“Don’t be down in the dumps, Chloe,” Mavis told me on her last day as I watched her pack a small suitcase with precision. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I said. “But coming from you…I might actually believe it.”
“You better.” She winked at me.
“I guess I’m just confused. I discovered that I have this…gift, but I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. Is my whole life going to change now?”
“You make it sound like you have a disease, dear.” May laughed. “You don’t need to have all the answers. Things will become clear in time. You might end up devoting your life to communing with the dead, or you might choose to ignore them for the rest of your days.”
“It’s up to you.” Mavis patted my shoulder. “Your gift will change your life if you want it to. Besides, the future tends to take care of itself. All we can do is deal with the here and now. That keeps us busy enough, don’t you think?”
Eccentric as they were, I was going to miss the Hunt sisters and their quirky routine. But I would take their advice and focus on leading a normal life—well, as normal as possible, for someone like me. I was starting to realize that maybe it was okay to be me. Maybe I didn’t need to spend my days wishing I could be like everyone else. I’d been created this way for a reason. Perhaps that reason wasn’t entirely apparent yet, but I believed that someday it would all make sense.
If the saga with Isobel had taught me anything, it was that holding grudges didn’t pay off. If I died tomorrow, would I want to go out bitter and full of resentment? It was hardly worth it. If you had no peace of mind in life, you would have no peace in death.
I left the Hunt sisters to their packing and went downstairs, where Rory and Dad were engaged in a chess battle in the library. Things were starting to take on a semblance of normality, and it felt almost like a family vacation from my childhood.
In the kitchen, I found who I was looking for. Miss Grimes was stooped over the counter, stuffing a turkey for Christmas dinner. Usually, I went out of my way to avoid her, but today I walked right over.
“Do you need any help?” She glanced at me suspiciously, as if my offer was some kind of trap. “I know you don’t like me very much,” I went on. She fixed her eyes on the bird determinedly and hunched over as if trying to will me away. “But I have a message for you.”
I paused a moment, searching for the right words. She had to be in her eighties, and I didn’t want to startle her into a heart attack. Wouldn’t that just be the icing on top of a perfect visit? But there was really only one way to say this. “Benjamin wants you to know he’s okay…and that he loves you.”
Miss Grimes dropped her fork with a clatter. Her knotted hands clutched the countertop as she turned slowly to face me, eyes nearly bugging out of her withered old face. I always used to think she was scary, with her straggly hair and stale smell. But today she just looked sad, like someone who had lost her reason for living a long time ago and was just going through the motions while she waited for death.
“He doesn’t blame you,” I said. “Nobody does.” Then I walked out of the kitchen, leaving her gaping after me.
Out in the garden I found an unexpected burst of sunshine and stopped to savor the feel of it on my skin. I saw Gran bossily directing Harry, who was staggering under the weight of an enormous Christmas tree. The clean scent of pine was already wafting over to me. The porch was strung with lights and a silver wreath adorned the front door.
“Classy,” I commented when Gran reached me.
“We like to keep things understated around here,” she replied with a wink. “Not like you Americans with your flashing reindeer and Santa Claus popping out of every chimney.”
“Americans,” I agreed, smothering a smile. “So I was thinking I might go see Joe. It won’t be much of a Christmas for him, stuck in a hospital bed.”
Gran didn’t say anything at first; she just dug around in the pocket of her tailored pants. Then she tossed me something. I caught it midair and opened my palm to find the keys to her Mercedes.
“Seriously?” I asked. “You’re letting me drive your car? What if I wreck it or get a parking fine or something?”
“You’re all grown up now, Chloe,” she answered. “I think you can handle yourself.”
I didn’t know what to say. Coming from Grandma Fee, this was a big deal. It was her way of telling me we were equals now. The adult/child relationship had been dissolved.
“Thanks.” I smiled at her. “I won’t mess up.”
* * *
I found Joe lying in bed, flipping aimlessly through a sports magazine. “How’s the patient today?” I asked as I pushed open the door.
“Thank God.” He let out a low whistling breath. “I’m literally dying of boredom.”
“Better than dying from a chandelier.”
“Nope,” he said as I settled in the chair by the bed. “The chandelier would have been faster.”
“You just need to kill some time,” I replied jovially. “Are you a fan of knitting?”
“Shut up.” He rolled his eyes. “I start rehab tomorrow. I can’t wait to get back on a horse.”
“How about you get back on your feet first,” I teased.
“It’ll be a while,” Joe said resignedly. “They said two months at least. Looks like I’ll be spending Christmas in here.”
“Ugh.” I sighed. “I’m so sorry. That really sucks.”
“It’s not so bad.” He smiled. “The ladies down the hall are going to put on the over-sixties version of ‘Jingle Bell Rock.’ I feel pretty bad for everyone who’s going to miss that.”
I laughed. Trust Joe to be a good sport, even in the crappiest situation. But there was still something I needed to get off my chest. I twisted my hands nervously.
“You know, I never got a chance to say thank-you.”
He turned his face slightly, hair rustling against the stiff pillow. “Don’t mention it.”
“No, really,” I insisted. “Look what happened to you. You did that for me.”
“Chloe…” His green eyes gazed up at me. “I’d do it a thousand times over. I’d rather be in here than see you in here. That would really break my heart.”
Why did he have to go and say that? I had to sit very still for a minute to keep from choking up.
“I think you’re the best friend in the world,” I said eventually.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Joe chuckled. “So how are you doing? How’s all the…stuff?”
“I think it’s over,” I said.
“Really?” He raised his eyebrows. “How did that happen?”
“I wish I could tell you,” I replied honestly. “It was so fast, I can barely remember anything. But I know they’re gone…and they’re not coming back.”
Joe nodded thoughtfully. “I always believed you, you know?” he said. “I didn’t always understand it, but I never doubted that you were telling the truth. You’re really special, Chloe, and I…” He trailed off.
“You’re not about to say you love me?” I asked teasingly, trying to lighten the mood. I didn’t want this conversation to go somewhere we wouldn’t be able to come back from.
Joe smiled. “You just think you’re such hot stuff.”
I gestured down at my sweatpants and Grandma Fee’s sneakers that I’d borrowed from the shoe rack in the hall. “Um…have you seen me?” I said. “I’m in pretty high demand.”
Joe laughed, but I could see his eyes becoming serious. “I don’t say I love you that easily,” he told me.
“Good,” I replied. “Nobody should.”
“But the thing is, Chloe…” He bit his lip. “I think I might be falling for you. I wouldn’t take a chandelier for just anyone.”
“How d
o you know that for sure?” I asked, partly out of genuine curiosity and partly because I wanted to avoid having to respond. “What do you think love really feels like?”
“I don’t think love is just a feeling,” Joe said. “I think it’s a commitment. Lust is a feeling, and that’s what hits you first. But you have to wait until it passes. Once it’s gone, what are you left with? That’s the real stuff, underneath.” He looked to the ceiling. “When I get married one day, I want to be so committed to my wife that no matter what happens I’ll never leave her. We might fight, she might cheat, we might sleep in separate rooms for a whole year. But I won’t walk away. So when I tell a girl I love her, I’m going to really mean it.”
“You’re a rare individual, Joe Parrish,” I told him. “Any girl would be lucky to have you.”
“I want to be in your life, Chloe, wherever you are.”
“I’d like that,” I said.
* * *
I left the hospital that night thinking about what Joe had told me. I’d never heard words like that from any of the boys back home. They were all about beer pong and attempting to get your pants off at record speed. Joe really was one of the good guys…a good egg, as Grandma Fee would say. I’d miss Joe when I got back to California. I didn’t want to forget him, and I promised myself we’d stay in touch. A precious friendship had blossomed between us, and if I hadn’t fallen so hard for Alex, who knew where we might have ended up?
At Grange Hall, I found everyone in the sitting room, helping decorate the tree from a giant box of sparkling ornaments. I peeked inside and pulled out an item wrapped carefully in tissue paper. I unraveled it to reveal a lopsided angel made of wire and cotton wool.
“What’s this?”
“Your father made that for our tree when he was five years old,” Grandma Fee said proudly. “And one every year after that until he turned eighteen.”
I smiled. “And here I was thinking you weren’t the sentimental type. You kept them all?”
“Every last one.”
I smirked at Dad. “You were very…um…creative?”
“Christmas isn’t about having the best tree in town,” Gran said. “It’s about spending time with the people you love.”
That gave me an idea. I decided right then that if Joe couldn’t go home for Christmas, I would bring Christmas to him. I took Gran aside and outlined my master plan.
“You know something, Chloe?” she said when I was done. “I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I’m proud to call you my granddaughter.”
On Christmas Eve we drove to the hospital together. I called Joe’s family ahead of time and told them about my plan to make sure my visit didn’t overlap with theirs. I was worried they’d shoot down the idea, but they jumped right on board. Gran went in first and convinced Joe to take a walk with her. We both knew he’d agree; he had trouble refusing her anything. I waited for the squeak of his wheelchair to disappear down the corridor before ducking in and getting to work. I wound tinsel around his monitor and hung a monogrammed stocking from the end of his bed. I propped a flashing reindeer that Gran had found in some bargain basement against a wall and plugged it in.
Joe’s laptop lay open on the bed, an essay for school half-written on the screen. I slipped in a CD of cheesy Christmas carols and hit Play. I’d also packed a hamper full of weird British Christmas fare that I’d never eaten and probably wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole—things like fruitcake and mince pies, roasted chestnuts and a thermos of something called mulled wine.
When Joe returned to the room, he found me waiting on his bed in a Santa hat with “Winter Wonderland” chiming in the background.
“Chloe!” His face cracked into the widest grin I’d ever seen. “What are you doing here?”
“Merry Christmas Eve, Joe. Did you think I was going to let you spend it alone?” He looked around the room, awestruck.
“You’ve gone to so much trouble.”
“Oh pish posh,” I said with a wink, thinking back to all the weird phrases I’d heard Grandma Fee use over the past few weeks.
“Did you just…” Joe beamed at me. “Who are you?”
“Just think of me as the friendly neighborhood Christmas elf.” I winked and tossed him a matching hat. “Now, let the festivities begin.”
* * *
I lay in bed that night feeling for the first time like I might be able to get my life back on track. All I needed to do was pretend that the past few weeks were nothing but a dream. They were starting to feel that way.
I shivered as a draft from the broken window blew into the room, lifting a slip of paper no bigger than a greeting card on my dresser and sending it floating to the floor. I swear it hadn’t been there when I left this afternoon. I got up to shut the window and tugged on an extra sweater for warmth. Then I knelt down to retrieve the paper… .
It was a charcoal portrait of a young woman with soft tendrils of hair swept to one side and knotted with a ribbon. The girl was looking over her shoulder as if the artist had caught her by surprise. She wore a long gown and loose curls framed her creamy cheeks. In one hand she twirled a parasol. Her features were graceful, eyes playful and full of life. It took me a moment to realize that the girl in the portrait was me. A hankering took hold of me for something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. In the picture, I looked more comfortable than I was in my own skin. How was that even possible? Somehow, I felt like I’d been this girl before, and part of me wished I could melt into the page and live in her world.
There was a note scrawled in ink at the bottom. It was dated from two weeks ago:
Happy Birthday, Chloe. May you live to see many more.
It was a gift from Alex. So he hadn’t forgotten my birthday. He must have been planning to give this to me, only he never got the chance. I pressed it to my chest. I wanted to keep it with me always, the only part of him I had left. But as the seconds ticked by and I looked out at the dark grounds of Grange Hall, I was reminded that Alexander Reade was gone forever and no amount of wishing would bring him back. Tomorrow I would spend Christmas with my family and then it would be time to go home.
I folded the picture and slipped it between the pages of Madame Bovary. There were so many emotions stirring in my chest and I couldn’t allow them to surface. I thought about the iron vault in my mind, where I locked away everything that was painful. If I wanted to move on with my life, maybe that was where I’d need to bury my memories of Alex, file them away where they couldn’t hurt me. But hard as I tried, I couldn’t eject him from my thoughts. He’d left a handprint on my heart, and it beat faster every time I let myself think about him.
At least I finally had an answer to my question. Where did our loved ones go after death? They didn’t go anywhere. They stayed right where you left them, because you carried them with you. They were a part of you, like a tattoo. Trying to forget them was like trying to forget you had legs.
I could put Alex’s portrait of me away in a drawer where I wouldn’t have to look at it, but what difference would that make? I’d only be burying the problem, not solving it. So I removed the picture from the pages of the book and smoothed it out carefully. I didn’t want to forget it existed after all. This drawing was the only thing I had to remind myself that he was real and that our relationship had meant something before I’d lost him.
Although lost wasn’t really the right word. He’d never been mine to keep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
After the chilled air and rolling hills of rural England, coming home to dusty California was like an assault on the senses. The contrast was so sharp it was almost painful. Unlike the sleepy town of Wistings, my urban landscape was uninspiring. Even though I was back on home turf, I was suddenly aware of how bleak it was, with the thunderous roar of traffic in my ears and the indifferent glances from strangers. The prosaic city sp
rawled like an octopus with no sense of order or design. It swallowed you up and made you feel irrelevant.
Slipping back into my old life wouldn’t come easily. I preferred the Chloe I was morphing into. The old me felt banal and shallow in comparison. Rory didn’t look any happier, either, as he stared glumly out the car window. The cab that had picked us up from LAX smelled strongly of cigarette smoke masked with cheap cologne. On the skyline, smog made the skyscrapers hazy, like a grimy veil had been draped over everything. Home sweet home, I thought bitterly.
When I got back to the house, I knew something had changed. After the funeral, I’d felt my mother’s presence everywhere. But she was gone now. Even her room was just a space filled with stuff. I barely even recognized my own bedroom when I walked into it. It didn’t feel like it belonged to me anymore.
* * *
January rolled around so fast, it was time to go back to school before I knew it. On the first day of spring semester, I sat at the wheel of the burned-orange Volvo Mom had driven for ten years. It was mine now. It had been offered to me before, but I’d been holding out for my dream car, a black BMW with leather seats, a sunroof and less than fifty miles on the clock. But I didn’t care about that anymore. The Volvo felt just right, and I imagined I could smell traces of Mom’s perfume, like it had been preserved in the upholstery.
I didn’t get out of the car right away. I decided to sit in the parking lot and wait till the last minute to get out. I couldn’t keep my mind from traveling back to the last trip my mom and I had taken together in this car. It had been the day she died.