Chapter Twenty #2
“That was all true? You didn’t make it up?”
There’s no smile this time. No faking it. Instead, tears well in my eyes, my emotions too wild to be kept in check. When I shake my head, it unleashes a single tear. “It really happened. Only I didn’t tell you the whole thing.”
There’s more to this story. A prequel that I’ve never admitted to anyone.
Including myself.
“I was home when my sister drowned,” I say. “I didn’t see it happen. I didn’t even know it had happened until it was far too late. But I was there.”
It all comes spilling out, as fast and uncontrollable as my tears.
How Molly was supposed to watch me while my mother was away.
How she insisted on going swimming, even though I didn’t know how and she wasn’t supposed to go near the pool when our parents weren’t home.
How she ordered me to leave my bedroom and come outside with her so she could keep an eye on me while she frolicked in the water.
How I told her I’d be there in a minute, that I was playing, which in my four-year-old parlance meant I was pretending.
To be someone else, somewhere else, in a time other than my own.
Yes, I was acting even then.
Which is why I never did leave my room, not after a minute or five or thirty.
I was too caught up in the act of pretending to notice that Molly hadn’t come back inside or that no sounds came from the pool.
I was still lost in my imagination, a star in a movie of my own making, when I heard my mother’s station wagon pull into the driveway, followed a few seconds later by her screams.
“If I’d gone outside like she told me to, Molly would still be alive,” I say. “She’d have swum for a few minutes before I annoyed her enough to get her out of the pool. Nothing bad would have happened to her. Even if it did, if I had been there, I would have been able to save her.”
“You were only four,” Violet says, looking like she’s about to hug me, which is the last thing I want right now. “There was nothing you could have done, especially if you didn’t know how to swim.”
“I could have yelled for help,” I say. “Or run to one of the neighbors. Instead, she died while I sat in my room, ready for my nonexistent close-up. That’s why she came to my window every night for a year.
To remind me that she was dead and that it was all my fault.
And I think that’s why she’s doing it again, right here on New Avalon. ”
“When did you see her?” Violet says, still radiating empathy.
I wipe the tears from my face, embarrassed but also relieved. It feels good to admit I’m seeing Molly again. It feels even better to at last have people believe me. “The past two nights. Including tonight.”
“And you really think that’s why she’s here? To make you feel guilty?”
“Yes,” I say, because what other reason could there be? “She’s here to let me know that she still holds a grudge.”
A few feet away, Julianne plops onto the ground, the long skirt of her dress spreading over the night-damp grass like the petals of a wilted flower.
“Right before he died, I told Dean I wanted a divorce,” she says.
“We were so young, and it was clear to me that we were completely wrong for each other. Dean didn’t see it that way.
Didn’t see it coming at all, really. I’ll never forget how hurt he looked.
Like I’d just punched him. He left in a rush, saying he was going for a walk, that he needed to be alone for a while.
An hour later, the police called to tell me Dean was dead.
He was hit by a cab while crossing the street. ”
She lifts her hands, palms up, and stares at them. As if they’d been gripping the steering wheel when it happened. As if they were stained with blood.
“I was devastated. Completely gutted. Because Dean was gone, of course, but also because I knew that his final moments were full of heartbreak. And I had been the one to cause it. That was my first thought when I sensed him in my cottage. That he was there to let me know how much I’d hurt him.”
Violet sits next to Julianne and places an arm around her shoulders. “My father didn’t approve of my being an actress,” she says. “He told me it was foolish to think I could make something of myself that way.”
I hear my father’s voice, thick with I told you so scorn after the debut of my commercial. Well, now I hope you finally realize how stupid that acting dream of yours was.
“When my father got sick, I was about to go to Europe to make my first movie,” Violet continues. “Because my mother couldn’t take care of him by herself, it was expected that I’d quit the movie to help out. I was given an ultimatum. My father or the movie. I chose the movie.”
She pauses, allowing the rest of us to wonder if we’d make the same choice. I don’t even need to think about it. Of course I would.
“I was on set when my father died,” Violet says.
“I got the call right before I was about to shoot my biggest scene in the movie. I didn’t cry.
I didn’t even tell the director. I just filmed the scene, went back to my hotel, and wept all night.
I had missed my chance to say good-bye to my father.
That’s what I was thinking when I smelled him in my room.
That he had returned to beg me to finally say good-bye. ”
And I’m thinking about Molly. Not just why I’ve been seeing her, but how she got here. This is Vermont. She died in Pennsylvania. Is it possible for ghosts to roam that far? I assumed the only reason they’re ghosts is because something binds them to a particular place.
But maybe it’s not like that.
Maybe ghosts can also bind themselves to a person.