Nineteen

NINETEEN

Cirillo insists on conducting his own search. He refrains from stating the obvious—that he needs to be sure we didn't plant equipment. I don't care. I want as many eyes on this as I can get.

After he searches, Cirillo wants to use his equipment to conduct some experiments in the space. I beg off in favor of a nap. I've had two rough nights. My CF means I'm susceptible to infections, so I try to keep well rested. Or that's a fine excuse. The truth is that I want to get away from everyone else in hopes Anton will reach out.

Before, I'd wanted him to make contact in front of others, for independent confirmation. Now that he's done that, I want him all to myself, in hopes he'll do more than whisper reassurances.

I head up to my room, pull the blinds, turn off the lights, and crawl into bed.

"I'm here," I whisper. "If you want to talk to me, I'm listening."

There's no answer.

"I'm getting a little tired of these one-sided chats, Anton. How about you stop whispering in my ear and have an actual conversation?"

No response. My words settle, and I squirm under them. I might have been teasing, but there's truth there, too. He hasn't tried to talk to me. He's talked at me. Maybe that's how it works. I can hear him, but he can't hear me.

If Anton is passing along messages, rather than trying to communicate, what is he saying? Warning me? Or reassuring me? The ones from today are exactly what I'm hoping to hear, which makes me all the happier that those are the ones Jin also overheard.

So why does another, darker, possibility keep nudging at me?

I'll be waiting.

Kneeling in the snow beside his dying body, I'd heard nothing but reassurance in those words. I'll be on the other side, and I'll be waiting for you.

But today, especially when Jin said them— he said he loves you, that he's waiting —I heard something vaguely sinister.

I love you.

I'm waiting.

A reassurance? Or a threat?

I shake it off. That's not Anton. It was never Anton.

Remember what he confessed to? Not at the end, but before? What he'd done?

A stupid teenage mistake, for which he'd suffered so much guilt. He couldn't have foreseen the consequences, which really did have nothing to do with him.

Am I sure?

I'm struggling to make sense of the messages, half reassurances, half warnings. What if they're all warnings?

How can "Everything's okay" be a warning?

Even as I think that, I know the answer. They could be false reassurances.

Relax. Everything is okay. Stop worrying. Stop questioning. Stop protesting. Stop fighting.

Words parents use to control children who are refusing to do something. But they're also words that can be used by anyone in a position of control.

Words from a man to a woman.

Words from a husband to a wife.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Stop this. I'm rewriting history. I have known controlling guys, and I ran the other way even if I suspected they didn't realize they were being controlling.

Anton never tried to control any part of my life. If I wanted advice, he was there, but otherwise, it was my business, my finances, my inheritance. Before we married, I told him about my parents' trust fund, how anything left at my death reverted to Keith.

"As it should." That's what he said.

When I pressed, he'd only smiled, that crooked smile, a little self-conscious as he said, "I'm not exactly hard up for money, Nic. I might be a mathematician, but I have a sweet side gig."

Stock-market analysis. He'd made a lot in the technology boom, taken his money out at exactly the right time, and invested it wisely.

"I'll sign a prenup," he says. "Just so it's clear."

"No, no."

He pulls me to him in a kiss. "I'm making the call tomorrow."

He'd insisted on a prenup, which said he would make no claim on the trust fund or any of my premarital assets. After the marriage, I quietly changed my will, giving half of my personal assets to him, the remainder to be split between my niece and nephew.

Insisting on a prenup in my favor was not the behavior of a controlling man. It was not the behavior of a charming con artist who married a financially comfortable and chronically ill woman. Of course, I'd had to worry about that. But when Anton died, his entire estate went to me, because he'd written a new will, too, and I discovered how right he'd been about his personal finances. He absolutely had not needed my trust fund.

That's one thing about losing a spouse. If they were hiding anything, it's going to come to light, no matter how independently you lived. Local hotel charges on their personal credit card? Abusive porn on their computer? Creditors suddenly banging on the door? Baby mamas showing up with DNA tests? With Anton, there'd been none of that.

He'd been even more organized than me, and I'd found passwords and authorizations to everything tucked in with his will. The most scandalous thing I discovered? An ex sending him nudes until he blocked her. The biggest secret I uncovered? He'd secretly paid college tuition for the two kids Cody had abandoned after leaving his wife for the babysitter, which might be the most on-brand thing Cody ever did.

Anton wasn't a saint. I found a letter from a college girlfriend he'd dumped and hurt. And I found emails from his mother, wanting more contact. He made mistakes. He owned them. He'd kept that letter rather than throw it into the trash. He'd always meant to call his mother more and felt bad when he realized how long it'd been.

Anton was human. But he wasn't controlling, and he wasn't a con artist.

Whatever I'm interpreting from those ghostly messages, that's on me. When he lay dying on that roadside, saying he'd be waiting, I did not for one second hear anything but love in it.

I went upstairs with the excuse that I was tired, and it wasn't purely an excuse. Once I force myself to focus on good memories, I drift off. And I drift off into memory.

I'd been thinking of the past, of Anton's confession, and that is where my sleeping mind goes.

To his confession.

It's three years ago. I'm in a funky little indie coffee shop, where I've taken a table under a display of local artists' work, all of it with yellowing price tags that make me want to buy something. Anton sits across from me. This is our third post-reunion meetup, and I'm giddy with the promise of it. But today Anton isn't his usual cheerful self. He's been quiet and restrained.

Anton leans over the table. "I want to ask you out."

I look around. "You already did."

"No, I mean ask you out on a date."

Is he nervous? He doesn't seem nervous. He seems as if he's already resigned himself to rejection, which makes no sense, because he couldn't have missed the way I waltzed in here, wearing a skirt and heels for a coffee date, my face lighting up when I saw him.

"Go ahead," I say. "I like your odds."

I'm smiling, but his expression doesn't change. He's somber, even dour.

Anton reaches for my hand. "Before I do that, I need to confess something. It's going to change those odds, Nic. And not for the better."

My heart stops. I knew this was too good to be true. He's too good to be true.

He's going to tell me that he's moving back out west. Or, worse, that he's married, with some excuse like separation or an open marriage, and no matter how he explains that away, it will be a deal-breaker, as would having him move back across the country. I don't do long-distance relationships, and I sure as hell don't do extramarital affairs.

"We were at your séance," he blurts.

I think I've heard wrong. I must have. These words make no sense. "What?"

"Your séance, with Patrice and Heather. We were there. Me and Cody and Mike." The words come in a rush. "Cody and Mike overheard you guys planning it, and they wanted to stage a haunting for you. I argued but…"

He inhales sharply. "They were going to do it anyway, and I went along to keep them in line."

"You… were there?"

He nods mournfully, his gaze not meeting mine.

I work it through, remembering and putting the pieces together.

"You heard the story about Samantha and Roddy," I say. "You pretended to be Roddy stalking Sam—"

"Not me. Cody and Mike." He rubs his mouth. "Which is an excuse. I was there, and I didn't stop them."

"Okay." I continue processing his words. I remember we'd heard whispers and footsteps coming from two directions. Cody and Mike.

"And then when Patrice walked off?" I say.

"I didn't realize what was going on at first. We heard you guys calling her, and I thought she freaked out and ran into the forest. I made the guys stop, and I went after her. When I saw her, I whistled, so you'd find her."

His head drops further. "Fuck. I should have done more than whistle. I should have helped you with Patrice. I was a coward, Nic. Too chickenshit to stop my friends. Too chickenshit to warn you when I couldn't stop them. Too chickenshit to step up, let you see it was me and help with Patrice. I look back now, and I'm so fucking ashamed of myself."

I say nothing.

After a moment, he continues, his voice hoarse. "After… what happened. The second time. I had to come clean. I told my parents what we did the first time. I wanted to go to the police, but my parents said it wouldn't help. I wasn't there the night it happened. Cody and Mike weren't either—we'd all gone to a movie. What we did that first time was wrong, but we had nothing to do with what happened later, and my parents said if we went to the police, they might turn it around and find a way to blame us for the rest."

I nod, silently, still working it through.

His gaze rises, finally meeting mine. "I still should have gone to the police. Yes, we weren't there the night…" He swallows. "The night you went back. I wish I had been. I wish to God I had been. But my parents were wrong that we had nothing to do with it. If we hadn't played that stupid prank, Patrice might never have gotten it into her head that she was possessed, that Roddy or whatever got into her. We set into motion the chain of events that led to what happened, and I have never forgiven myself for that."

When I look into his eyes, I know he believes what he's saying. To him, the answer is obvious—they caused what happened to Patrice. But it's not that simple. I remember that night, the noises and voices Heather and I heard, how we'd looked over at Patrice, and she hadn't seemed to even hear them.

Yes, Anton should have warned us that his friends planned to fake a haunting. But teens are notorious for poor choices. Anton decided the best course of action was to accompany Cody and Mike to monitor them. Wasn't that the same reason I went? To monitor my friends while they did something stupid because I didn't know how to stop them from doing it?

His whistle had brought us to Patrice. I can wish he'd done more, but we'd been able to handle it after that. He'd stayed in the shadows out of fear. To him, their fake haunting had sent Patrice running into the woods, and he didn't dare admit he was there.

In that coffee shop, I saw the anguish he still felt after nearly two decades. That told me the sort of person he was, and that's when I decided I didn't want a date with him… I wanted more.

Yes, Anton had picked shitty friends, but we'd both been at that age where we needed friends and we could make bad choices.

His parents stopped him from confessing, and now he can look back and say he should have gone to the police, but what sixteen-year-old would do that? His parents convinced him that their prank hadn't caused the rest, and he desperately wanted to believe that.

If their prank did influence what came later, it was an unforeseeable consequence. Anton wasn't there the second time we went into the forest. He had nothing to do with that.

Now, sitting on the bed, picturing him in that booth, I remember how I'd been struck by his guilt and remorse.…

I'd been struck by the depth of it. Such regret for a mistake his friends would have long forgotten. I'd taken it as a sign he was a good man, empathetic and compassionate.

But what if there was a reason his guilt outweighed his crime?

The night he died, lying on the roadside, when he said he had something to confess, my gut had seized, not wanting to hear it, afraid…

Afraid there was more to the story than what he told me in that coffee shop.

On that roadside, had he seemed to hesitate? To pause and then confess to something sweet, admitting he hadn't hired me by accident?

What if he'd been about to say something else? Something about that night, and then he stopped himself and changed direction?

What had he really been about to say?

I take a shower after that. With everything that happened this morning, I'd skipped mine, and now I really need it. A hot shower and plenty of soap, enough to scrub any traitorous thoughts from my brain.

I'm in the shower long enough for the water to run cold. Then I grab a towel, about to step out when I stop myself. The shower has handrails for people with mobility issues, and I use those and then I dry myself off completely. I don't step on the bath mat. I don't walk with wet feet. I am taking no chances.

I dress quickly and head for the bedroom door, suddenly eager for company. I throw it open, step out, and…

I don't slip, per se. It's like before, when I stepped on the rug and overcorrected. But there's something under my stockinged foot that slides, and I grab the doorway as if I stepped on a banana peel.

I look down to see…

There are ashes on the floor. A scattering of ashes right outside my door.

My brain short-circuits, and my breath stops. All I can see is me carrying the box with Anton's ashes, being careless with it, the lid somehow opening and cremains falling.

Except the cremains are downstairs. I forgot to bring them up again.

Did someone else touch them? Was someone careless with my husband's remains?

Braced against the wall, I gently remove the sock that slipped as I try not to think of what I stepped on, the horror of that almost as terrible as the horror of my thoughts twenty minutes ago, wondering whether Anton had anything to do with the tragedy from our past.

As I bend, though, a smell hits me. I have no idea what cremains smell like and no interest in finding out, but what I do smell is familiar. It's a smell I never thought I'd recognize, and yet I do.

It's the mushrooms. Those damn mushrooms Heather said she'd brought back from Cuba.

I bend closer, holding my breath so I don't inhale, which makes it hard to get a sniff. I don't need that sniff. My brain tells me what it is even when I try to argue that my senses are affected by the dream.

I dreamed of the séance with the mushrooms. Now I think I smell them.

It's definitely not cremains, though. These are flakes and bits of plant matter, not ashes.

"Nic?"

I look up as Shania crests the stairs.

"Are you okay?" she says as she rushes forward. Then she must realize I'm only crouched, not sprawled on the floor, and she slows. Her gaze goes to the hardwood.

"What's that?" she says, flicking on a light. Before I can answer, she says, "Oh."

I open my mouth to say it's not cremains, but she lowers her voice and whispers, "Dr. Cirillo doesn't take off his shoes."

I frown, trying to make the connection.

She gives a half smile. "Americans, right? I've already cleaned up mud in the kitchen that he tracked in. He must have been wandering around the gardens."

I look down at the flakes and bits. Shania thinks it's detritus Cirillo brought in on his shoes. Except it's all in front of my bedroom door. To leave a mess right here, he'd need to stand outside my closed door.

But it does make sense that it's organic matter from outdoors, tracked in on shoes. I take a closer look. Flakes and lumps that suggest a decayed spring garden.

But that smell?

Mushrooms are dried plant matter, just like this. That's what I must be smelling.

"Nic?"

I look up.

"Is everything okay?" Shania asks.

No, everything is not okay. I'm dreaming of a past séance. I'm questioning my husband's role in it and questioning the communications I might be receiving from him now.

I smile and tug my sock back on. "Everything's fine. That nap was just what the doctor ordered, but now I'm in need of coffee and sugar. Are there any of your Nanaimo bars left?"

She perks up. "There are. I think Jin and Dr. Castillo find them too sweet."

"Not possible. Let's go get some caffeine and sugar."