon some days, and it was like that today. She cast again. And again.
“I’m not getting anything.”
“Not from Robert? Or Grace?”
“No,” she said, frustrated, fervent in her desire to help him.
Was there another option here? “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Nothing from Robert, or Grace.” She heard a rattle in him.
She peeked. His eyes were still closed, his hands now flat on the table.
His fingers, twig-like and shiny, were crossed. She couldn’t bear it. “But Dora—”
“You found her?”
“…I’m sensing her.”
Still peeking, she saw him rock slightly back and forth, as if trying to nudge himself into her words.
“Dora says—” She could do this, couldn’t she? She could adjust the truth for him. “She says of course she’s looking forward to seeing you. She says they all are. Her, and Grace, and Robert.”
“Truly?”
Becky’s mouth was dry. “Truly,” she said. Then added, “She says she hopes it’s not anytime soon, though.”
Everett took in a breath, let it out slowly.
“That sounds like her. I’ll be goddamned—that sounds just like her sense of humor.
Please tell her I’m sorry for being so awful.
” She said she would. His eyes stayed closed for another few moments, his will holding him there.
Then the hold seemed to release, and he looked at her and smiled.
He thanked her as he stood, and thanked her again as she pulled open one of the pocket doors.
“One other thing,” he said before leaving the room. He stopped and looked at her, his eyes—Cal’s eyes—blue-gray, damp, and serious. “I’ve tried not to say anything because it didn’t seem like my place. But now I think I’m wrong. I think I’ve got a place.”
“Okay. And—you do.”
“You and Cal make it so you don’t have to do what I just did. So you don’t have to find out this way.”
It was the kindest, most understated yet understanding piece of advice she could imagine. But she didn’t see how to implement it. She told him she didn’t know if it was possible.
“You’re both still alive,” Everett said. “It’s possible.”
—
She went to blow out the votive but found the wick already smoldering. Relieved the session was over, mortified by her lie, she crossed the room to Ida’s old divan and sat, then lay back as flat as the divan would allow.
“That was beautiful, what you did for him,” Mrs. Dodson said from the chair Everett had just been sitting in.
She’d taken to doing this now and then, when they were alone: forgoing the venue of a dream, showing up in the parlor at will.
She was the only spirit who did such a thing with her, and Becky had given up wondering if it was her own imagination, or if Mrs. Dodson just felt the need to breach the membrane more intimately.
“It wasn’t beautiful,” Becky said. “Not at all.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You know why. I couldn’t find them. But I couldn’t bear telling him that.”
“You couldn’t bear it,” Mrs. Dodson said. “Interesting. I actually think he would have been fine if you told him you got no reply. He would have understood.”
“So I shouldn’t have done it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever lied to someone at my table.”
“Think of it as a one-time occurrence, then. You did that man a world of good.”
“Until he finds out they aren’t waiting for him.”
“Who says they aren’t? You? Just because you couldn’t find them?” Mrs. Dodson waited a moment, then laughed softly and slipped back into the ether.
—
In May of 1956, almost two years into their separation, Cal asked Becky if he could take her out to dinner for her thirty-fifth birthday. She surprised him by saying yes.