“We can’t tell you. Let’s say this: On the way out, we were all given a choice of what happened. You made one to forget. You didn’t want to live your life here knowing. I get it. Sometimes I wish I had made the same one myself. You’ll remember when you have to. That’s how this works. I pushed some things along. I’ll admit it. I can’t tolerate liars. I went home and obsessed about that afterward. Malcolm has screwed up too. He sent me a text the next morning after his moon slip.”
I took her hand. “You do realize you told me you hate liars when all you have done since you met me is lie. The fact that you and Malcolm know each other? Big fucking lie.”
“I know.” She lowered her eyes. “I guess I could have stayed away. Watched from afar. You seemed so sad that day in the coffee shop. I wanted to hug you. So I said hello instead. Then I didn’t want to stay away. I missed you. I’ve told myself it was okay. When you ran so fast to get to your death scene, I thought, ‘Okay, it’s happening. She’s supposed to be remembering. You haven’t screwed it up.’ Only you’re stalled again. Why would they give you some of your memory back and not all of it?”
Since I didn’t have a clue about what was going on, I couldn’t answer her. I’d never felt more alone in my life, and a weight I hadn’t needed to add to my current list of burdens settled on my shoulders.
“You’re not dead. You’re not a ghost. You’re here exactly as you seem to be. Nothing about you has changed. I shouldn’t even be saying this. We all agreed we wouldn’t interfere in each other’s destinies. If we chose to forget, we’d respect it. Only I don’t want you to be afraid. Not more than you should be, anyway. I really am your best friend.”
The ride back to Austin was quiet. Victoria had refused to ride with Malcolm, thinking I needed the company in the car to stay awake. Only she’d promptly fell asleep as soon as we’d made it onto the highway. He drove behind me, matching my speed whenever I sped up or slowed down.
I touched my lips. With the new information I had, his kiss the other night meant more than I’d thought it did. He knew me from some other … something … and he’d kissed me. Had we done that before? We’d only been nine years old when we’d died. We couldn’t have been kissing, unless we were both very precocious.
Nothing made sense. I had to concentrate on what I knew. I had three children and an ex-husband. They were real. My parents could fight ghosts and demons. They’d raised me in the back of a van. They were real. Everything had been fine until …
That ghost. Really, it all came down to that darn ghost. It had shown up at my PTA meeting and screwed up everything. Why had it done that?
I looked over at Victoria. She snored, her head pressed against the windowpane. Pregnancy was exhausting, and despite my utter and complete desire to strangle her, I didn’t want to really hurt her at all. How could I be feeling so many things at the same time?
The ghost plagued me. I’d been so worked up over being exposed and over Levi’s reaction I’d never stopped to consider the why of it all.
Using my Bluetooth, I called Malcolm’s phone. He answered on the first ring. “Do you want to stop somewhere and get a motel room? We don’t have to drive all night.”
Although his greeting was a strange way to start a conversation, it was kind of sweet that he cared. I looked over at Victoria, who didn’t budge from where she slept. Pregnancy had really knocked me out when I’d done it, and I wasn’t surprised she slept so soundly. “Victoria is asleep, and I’m too wired to rest anyway. You can turn off and find a place if you need to. I’m okay.”
“I’m fine. What do you need if you don’t want to stop?” Malcolm was very direct, very to the point. He didn’t chitchat, and so far I’d seen no sign that he even knew what pleasantries were, let alone how to use them. Knowing, however, that I’d crawled to him when I was dying and held him in my arms had made me softer toward his hardness. At some point, I’d cared about him.
“I want to ask you about the ghost that attacked me at the PTA. How could that have happened? They don’t behave in such a public way. They run from me. Well, they used to. They seem to be getting bolder. Do you have any thoughts? Or now that we’re getting closer to Austin, are you going to tell me we can only communicate about work?” I added the last bit to dig at him. Softening I might be; that didn’t mean I needed to let him off the hook for being an asshat.
He groaned. “You caught me off balance when you texted me about the shadow man. I was a dick. I’ll admit it. I’m sorry it hurt your feelings.”
“You do realize you didn’t give me a real apology?”
“Yep.”
I laughed. “Just checking.”
“I don’t know about your ghost. On its own, I can’t imagine one coming into your PTA meeting and doing what you described. One might run at you if you encountered it accidently but seemingly seeking you out to attack you in public? You’re right. It’s odd. That being said, there are people who can control them. I carry one around with me. He can’t be freed unless I so deem it. In Austin where we live? I can make them do what I want. Other than me, the only other practitioner I know with that kind of power is you. I didn’t have a ghost attack you. So I really don’t know what to say. Gotta go.” He disconnected the line, and a cool breeze moved through the car. I shivered and turned on the heat. Next to me, Victoria mumbled something before she let out a long sigh of breath.
Well, I had certainly not made the ghost attack me.
Chapter Fifteen
I’d died and come back to life. I needed to digest what it meant. But there was Teacher Appreciation Week to get through, and the showering of affection on my kids’ teachers so they would be nice to my babies for the rest of the year had to be done, regardless of my personal life crisis. Or death crisis.
Today was the first day of Teacher Appreciation Week, which meant my kids had to each bring an age-appropriate book for their grade level and a snack for their teacher. I could have, I suppose, bought snacks, but given that I had forgotten about the whole thing until I’d checked my email and seen the reminder I had no time to purchase anything. I’d not told Levi anything about it, so he didn’t have it done since he wasn’t a mind reader and couldn’t be expected to get snacks he knew nothing about. My total lack of a memory meant I found myself at four in the morning baking chocolate chip cookies.
The kitchen smelled awesome, which was a direct conflict to my mood. Levi stumbled down the stairs and gaped at me. “You’re home? I smelled cooking. I figured we were either being robbed by a baker, your mom had suddenly felt the need to feed the children sweets, or there was a demon in the kitchen who wanted to give us all diabetes.” He stood still for a second before continuing. “Bad joke?”
I turned back to pretend to look at the baking cookies in the oven. “I have no sense of humor.”
“You used to.” He padded over to me and leapt up on the counter to sit on top of it. I would have yelled at the kids for doing the same. But he’d paid for the counters, technically. If he wanted to break them, I supposed he would simply have to handle getting the granite fixed or replaced. And if he fell off and broke his head open, he’d have to manage that too.
“I promised not to lie to you anymore.” What and how to tell Levi my truth constituted one of the things I’d obsessed about during my drive home. “I’ve learned something … I’m not even sure how to deal with. I’m going to tell you that you don’t want to know it. I really believe it would be better if you never found out. And yet … these things have a way of bubbling to the surface. I won’t be accused of leaving you out of a loop you should be in. Do you want me to tell you, or would you rather the world kept turning on the already shattered axis I’ve put you on?”
“Wow.” He rubbed his eyes. “Heavy for four a.m.. I haven’t had coffee yet. Oh ,what the hell? Tell me. I need to know what’s happening in your life, or I can’t be a part of it.”
“You can’t be a part of this regardless. You might need to take the kids away from me. I think ?
?? I’ve fallen into a mess.”
He reached out and grabbed the back of my neck pulling me forward until I stood between his legs. “You’re scaring me. I’m good at mess.”
“Levi, I …” It was hard to talk through the lump in my throat. “I’ve already asked you to accept so much otherness in the world. I know who you are. I know how you feel safe in the world. This is going to be past your ability to accept.”
“Kendall.” He kissed my forehead, and I breathed him in. Levi was alive. That much was true. “I saw a shadow man trying to kill me. I’m pretty open right now to the idea of just about anything. Tell me so I can help you.”
I gripped onto his shirt. The same Yankees t-shirt he’d been wearing to bed at least once a week since I’d known him. “I died twenty-six years ago. I died and I came back to life. Somehow. No one will give me any information. When I reappeared at my parents’ place, it was actually me coming back to life. I don’t know how. I stood over my bones today; I remembered my death. I wasn’t alone. Malcolm was with me. We died together. And Victoria knew about the whole thing.”
Levi stayed very still when I spoke and finally let out the breath he held. “Wow.”
I let go of him. He was going to need space, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d let him know he’d married and divorced a dead girl. When I pulled back, he yanked me back against him. “You feel very alive. Warm. Your heart beats. Your blood rushes. You cry. I don’t know about reincarnation, rebirth, or whatever. There are entire religions devoted to the subject.”
If he didn’t want me to go away, I would stay right where I was. “I suppose there are.”
“And you don’t know how or why or anything other than your death?”
I breathed in his soap. “Correct.”
“Kendall. My beautiful girl. How did you die?” He smoothed my hair off my face.
“I was murdered by an ice cream man. He shot me right in the gut. I bled to death. I was nine.”
His eyes widened as I spoke. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” Now I was the one who needed the space. When I pulled back, he let me go. I walked over to the door. The cookies would be done soon. I didn’t want them to burn. “Oh damn. I made three batches. I only have two left in the school. Well, I guess we’re eating chocolate chip cookies for the next week.”
Levi jumped off the counter and in two strides reached me. His mouth meeting mine surprised me. I gasped, giving him room to push his tongue between my lips. He tasted like toothpaste. I closed my eyes and let him kiss me over and over again. Against me, his cock got hard until it pressed into my stomach.
“I love you.” He pulled back to whisper in my ear. “I love you. You’re alive. Okay? You’re here. You’re whole. You’re in my arms. I love you.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him pick me up until I was the one on the counter. We quickly discarded our clothes. I ran my hands down his chest, feeling his muscles. We were going to have wild sex somewhere other than the bedroom again, and I was perfectly fine with it, even knowing I was going to be down about it later. Right then, I needed …
“Dad?” Dex’s voice called from upstairs. “I smell cookies.”
Levi and I bounded away from one another, each of us grabbing our clothes. His pajamas were on a lot faster than my jeans, yet we’d both managed to dress before Dex stumbled down the stairs. “Are we having cookies? I want a cookie.”
“Few minutes, bud. Go back to bed. You can have them for breakfast.”
He could what? I glared at Levi. Now they were going to be a sugary mess all day. I rushed forward, grabbing Dex’s arm. “It’s really early, baby. Let’s get you back to bed. So much fun stuff to do today. Can’t have you tired. Levi, grab the cookies when they ding. I’m going to bed, too.”
“Right.” I could hear the disappointment in Levi’s voice. I was sorry for it. Sex would have been a terrible mistake. I had to know who and what I was before I let anyone in my body again. I couldn’t make a bad situation worse, not for temporary relief.
Or at least that’s what I told myself the entire time I walked up the stairs.
****
Levi got the kids out the door before he left for work. I woke up hours later to find my parents and Dex weren’t in the house. A note from my mom told me they’d gone to the park. I wasn’t even sure what to do with myself. Eventually, I settled on scrubbing everything. I cleaned every inch of the house, for hours.
The kids came home, courtesy of my parents, and I still scrubbed. No one came near me. They were going to let me have my nervous breakdown in peace, which I appreciated when I could think past the blackness I needed to get rid of. My house needed to be clean for my parents to live in it. When there wasn’t anything else to clean, I decided to regrout the bathroom tile.
I stood up from the floor, my hands burning, back aching, and my eyes tearing up from all the chemicals I’d breathed in during the day, when my phone dinged. Downstairs, my kids played loudly and sun shone through the windows, showing me it was afternoon. I stared down at the message.
You okay? Malcolm’s text made me groan.
No, I’m not fucking okay.
I’d no sooner sent the text than my head spun. I had to sit down, and with nowhere nearby, I sank to the floor. What was the matter with me? I wasn’t standing over my grave. A picture of Malcolm passed through my mind. He walked around dragging that ghost …
I froze, wishing I could pause my mind like I did the television. The ghost, I knew him. Or at least I thought I did. He was dressed funny. His attire was wrong. The last time I’d seen him, before he was a ghost, he’d been pointing a gun at my stomach.
The ice cream man. I buried my face in my hand. I couldn’t freak out, not with the kids downstairs. Malcolm had the ghost of the ice cream man—the person who had killed us—attached to him at all times.
You’re carrying around our murderer. What the fuck is the matter with you?
I got off the floor and stumbled back down. My body didn’t want to move anymore.
You can judge me when you actually understand me.
With every bit of force in me, I managed to get off the floor and go downstairs. The kids needed to see my face, and I wouldn’t fail them. I didn’t get to fall apart, not when it came to my children. Dinner was quiet, and my mom’s pork was chewy. No one complained. Grayson gave me odd looks most of the meal but wouldn’t elaborate when questioned why. Molly swung her legs and giggled at my father’s jokes. Dex played with his food until I forced him to eat his vegetables. Levi never made an appearance, presumably going back to his own home for the first time since the shadow incident. Maybe he didn’t want anything weirder in his life to happen. Or maybe my being dead had finally been the thing he couldn’t manage.
I was halfway through doing the dishes when my mom spoke. “Did you get any answers?”
I’d told Levi the truth. I raised my head to stare at my mom. She couldn’t know. It would kill her, and my father would never get over the shock. They’d given me a lot of leeway as a young child. I made decisions a lot sooner than most kids my age. One of those times had gotten me killed.
I had no desire to hurt them. We’d spent enough time apart. They’d been punished enough. “No, I’m sorry. Big waste of everyone’s time.”
She touched the side of my face. “You look worn out.”
“You’re right. I’m practically dead.”
When she leaned over to kiss my cheek, I closed my eyes. “I love you, sweet girl.”
“Me too, Mama.”
****
I closed my eyes sometime around midnight. As exhausted as I was, it took that long for my body to settle enough to slip into the dream world. Darkness greeted me warmly, like a gentle hug. I cradled my pillow, so happy to be going to sleep.
Dreams came fast. Malcolm’s face, not as he was as a child but as he was now, greeted me. He lay asleep next to me in a dark room, light coming in through the window. I breathed in his scent, knowing this w
ould be the last time in a long while that we’d be together. The next morning our bodies would be returned to us, sort of. Flesh could be regrown easily, DNA manipulated until we were as we’d been before the bullet had taken our lives. So much time together; we’d grown up in this other place as constant companions.
I brushed his hair out of his eyes, and he opened his lids. “Can’t sleep?”
“Nope.” I snuggled against him. “I thought you were deep enough in dreamland I could touch you without bothering you. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”
He opened his arms, and I climbed deeper into them. “Having trouble believing tomorrow is finally here?”
“I don’t have to believe in anything. I just have to believe in the moon, the stars, the sky, and the air around us. All else will come as it does.”
He snorted and kissed my hair. “Look at you, stating the company line.”
“Look at you, ever the doubter.”
Malcolm fell silent, his body loose. Still, I knew him well enough—more than I ever even knew myself really—to tell he’d gotten tense at my statement. Finally, he spoke. “Never a doubter. I believe in the moon. The stars. The sky. The air around us. I believe in you.”
I kissed him for his words, kissed him for being him, for never leaving me. This man—he’d been my best friend, my support, my shoulder to cry on, and eventually my lover. I’d never love anyone like I did him. If there was anything eternal, and I didn’t know for sure anymore if such a thing could be, my love for him would be.
“We’re going to be nine.” He kissed the edge of my nose. “I won’t have these feelings for you again for four or five years. Even then, I won’t be good at this for a long time.”
I pinched his nose back, and he laughed. “Looking for compliments? You were always good at this.”
“Thanks.” Movement in the corner of the room caught my attention. “The shadows are moving tonight.”