“I want to go home,” she said. She wiped at her nose with the sleeve of Ella’s jacket, shivering.
He nodded, looked to the street for a cab. “To your dad’s place?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I need my mom.”
He looked down at his watch and then back at her.
“Okay,” he said. “If we hurry, we can make that last train.”
seventeen
When I got back to the hospital, Mike was there, sitting on the floor in the corner like a Buddha, legs folded beneath him, hands in prayer at his chest, head bowed. He was just a bulky shadow, breathing deep, in measure to Paul’s labored breath. White light made a rectangle on the floor. Outside more white rectangles, portals into other lives, other moments, hopefully, most of them better than this one. I sank into the chair, didn’t say anything.
On the way in, the nurse asked me if I was Paul’s daughter and I had said yes, because it was easier and because in some senses it was true. Is it fair to lose two fathers in one lifetime? I loved my dad but also feared his disapproval, wasn’t sure what it felt like to be held in loving arms. He wasn’t a hugger, more just a peck-on-the-cheek kind of a guy, a pat on the shoulder, a tight smile. Paul was big on bear hugs, head stroking. He cooked, helped with homework, never angered. He was easy. We were kindred in a way I wasn’t with my own dad. At first it felt disloyal to love Paul, but in the end I loved him most. There was a band of sadness around my chest, tightening like a garrote.
“Don’t worry about it, kid,” said my father from over by the window. “I loved him better than I did my old man, too.”
“Someone was in the apartment,” I said to Mike.
He didn’t say anything, but the shift in his energy sent a ripple through the room.
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But they trashed it, looking for something.”
He blew out a long breath through pursed lips. “I shouldn’t have helped you. It was a mistake.”
“I’d have asked the questions of someone else,” I said. “Answered the questions on my own. I would have wound up in the same place.”
Another long breath drawn, held, released. The sound of it filled the room, mingled with Paul’s watery breath. It made me think of the ocean, waves crashing.
“Which is the reason why I did,” Mike said. “But I regret my decision.”
“Does he know? Did you tell him?”
“What? That you have taken it upon yourself to investigate the crime of your parents’ murder? That you have drawn some conclusions and taken matters into your own hands? That I helped you? He suspected. After Didion.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, “For the record, I didn’t think you would go there. I taught you better.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He shook his head at me. And I could see that he was angry, disappointed. It’s not just sad when you part company with your teacher. It’s also scary. You’re on your own.
We sat in a tense silence for a couple of minutes. Outside the room, a phone rang and rang. Someone let out a laugh. After a few minutes, I started talking. I told Mike about the phone call, the trashed apartment, the key. I told him about what I’d seen online. The house where my parents were killed, now under renovation.
Paul released a low moan, and I wondered how much he was taking in, if anything. Mike popped up lithely; I am always amazed at his speed and agility. Big usually means slow, stiff. Not so with Mike.
He exited the room, and I followed him to the chapel at the end of the hall. It was empty, some weird mix between hospital room and church, all pastel pink and purple with a simple cross hanging high on the far wall. I always liked the idea of religion, a safe place, somewhere you could rest your troubles. I believed in God. My father was a passionate atheist. But my mother believed in a spiritual universe, and she taught me that there was something bigger, something wiser, than I am. I felt it, in a strange, shifting way, like the tumbling crystals of a kaleidoscope. I felt it in the kung fu temple, or when I settled into the watcher mind. There was something there, something benevolent, and light, something other. I believed in God. But I didn’t have any faith at all in man, and the church belonged to him.
“What are you going to do?” asked Mike. We sat side by side in the front row gazing up at the gray metal cross.
There in the quiet, with his eyes on me, I knew the answer I hadn’t known when I came there.
“I’m going home,” I said. “I’m going back there. That’s where they’ll go if they’re still looking for it.”
Mike shook his head again; apparently there were no words for his disappointment in me. But he didn’t say anything.
“Will you stay with Paul?” I said into the silence. “Stay in touch with me. I won’t be long.”
He nodded, looking down at hands he’d folded in his lap. Our arms touched; I pushed into him, leaning against his bulk, and he pushed back.
“When Didion—was killed, I think it set something in motion,” said Mike. “Disturbed a resting energy. Maybe it’s time for closure on this.”
“Paul said: they’re coming for it,” I told Mike. “What did he mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You said he was out of it, maybe he was delirious. But look. Why don’t you just lay low and see how this all shakes out? Focus on Paul, on the school. The girls need you. I need you.”
If energy had been disturbed, then I was the one who’d disturbed it. It was my job to bring closure.
“We’ll call Boz, maybe ask Seth to spend a couple days staking out the house,” said Mike. His brow creased with worry, and he looped his fingers through mine. “We’ll tell Boz about the phone call, give him that number, and see what he finds. There’s no reason for you to be involved in this, Zoey. Not like this.”
I stood. We both knew it was too late for that.
part two
GHOSTS
eighteen
The room came into a kind of slatted, fuzzy focus, and all I could see was Paul, slouched and gray in the corner. I puzzled a moment—where was I? What was Paul doing?—still dwelling in the soft edges of wherever you go when you’re unconscious. There were a few blissful minutes of blank disorientation, while I watched him wondering why he looked so bad, what were those sounds, that smell, why did I feel so odd.
Then he looked up, his steely blue eyes meeting mine. He’d aged a million years, looked bent and old, hollowed out by grief. And slowly, slowly, it started to come back.
“Zoey,” he said. His voice was just a whisper and it was one word, my name, but everything, all the horror of the universe resided in those syllables.