Under the Light

Chapter 8





Helen


THE SOUND OF A DOORBELL still hung in the air. I watched Jenny, how her eyes darted back and forth—she listened to the sound of footsteps and muffled voices in the hall.

“Jenny?” It was Cathy’s voice, Jenny’s mother, just outside the bathroom door. “Are you feeling sick?” The handle turned, but the door stayed shut.

Jenny twisted the faucet until the water shut off. Next a male voice was on the other side of the door—I knew who it was because I had already witnessed this scene.

“Jenny? Can I talk to you?”

It wasn’t James, of course, simply the body he had borrowed, but the sound still thrilled me.

“Honey, there’s someone here to see you,” called Cathy.

Jenny opened her mouth to speak, but her chin was quivering.

“I’m serious.” Cathy’s tone was harsh. “This is your mother speaking. You let me in this minute.” She was making the hinges rattle.

“Are you hurt?” His voice again.

Jenny finally answered. “No.” But too soft to be heard.

“Open this door!” Cathy’s tone was high-pitched now, on the brink of panic. “I’m going to call the police.” The door shook so hard, the empty pill bottle on the floor bounced. “I’m calling 911!”

“I’m all right!” Jenny shouted. Then she looked at me, but of course she couldn’t see me. At least I didn’t think she could.

Although I knew it was going to happen, I still jumped when the door burst in, cracking the wood frame, and Billy Blake crashed into the room like a fireman.

Jenny blinked at him. She held her knees up to her chest, hiding her nakedness.

“Are you okay?” he asked. He was breathing hard as if he’d run for miles to get to her. I was not in love with Billy, of course, but that particular shade of brown hair and the shape of those hands made my heart ache.

“I don’t know,” said Jenny.

He tore a bath towel off the rack and bent down on one knee, unfolding it over her shoulders like a cape.

“I’m sorry I said I didn’t remember you,” he told her, “when you came to see me today.”

“I came to see you?”

So, she didn’t remember what her body had done while I was its captain. I was not surprised.

Billy reached to the back pocket of his jeans. “After you left, I found this in my room.”

He held the shiny plastic square in front of Jenny, a photo. “This is us,” he said.

Jenny brought the picture closer to her face, tilting it so that the glare on the glossy finish shifted. I knew that picture, of course. To Jenny the photo would look like a picture of her and Billy, but it was actually James and me while we occupied their bodies—it was the only way for us to be together.

A drop of water from Jenny’s hand ran down the white border.

“I’m having some trouble remembering things,” Billy told her.

“Me too,” she said.

“You look happy with me,” he said, as if astonished that someone could ever love him.

Jenny looked pleased, but she was still dazed. “Yeah, I do,” she told him. He started to rub the towel on her head, drying her cold hair. “Is your name Billy?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Here was all I remembered seeing before I left earth.

Cathy, the phone to her ear, stopped in the bathroom doorway. “Jennifer!”

It was strange to think that I had left this bathroom and climbed to heaven, into James’s arms. That was happening at the same time that I was standing here and looking down at Jenny. I could not regret now that I had become a ghost, because how else would I have met James? Yet looking back, my inability to cross into heaven for so many years seemed foolish.

Cathy snapped her fingers at Jenny. “Cover yourself!” Then she motioned for Billy to get out. “Do you mind?”

Billy backed into the hall as Cathy closed the door in his face. “Why don’t they answer?” Cathy scowled at the phone, pressed two buttons, listened again. “How many did you take?” she asked.

Jenny searched the room as if she felt watched.

“How many?” Cathy demanded.

“I’m not overdosing,” said Jenny. “I threw them up.”

“Were you trying to kill yourself?”

“No.” Jenny paused. I could tell she didn’t remember one way or the other. “I spilled them and the ones I swallowed I threw up. Don’t call an ambulance.”

Cathy tried to dress her daughter as if the girl were five years old—buttoned her buttons, flicked her collar down straight, pulled her hair out of her sweater for her.

Cathy agreed to drive Jenny to the emergency room instead of calling the paramedics. When they emerged from the bathroom at last, Cathy shooed Billy out of the house, rushing to gather her purse and keys.

She bustled Jenny through the kitchen toward the door that led into the garage, but Jenny was staring at the house—the broken picture frames in the living room and dining room, the mess in the kitchen as if someone had pulled half the contents of the cupboards out and dumped them onto the floor and into the sink.

I floated after them the way I used to follow my hosts everywhere. Before I met James I’d had a chain of five humans I’d haunted since my death. I found safety from my hell by clinging to them and did what I could to be a friend to each. But Jenny was the only one of the Quick I had ever possessed.

I sat in the back seat behind her as the engine roared. Cathy couldn’t wait for the garage door to rise—the car’s antenna snapped off and clattered onto the driveway.

Billy was waiting on the sidewalk. Cathy slammed on the brakes and rolled down her window. “Go home,” she ordered him.

Jenny leaned forward, about to speak, when she saw Mitch. Wearing a grease-stained T-shirt, Billy’s brother stood leaning against his wreck of a car parked at the curb. Cathy’s angry tone drew his attention. He threw his lit cigarette onto the lawn.

“Is she okay?” Billy asked Cathy.

“If you don’t leave I’ll have to call the police,” Cathy told him.

“Mom!”

Mitch strode toward them.

Cathy rammed the car into park and got out, taking a step toward Mitch before he could get any closer.

“Will you please take your son home?” asked Cathy. She took in his appearance: unshaven face, muscled arms, tattoos. She held her sweater closed as if he could see through her garments.

“He’s not my kid, he’s my brother.” Mitch gave her a sweeping glance, head to foot.

Cathy bristled. “Where are your parents while all this is happening?”

Mitch smiled. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Billy stood with his hands in his pockets now, watching Jenny through the car window, seemingly oblivious to the argument. And Jenny stared back at him, but she jumped at the sound of angry voices. I didn’t want her to worry.

“All will be well,” I told her, but she couldn’t hear me with so many distractions.

When I left heaven I had a clear plan as to how I would help Jenny. In the same way that I had guided my hosts with an invisible touch on the arm, keeping them from stumbling on an unnoticed stone in their path, I planned to lay my hand on Jenny’s shoulder when she was faced with Billy Blake and turn her from him. After all, it was James and I who had been in love, not Billy and Jenny. She should feel no obligation.

When Jenny’s mother treated her with harshness I imagined I would sit between them, holding each by the hand, and act as the conduit for love as I had with my Poet and his dying brother. And if Jenny’s father were to reappear and throw hurtful words, I would stand like a shield in his face and dampen his wickedness as I had when my Knight was confronted by an angry colleague. And if Jenny found the consequences of my time in her life kept her from sleep, I would sit on the foot of her bed and sing to her, or recite verse, as I did when banishing the nightmares of my Playwright.

But what I had forgotten was that those moments with my hosts were the exceptions. It was a rare thing to affect the realm of the Quick.

Cathy’s voice quavered. “Well, tell your mother for me that it’s impossible for your brother and my daughter to continue seeing each other.”

“Tell her yourself. She’s at St. Jude’s Hospital, but she hasn’t said a word in five years.” Mitch enjoyed her surprise. “Or, my dad’s in the county prison. Or you could mind your damn business.”

Cathy took a flustered step backwards, bumping into the car. “Watch your language in front of my child.”

“F*ck you, lady.” Mitch grabbed Billy by the sleeve and pulled him toward their car.

Cathy hurried back into the driver’s seat, white in the face. The car accelerated, then left the driveway at an odd angle, scouring the tailpipe on the curb.

“Billy wants to help,” said Jenny. “He tried to save me.”

Cathy was breathing too fast. She sat with her shoulders high and tight. She should have at least tried to put on a calm front for her daughter’s sake. But Cathy offered not one word of reassurance. I had planned to draw them closer, and I could have sat between them now and taken their hands, but I didn’t want to touch Cathy. It angered me that she offered Jenny no sympathy. I didn’t want to try to make Cathy a better mother. I wanted to comfort Jenny myself. Someone had to protect the girl.

Even though she might not hear, I leaned forward and whispered to the back of Jenny’s head of gold hair, “Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”

“Why wouldn’t you open the door?” Cathy asked her.

“The door?” said Jenny. “You mean the bathroom door?”

“Yes, the bathroom door!” Cathy, who hadn’t fastened her safety belt, now tried to force the strap over her chest, but it had locked in place.

“I don’t know.” Jenny peered into the back seat, looking through me. “Maybe I didn’t want to get out of the tub.” Then she asked, “Who else was at the house?”

“What?” Cathy glanced at her. “You mean Billy’s brother?”

“No,” said Jenny. “Wasn’t there someone else in the bathroom?”