“What would you have me say to you?” She wanted Emil to tell her that she was right, but the ghost would not, she knew it. The woman had never helped her with decisions in all her life.
Beth paced back and forth by the table, cursing the letter one moment, then begging it to give her a clue as to what it said. Finally in a fit of frustration, she sat down and picked it up.
“This does not mean I’m going to do whatever it is she wants.” Emil nodded but said nothing. “I’m just going to read it so that blasted litany goes away.” She started to tear the envelope open but got up to get a knife. Sliding it under the seal, she slit it open and watched as three squares of something fell out, as well as the business card that Mr. Chandler had said was in it. Picking up the first square, she sobbed when she realized what it was.
The young woman staring back at her could have been her image at the age of eighteen or so. Running her finger over the long hair, she could see, even with the snapshot so old, that there were the same flecks of gold in her eyes that Beth had inherited from her own dad. This was the daughter she’d lost. Beth wanted to shove everything back into the envelope and hide from it.
The next picture was of a young man. Her son, she’d bet. He looked so much like her dad that she knew there was little doubt he was hers too. The sadness in his eyes made her weep for him, and she touched her fingers to his image as well. There was something pulling her to him, a maternal thing she supposed, but Beth wanted to find him and hold him until he smiled at her. Putting it down, Beth picked up the last one.
This was of the two of them, the children as babies. The little bundles were wrapped up tightly in a white blanket and their little faces, so fresh and new, had been exposed for the picture. The only things that told her which was which were the tiny little pink and blue hats that each of them wore. Beth held it to her heart for several minutes and looked at her friend.
“They should have had me there with them.” Emil nodded. “They cheated me out of so much that I’ll never get back. I hate them now, both of them more now than I did before I knew what they’d done.”
“As you should. But as I have told you, hating will get you nothing but a sick belly and mind.” Emil nodded toward the envelope. “That is all you have to do now, read about what the Mrs. has to say to you.”
Picking up the letter, she read the first line three times before she was able to see it properly. The tears were making it all blurry.
“Hello, Miss Pike. My name is Kari Briggs Bennett. I don’t normally go by such a title, but I wanted you to know right away who I was. I’m your daughter-in-law. I’m so glad that we found you.
“I have enclosed some pictures of your children. I’m so terribly sorry for your loss with Aster. She is a wonderful woman and I have so enjoyed getting to know her.” Beth put the letter down and had to get up and walk for a moment. Her daughter was dead. She was dead, and yet this woman was talking about her as if she was right with her. Beth picked up the letter again and started to read where she’d left off.
“…to know her. I want you to know now, at the very beginning of this, that I can talk to spirits. As can Steele, your son. And from the research we have conducted, we’re thinking, hoping really, that he got this ability from you. Is that right?
“Sadly I didn’t get mine from a parent, but because for a short while I was dead. Not all people experience this ability after something like this happens, but I was one of the lucky ones. I have also spoken to your father.”
Beth didn’t put the letter down this time, but carried it to the room that she’d set up as a studio. As she moved around the room, she turned on every light, every lamp, and even the small nightlight she used sometimes when she wanted to go and check on something in the night. Then she curled into a corner and began to read again. It was, at times like this, the only place she felt safe.
“He is a wonderfully funny man that I have come to love as a grandfather. He is brilliant and polite to a fault, and he misses you so terribly much. For all this time, after he found out about the children you gave birth to, he had assumed you dead. It wasn’t until recently that we were able to discover that not only are you living and well, but you might bear the same gift that your children did.”