Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“When was the last time you guys all got together?” Nate asked.
A chorus of “Nana’s funeral” came from all ends of the table.
Luna smiled. “Almost five years.”
“Feels like a lifetime ago,” Harper said.
“It was,” Miley added.
Karen leaned forward and tapped one finger on the table. “Do you know what is missing in this house?”
“Yeah . . . Nana,” Harper said.
“That, too. But no.” Karen looked between her children. “Babies. When am I going to get my grandbabies?”
Harper barked out a laugh. “Don’t look at me,” she said. “Jerry and I decided a long time ago that wasn’t for us.”
“I don’t know how you can say that. You’d make beautiful babies.”
“You’re going to have to get that from someone else,” Jerry said.
Everyone looked at Ash. He lifted his glass, talked over the rim. “I had a vasectomy.”
“Excuse me?” Karen asked.
“Seriously?” Nate asked.
None of this was news to Luna. She and Ash had talked about it several years back, although he hadn’t told her when he actually did it.
Luna and Harper exchanged glances.
“I’m not into surprises. No accidental kids on my watch,” Ash insisted.
“What if one day you want one?” Nate asked.
“I’ll have it reversed.”
Even if it wasn’t that easy, Luna respected her brother’s decisive action. The Canning children had all been oopsies, something that had been pointed out to them often.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Karen said. “You never said anything about not having kids.”
“That is probably the most responsible thing I’ve ever known you to do,” Miley told him.
Ash smiled at Miley. “Becoming a cop was pretty responsible.”
She shrugged. “And now you risk getting shot at for a living. I don’t know if that qualifies as responsible.”
“Nurses, especially ones that work in the emergency room, are assaulted more than cops ever are.” Ash glared at Miley.
“Is that true?” Harper asked.
“Statistically, yes,” Luna told her sister. “Dementia patients, crazy ones. Those on drugs. Families that can’t control their grief. The list goes on.”
“Have you ever been hurt?” Nate asked Miley.
Luna knew the answer but waited for Miley to say something.
“Nothing serious,” she said.
“I rest my case,” Ash said.
“I guess that leaves the two of you.” Karen stared across the table at Luna and Nate.
“Jesus, Mom. They just started dating.” Harper voiced her outrage for both of them.
Nate squeezed Luna’s hand under the table.
Her heart rate rose. “I told you a long time ago that I’m never getting married again. And I’m certainly not going to have kids alone,” Luna told her with a calm that was quickly going away.
“What’s the point of you two dating if the endgame isn’t marriage and kids?” Karen stared at her.
Luna glanced at Nate. “Are you trying to make me uncomfortable?” she asked, turning her glare onto her mother.
Karen lifted her nearly empty drink and waved it in the air. “I don’t understand. I know you’re a feminist but—”
“Mom!” Ash interrupted.
“What do you think?” Karen asked Nate.
“I think it’s a little early for discussions about marriage and kids,” Nate said.
“Knock it off, Mom,” Ash told her.
Luna glanced up at Nate and hoped the apology in her eyes translated to him.
“Okay fine.” Karen picked up her drink and focused her glossy eyes on Nate. “None of them want to have babies because they think I was a shitty mom. I wasn’t perfect, but I always put a roof over their heads, and nobody starved.”
“If it wasn’t for Nana, you couldn’t say that.” The words were out of Luna’s mouth before she could pull them back in.
Tension so thick you could slice it with a knife fell over the table.
“That’s not fair,” Karen said.
“What isn’t fair is for you to put Nate on the spot two hours after you’ve met him. In my home, at my table.”
“This was my home long before it was yours,” Karen shouted.
Heat built and threatened to explode inside Luna’s veins. She scooted her chair back and stood. “Can someone please remind our mother what Nana wrote in her will.”
Without another word, she walked out of the room.
Halfway up the stairs, she realized Nate was following her.
She walked into her bedroom and waited until Nate was beside her before closing the door.
“I’m so sorry.”
Nate pulled her into his arms. “Don’t be. You warned me.”
“She was a shitty mom,” Luna said into his shoulder. “Still is. I’m a different person when she’s around. I don’t recognize myself.”
Nate pulled her closer. “I noticed.”
She half hoped he hadn’t. Then she realized how like her mother that reaction was. Luna wasn’t quite calling herself a name and waiting for validation, but it was too close to her mother’s behavior for comfort. “Never stop doing that,” she told Nate.
“What?”
“Being honest. Call me out on my own shit, okay?”
“I can do that,” Nate said.
She sighed. “I don’t like how I talk to her. I don’t like how I judge her. I don’t like how I complain about her. I don’t like that I can tell when something crappy is going to come out of her mouth. I can’t stand the fact that I know the second she starts lying.”
“You’re talking about her lost job story,” Nate said.
“You caught that?”
“I think the only people at the table that bought it were your sister and Jerry. The dismissive laugh . . . the lack of eye contact with anyone . . . the way she didn’t answer the question. It was classic.”
“You see it, then. I’m not going nuts.”
Nate smiled. “You’re not crazy. Even when she was suggesting she was a crappy mom she was lying. At least to herself.”
Luna leaned on his shoulder. “This wouldn’t be so hard if I knew she was leaving in a week.”
“Tell her she needs to go.”
Wouldn’t that be simple. “Easier said,” was Luna’s reply. “If she starts looking for a job here, I’ll force the issue.”
There was a soft knock on the door with Miley calling out from the other side. “Is it safe to come in?” she asked.
Luna glanced at Nate and whispered, “Sadly.”
Nate winked. “Yes,” he said.
Miley walked in and closed the door behind her.
“Things have calmed down. Ash pulled your mom outside and talked to her.”
“Did he remind her that she has no claim on this house?”
Miley nodded. “In a way. She started crying about how she missed her mother.” Miley held up her fingers for air quotes. “Grief was clouding her behavior.”
“Five years. She stormed out of this house after the will was read and has barely talked to any of us in five years. She’s blaming her behavior on grief.”
“Narcissists can’t blame themselves. They’re incapable,” Nate pointed out. “I’m not defending her.” He tossed one hand in the air in surrender.
Luna squeezed his other hand that sat in her lap. “I know.”
“I’m on the outside. It’s easy to see her behavior for what it is. There’s a lot of psychological training with the FBI.”
“That’ll come in handy if you stick around,” Luna said.
Out of nowhere, the sound of a door slamming made all three of them flinch.
“What the . . .”
Miley opened the bedroom door.
Luna and Nate came up behind her.
The hallway was empty.
Voices from downstairs drifted up.
“Someone must have left a window open, caused a door to shut,” Nate suggested.
A chill ran up Luna’s spine. “All the bedroom doors are still open.”
“The bathroom, too,” Miley said.
Luna peeked into the room her mother was occupying.
The window was shut.
“Guys?” Nate called them.
Luna and Miley turned to look at what caught Nate’s attention.
The door to the attic was open.
Midnight stood beside it, the hair on her back straight up, her eyes sharp on whatever she thought she saw.
Luna took a step closer. “Is anyone up there?” she called out.
No answer.
“That sounded like a door slamming, right?” Miley asked.
“That’s what it sounded like to me,” Nate said.
“Hey . . . what was that?” Harper yelled from the stairwell.
“Did anyone come upstairs?” Miley asked.
Harper came into view. “No.”
“Then who opened the door to the attic?” Luna asked. She would have noticed if it was left that way earlier. If only from the cold that was permeating the otherwise warm hallway.
“Ethel,” Nate said slowly.
“Who?” Miley asked.
Luna looked at Nate as she realized what he was saying.
She turned back to Midnight, who was now sitting and licking her paw.
“Nate named our ghost,” Luna said quietly. “Ethel.”
They all turned and looked at the attic door.