If Amanda were standing behind Eli, she’d be giving me all kinds of hand signals to keep my trap shut. She’d be rightly worried, too, because despite my desire to be helpful, I had a bad habit of saying the exact wrong thing. This would likely be another of those times. “For what it’s worth, your wife sounds like my kind of person. She lived life on her terms, so she wouldn’t fault you for what happened. I bet she loved almost every second of her pregnancy, too. It’s tragic—what happened—but try to remember that she made all those decisions with you. You’ve got to stop blaming yourself.”
He dragged his gaze away from the house. “Easier said than done.”
“Most things are.” Those words echoed through my thoughts, considering the decisions my family had to make and all the blame we passed around. My dad had excelled at taking the sting out of distress and putting life in perspective. But even if he saw us foundering without him, it didn’t mean he could send a helpful message through Nancy. “Think it’s a coincidence that Nancy mentioned a name that meant something to you?”
“Dunno.”
Against all reason, I allowed for the possibility that Eli’s dead wife had actually made contact with Nancy, because it might help Eli feel better. “If it’s true, it sounds like Karen can’t rest until you’re happier. Maybe you should start writing songs again. Keep living . . .”
His breathing turned labored, so I shut up. But if her death also killed his passion for songwriting, then he needed a new muse so he didn’t shrivel up and die, too—metaphorically speaking. Maybe I—
“I’ve got to go, Erin.” He slipped into the driver’s seat without making eye contact with me. “Sorry. I’ll see you . . .”
I hoped so.
“Take care, Eli.” He probably hadn’t noticed me waving goodbye. Once his car turned the bend and disappeared, I stood on the road, replaying his awful tale—imagining his beautiful face screwed with alarm, picturing him slumped over his dead wife and child, lost and angry and benumbed—and my lungs filled with sand.
He’d come for yoga and been sideswiped by Nancy. How dare that woman think it okay to blurt out messages without any idea of the consequence? What damage might she do to my mother? I jogged back inside to confront her. “What made you say that to Eli?”
Nancy laid her hands on the table. “Someone named Karen gave me a message. I can’t interpret it beyond that.”
A convenient nonreply. “Gave you how?”
Nancy peered at me, looking mistrustful of my motives, but ultimately her ego made her prove herself. “Think of me like a tube. When a spirit wants to pass a message, it lowers its energy frequency. Before coming to a reading, I meditate in order to raise my energy frequency to meet spirits in the middle. When a presence comes, energy warms down my legs—sometimes I get goose bumps—so I back away and let that energy come through. Some mediums get visual cues, others can get scents. I mostly receive verbal ones.”
That she could turn herself into a telephone from heaven sounded like bullshit.
“Swear to me on your kids—you got kids, right?—that that was real. That you didn’t somehow look up Eli’s license plate before coming inside and then learning something to mess with him.” I didn’t know what to believe, or even what I wanted to believe. But my question was stupid because Nancy wouldn’t admit to scamming us.
Her eyes flickered. “I never do anything to mess with people.”
“Erin, apologize.” My mother nervously twisted her earring while Mo looked on from his perch on the sofa. “Nancy came to help me reach your father. What would she gain by hurting your friend?”
Nancy never did swear on her kids.
“I don’t know, but it’s careless to share messages when you have no idea how they’ll affect—how they’ll hurt—the recipient.” I picked up the discarded box of clothes and looked at my mother, concern and anger pulsing through me. “I can’t stop you, Mom, but you’ve been warned that this can end badly.”
Mo jumped off the sofa and followed me to my room, where I deposited him on my bed and then paced, shaking out my hands. I’d need another round of yoga to calm down because pacing this tight space wasn’t helping.
Not much had changed in here since Amanda and I had slept in the two twin beds laid out in an L shape, each with a pink comforter embellished with purple and white owls. The old posters and small dresser didn’t bug me, but the sense of still being that same odd kid whose opinions were disregarded sure did.
I grabbed piles of clothes from the box and stuffed them into the drawers to distract myself. The dividers Amanda had eventually inserted to keep her side of each drawer organized made me snort. Her side had always held neatly folded items, while mine had mingled socks and pajamas and shorts without care. If she could’ve divided our entire room, she would’ve. Admittedly, I’d taken full advantage of her willingness to clean up, make my bed, and put away my laundry. These days I’d be on my own.
Fifteen minutes later, my mother knocked on the door.
“Come in.” I leaned against the headboard, sitting cross-legged. Mo climbed into my lap, his little face perched on one knee, staring out the window.
Mom wandered over to sit at the foot of my bed. I braced for a lecture, so I was stunned when she quietly said, “I came to check in. You seemed rattled.”
“I’m fine.” A white lie, but seeing as how I didn’t understand my own thoughts, I could hardly explain them to her. She wasn’t the parent I’d ever poured my heart out to, and now wasn’t the time to begin. “What about you?”
Mom pressed her hand to her chest, a childlike smile appearing. “I know you’re concerned, but I’m heartened. Nancy got a message to your friend, which makes me confident that we’ll hear from your father, especially if you and your sister help.” Given the breakdown Amanda had last night, asking her to participate in this farce seemed unwise. Yet how could I snuff out the little bit of joy and hope now reflected in Mom’s eyes? For the first time, I felt selfish for processing only my own grief this past year when I might’ve helped her with hers, too. “If we’re all together with Nancy, William will have to show up.”
Her whole face softened after mentioning my dad’s name.
For all our differences, we’d both adored him. Yet as much as I’d loved my father, it wasn’t the same as losing a spouse.
Parents and children don’t share the same intimacies that couples do. They don’t wake up together. They don’t make major life decisions as one. They don’t create new life together. They don’t even live in the same house after a period of time.
Yes, I loved my father, but I’d had my own life, too—jobs, hobbies, boyfriends, and friends. On the other hand, my mother had built her whole life around my father. Truly, she started forty-two years ago, when she’d first comforted him in the wake of a bad breakup with some other woman at college. No wonder she was frantic to turn to him now—to get his advice about how to help Amanda and what to do about Lyle.
And Amanda had been right about the fact that I couldn’t relate to her pain. I’d yet to love a man other than my father with my whole heart and soul. Losing a spouse had broken something different in Mom and my sister than losing Dad had in me. They might never be whole again. Nor would Eli.