He grabbed his overnight bag from the trunk, then supported her into the building and up to her apartment, where she made a studied point of getting her door open. “Can I make you tea or something?” she asked politely. The words were clear, but she ruined the effect by staggering.
“No, thanks. Keep walking, straight to bed. Where are those hangover pills you gave me the other morning? Might help if you took a few now.”
She waved a hand in the direction of the bathroom. He led her to her bed, supporting her while pulling down the sheets, and left her sitting there on the edge of the mattress. A minute later he was back with the pills and a tumbler of water. As soon as she had taken the pills, he took off her shoes.
“I’m really all right,” she said, but she was shielding her eyes from the light that seemed to radiate like fire from the bedside lamp.
He turned it off, helped her lie down and pulled the covers over her.
“Is the room spinning even with the light off?” he asked.
“No.” She sighed. “Yes.”
“Let’s hope the pills kick in soon, then.”
For a moment she was both floating in her own wavering world and simultaneously aware that he had undressed and climbed in beside her. She inched closer to him. After a minute, she heard him sigh. And then his arm came around her, and he pulled her closer.
“What the hell made you do this?” he asked softly.
“Ghosts,” she said, before she could stop herself.
He tensed, and she thought he was going to pull away from her, but he didn’t.
“You shouldn’t have called Adam,” he said. “Ghosts…can’t help. All they can do is muddle your mind. Remnants of the past that tear at your soul.”
“Because you were in love with her,” she said.
“I could have been in love with her,” he replied. “But she loved Matt.”
“She’s with him now, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah, they’re both dead,” he said.
And despite the liquor sloshing around in her body and confusing her mind, she propped herself up on one elbow and stared down at him. It was now or never.
“You’re wrong. They’re together. Really together. And they can help us, if we let them. If you need everything to be flesh and blood, to be real and physical, go ahead and think it’s all in your mind. Think of it as the memories pointing you in the right direction. Do whatever works for you, but just don’t discount it. Don’t be afraid, because you know I always had the feeling that Joe Connolly wasn’t afraid of anything. And don’t be angry with me about calling Adam. Leslie believed in ghosts, you know.”
“And she’s dead now,” he interrupted harshly.
Because I’m alive, Genevieve almost said.
But she didn’t.
And neither did he.
Despite that, the words hung in the air between them, as if they were ghosts themselves.
She was sure there was more she needed to say, as if this were an argument she needed to win. But then she sighed, exhaling all the air that was in her, and there was nowhere else left to go.
She lay back down, and the darkness continued to spin, weird little squiggles of light dancing behind her eyelids. No wonder she had spent so many years hating whiskey.
There was nothing but silence, and she thought he must have fallen asleep, so she was startled when his voice came out of the darkness, deep and tormented.
“Dammit, Genevieve, don’t you see? I don’t want that for you. You’ve already suffered more than anyone should. And if you keep going in this direction—whether it’s in your mind, real…whatever—you’ll just stay tortured. You’ll always be trying to understand, searching for another clue…Oh, God, never mind. I can’t explain, it’s just that…that world is that world. The dead are dead and gone. Let them rest in peace.”
She was stunned by the passion of his words, and she let several seconds go by. Then she felt the mattress shift and sensed him looking down at her. She stared back up at him in the shadows.
“What if they can’t rest in peace? What if they’re here because they’re determined to help us, whether we’re able to accept their help or not?” she whispered.
He groaned.
“Joe,” she said softly, reaching up, delicately brushing her fingers over the rugged contours of his face. “Joe, something is haunting you, I know it,” she told him. “It started…it started that night at O’Malley’s when you were the one who got drunk.”
He lay down on his back beside her again, shaking his head. “We’ve got to get some sleep,” he said.
It was an argument she wasn’t going to win, she thought. Not tonight, anyway. But maybe even an argument was better than the angry silence they’d shared before. Just then he reached for her and drew her to his side.
Protectively.
It felt good, she thought, to be exactly where she was, even if he was just there as her guardian, a sentinel determined to keep her safe.
“Take another couple of these.”