Chapter 5 #2
Up close, she wasn’t … see-through like I thought a ghost would be.
She wasn’t a wisp. She was my gran as I remembered her.
Softly weathered skin, eyes like bluebells, wrinkled hands that had done a lifetime of useful things.
The only thing that betrayed the impossible was the way the air around her shivered and brightened.
“You’re not real,” I tried again, softer.
“I’ll always be real, lass,” she said, and then more softly, “your love keeps it so.”
I swallowed, tears pricking my eyes, and laid my cheek on the cushion next to her. For a moment, it felt like a light puff of air blew my hair back, as though she once again stroked my hair like she used to when I was a child.
“Why are you here? Now?” I’d silently asked for her help a hundred times through the years, and she’d never once shown me anything. But here she was, on a day that my emotions were unraveling like someone tossing a ball of yarn down the stairs.
“Because I think you need someone to be honest with.”
“Noah was in the cupboard and he shouldn’t have been,” I said, somewhat inanely, but knowing she’d understand about how odd it felt to find a guest in a non-guest space of the house.
“I saw. He looked very nice while he was in the cupboard.”
“Gran.” I rolled my eyes.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me. You can put a front on for everyone else. But I can see right through you, Skye, dear.”
“I can’t let him in again.”
“And why ever not? People change. There’s a lifetime of learning between who you both were then and who you are now.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “He left. I told him that bloody manager would eat him alive, and he left anyway. He wrote a song and sold my name to the entire planet.”
“You told him your truth,” she said. “Good. And then you told yourself a story so sharp you could live inside it and not feel anything else.”
“That’s very poetic for a hallucination.”
“Skye Kerrigan,” she said, and my name in her mouth made me ten and thirty-seven at once. “Do not let history repeat itself because it’s easier than risking joy.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m not repeating anything. I’m avoiding potholes.”
“You’re avoiding love.”
“I’m not … he’s not …” I flailed uselessly. Why was my hallucination of Gran discussing love and Noah in the same breath?
Noah wasn’t here because he still loved me. That ship sailed long ago. She was confused with a fairy tale.
“Gran, Noah is a man who has a complicated relationship with commitment and publicity and his own hair. I am an innkeeper with a budget spreadsheet that could make saints weep. This is not a fairy tale.”
“You are allowed to still love him and to also be angry. You are allowed to need help and also be capable.”
“Is this on a tea towel somewhere?” I muttered.
She ignored me. “That boy broke his own heart when he left. Yours too. You both did what you thought kept you safe. And now you stand here with your eyes clenched so tight you can’t even see the second chance the universe is handing you.”
I sucked in a breath. Did Noah and I really have a second chance at love? The thought was so wild and untested, and yet, it surfaced from the hidden recesses of my heart like a submerged buoy floating for the surface.
“The only thing that matters,” she said, and her voice went low like a secret, “is love.”
I bristled. “That’s easy to say when it’s not your heart on the line.”
“I have very few regrets, Skye. Not telling your granddad about the day I decided to keep the inn even though we’d have to take out a loan?
That was a regret—brief. He forgave me before I finished the sentence.
Not taking the trip to Greece when the girls were small?
I thought we didn’t have the money. We had enough.
We would have found it. And the last … is every time I watched you use stubbornness where tenderness would have done the job and didn’t push you to relent. ”
Tears pricked hot. “I’m not stubborn.”
She raised one white brow. “You are a granite wall in a pretty dress.” She looked sadly at my worn trousers. “When you wear a dress, that is.”
“I can’t let him come in here and push me around,” I said, still hung up on my hurt.
“No one said you had to,” she said. “And he’s hardly pushing, is he? He’s helping. Let him in the door. Keep your keys in your pocket. That’s called love, not surrender.”
“I don’t know how to do that.” The word “love” in the same breath as Noah felt shimmery and shaky, like something as ephemeral as my gran sitting in the chair talking to me.
“You learn,” she said simply. “You learn by doing.”
Silence fell in a soft layer. Downstairs, a phone rang, someone laughed, and the boiler hummed, loyal now that it had received attention.
I wiped at my face with the heel of my hand like a teenager. “If you’re not real,” I said, defeated, “you might be here because I’m edging toward a breakdown.”
She smiled, brief and pleased. “Or you might be edging toward a breakthrough.”
“I hate that more.”
“I know.”
“I miss you,” I said, and the truth of it loosened something braided too tight inside my ribs.
“I miss you too,” she said, and for a breath she shimmered, went bright as a swallowed candle, and I thought I’d imagined all of it. Then she was Gran again, solid as the chair, stern as the cold.
“Are you going to haunt him?” I asked, because if my brain was inventing cinema, I wanted bonus features.
“I’ll haunt whoever needs it,” she said. “Today that’s you.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “Terrific.”
She laughed and it was my favorite sound, the one that says she thinks I’m ridiculous and precious in equal measure.
Then she sobered. “Love is the only thing that matters. Not the song. Not your pride. Not the fear. If it comes to your door and asks to help carry the groceries, you let it. You can always say no to the cooking later.”
“That metaphor fell apart at the end,” I said.
“My metaphors always did need a bit of glue,” she said fondly, and stood, smoothing her skirt. “I’ll be off then.”
“Where?” I asked, suddenly desperate to keep her with me.
She looked toward the window, as if the wind had sent a note.
“Wherever I’m needed.” She leaned down, cupped my face, and I felt the softest brush of air at my cheeks.
“Eat a proper lunch. You get mean when you’re hungry.
And tell that boy to fix the radiator in the blue room as it wheezes like a sick accordion. ”
And she was gone.
The air sagged, and the cushion sprang back.
I sat very still, astounded at what had just occurred.
“Stress,” I said aloud. “Pure stress.”
The radiator in the blue room wheezed like a sick accordion. I could hear it all the way from here.
“Fine,” I told the universe. Shaking, I stood, and looked out the window, wondering if I’d see my gran sailing away toward the ocean like Mary Poppins with her umbrella. Instead, a moody winter sky met my gaze, and I turned, pulling the feeling of Gran being close once again to my heart.
I washed my face in the tiny bathroom sink, pinched color into my cheeks like a Victorian ghost, and marched downstairs with intent.
Noah was in the hall, jacket on, as if he’d correctly deduced that he should stay away from me. He looked up when he heard me. Something moved through his face before wariness settled on his expression. Bloody man.
“Before you run away to do … whatever it is you do when you pretend you don’t care,” I said, and his mouth quirked, “the radiator in the blue room wheezes. It sounds like it’s dying. See what you can do.”
He blinked. “Yes, boss.”
“And”—the word stuck. I forced it through—“thank you. For the boiler.”
He lifted a shoulder, shrugging off my thanks. “Anytime. Um, there’s a hardware shop in Crail that I can pick up a few things to patch some problem areas I’ve noted around here. I’ll be back before lunch. If that’s okay?”
It took everything in my power not to tell him “no” but since I was still reeling from a surprise ghost visit from my gran and had nobody to talk to about it, I relented.
“I’d appreciate that,” I said, remembering that Gran was probably watching and railing at me to be nice to the handsome man.
“Great. I’ll be back shortly.” He saluted, ridiculously so, and left.
The hall felt bigger without him and worse.
Needing a diversion, and time to think about the visit from Gran, I made scones, the kind she’d taught me—the cold butter rubbed in until the flour looked like wet sand, the milk splashed just enough, the dough patted, not bullied.
I set a timer and chopped fruit for compote and told myself sternly that I had not seen a ghost and that if I had, nobody would believe me anyway.
Esther texted me.
I heard your boiler was on the fritz. Do you need my help?
How had she heard that already? I briefly wondered if my gran visited her as well.
What do you know about fixing boilers?
My hubby knows a thing or two about heating things up.
Gah! No. I’m good. It’s fixed.
Ahhh, you let Noah fix it, didn’t you? That’s practically a betrothal in this town. Have you shagged him yet?
Esther!
What? Best to test the milk before you buy the cow, dear.
Please go menace someone else.
Can’t. Being menacing is too much cardio. But I’m proud of you, dear.
I put the phone down and pretended my eyes didn’t sting.
The timer dinged. I pulled scones from the oven, split one open, and ate it too hot, butter melting down my fingers, because carbs—and fat—were needed.
When Noah came back, arms full of bags of tools and hardware supplies, I did not smile.
But I didn’t run, either.
That felt like progress Gran would approve of.