The Piper

EIGHT




Olivia was restless after Amelia called. Upset over their fight.

She went to the kitchen to unpack a box, but found she did not have the heart or the energy to open it up. She opened the refrigerator and looked inside. Nothing interesting to eat.

Finally, she went to the sunroom, opened her briefcase and fired up her laptop. It was dark out, lights from houses down the block reflecting in the window panes. She wondered why Chris and Charlotte didn’t have any blinds or curtains or shutters in the sunroom. Of all the rooms in the house, this one had the most charm. Olivia wasn’t quite sure why she didn’t spend more time here. It had been the heart of the house, when she was a child.

She took her laptop and curled up on the couch in the living room, where all the windows were tightly shuttered. She felt more private here, more safe. In the sunroom she felt watched.

She pulled up a search engine, and entered phone calls from the dead plus warnings. She looked over her shoulder, while the screen began to fill, and tapped a finger on the edge of the keyboard. She wasn’t sure she wanted to do this, look at her brother’s phone call this way. But Amelia, annoying as she was, definitely had a point. Maybe she was hiding in southern denial.

Olivia looked over at the fireplace mantel, at the picture of Chris and Charlotte and all three of his kids. An old picture, Cassidy was just an infant. The picture had actually been taken here, in front of the fireplace, and Chris looked happy, unshadowed. God, she missed him. They had had the usual family squabbles and irritations, but there was no one quite like a sibling, someone who had lived so much of your life. So easy to ignore a big brother when you lived hundreds of miles away. To take for granted that you could visit, share a meal, go for coffee and talk. Little things you never thought about until you couldn’t do it anymore, and then they seemed more important than anything else in the world.

Thinking about the afterlife and ghostly visitations was fine, Olivia thought, as long as the thoughts and experiences were good. As long as the experience was a spiritual comfort.

When it went south to the dark side, Olivia wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She had enough problems just dealing with everyday stuff.

But she went to the search engine, and found a chat room, not joining or signing in, just lurking, reading old posts that came up under warnings from the dead.

TORN & IN LOVE (posted eighteen months ago): But he’s perfect. I never expected to find a man like this. My daughter lives in San Francisco, but she came down for Easter, and they hit it off. He charmed her, that’s for sure. He never loses his temper, like my first husband. He cares about me. I’ve been happier the last six months than ever in my life. I can’t help feeling like I deserve a man like this. I can’t imagine not having him in my life. It would be crazy to throw a relationship like this away, over something this, well, vague.

WORRIED IN PHOENIX: But TORN, when your mother called you, did she actually use his name?

TORN & IN LOVE: Yes. That was what’s got me so scrambled up inside. She said ‘stay away,’ then there was static, and then she said ‘Clark.’ And I know it was her voice, it was unmistakable. She sounded good, she said she loved me. God, I miss her so much.

WORRIED IN PHOENIX: How long has your mother been dead?

TORN & IN LOVE: Two years last Christmas.

WORRIED IN PHOENIX: You can’t be sure what she meant. With the static and all. Maybe you should just go slow with the relationship, sort of keep a watchful eye.

TORN & IN LOVE: Yes. That’s good advice. The thing is, he’s asked me to marry him. He got me a ring. He has this whole destination wedding-honeymoon planned, and my God, it’s so cold here, I’d go to Jamaica with him just to get warm.

WORRIED IN PHOENIX: You should come live here in Phoenix, you’d have all the warm you want. Where are you?

TORN & IN LOVE: Vermont. It’s still snowing at the end of April.

Olivia kept scrolling. Nothing else from TORN & IN LOVE. She pulled up a new search window and typed in various combinations of Vermont, Clark and weddings. Nothing. Well, women rarely put a wedding notice in the paper for a second marriage later in life. No surprise. On a whim she added San Francisco, hoping for some smalltown newsy item that included a daughter coming in for a wedding from out of town. She came up with a notice then – but not a wedding announcement. An obituary from the Burlington Times.

Burlington, May 21st: Juliana Hargreaves Cavannaugh, aged forty-nine, known to friends and family as ‘Jules’, died yesterday of an apparent heart attack in her home. Her body was discovered at 2:00 PM by her husband, Clark Cavannaugh, who returned home from work concerned when Mrs Cavannaugh did not show up for a lunch date the couple had planned. Mr and Mrs Cavannaugh had recently been married at a destination wedding in Ochos Rios, Jamaica, returning from their honeymoon just one week ago. Visitation will be held from four to six tomorrow, at the Grayson Funeral Home, with burial at the Burlington Cemetery on Tuesday, at 3:00 PM. Ms. Cavannaugh is survived by her husband, Clark, a daughter and son in law, Mr & Mrs Vaughn Melrose of San Francisco, and two grandchildren, Cary and Silas, aged six and three.

Olivia set the laptop on the coffee table, and put her head in her hands, feeling sick to her stomach and sad. There was no doubt in her mind that TORN & IN LOVE was dead. She had a name now, Jules, and she was a presence in Olivia’s mind now, whether she liked it or not.

Juliana Hargreaves Cavannaugh had received a phone call from the dead too – a warning call, told by her mother to stay away from Clark. Now she was dead, one week after marrying the guy. Had Jules somehow been murdered by this Clark, who had given her a drug or something to fake a heart attack? Olivia would never know. There was nothing she could do for Juliana, who was now dead, no way she would know for sure if it was at the hands of her new and perfect husband, Clark.

But the lesson was there. And Chris had told her to be careful of the mysterious Mister Man. Shit. How exactly was she going to do that?