Help for the Haunted(75)

“Just like that, huh? You’ll send me packing, same as you do those freaks who come here once you’re done using them!”

“Using them? We help them! You keep talking like that, and I’ll send you away until you can show some respect for your parents and live in a way we see fit!”

That was the most I heard, because when I opened the door, Rose burst from the kitchen and stormed down the hall. She shoved past me, stomping up the stairs and slamming her door. A moment later, I heard my father clomp down the basement stairs after slamming that door too. In the ringing silence that followed, I stood wondering which of them to go after.

That’s when my mother stepped from the kitchen and appeared before me in the hallway, smiling. In the stories my father told in lectures, people woke to find a deceased relative bathed in warm light at the foot of their beds. In those stories, the person’s heart filled with overwhelming joy at the sight. That’s how it felt to lay eyes on my mother. I ran to her and threw my arms around her. “I’m so happy to see you,” I told her, breathing in the milky smell of her skin.

“I’m happy to see you too,” she said, laughing. “But, Sylvie, you’re carrying on as though I’ve been away. I’ve only been upstairs with a bug. You could’ve come visit.”

“Dad told us we should leave you alone.”

“He did, huh?” She ran a hand over my hair. “Well, I’m sure he was just worried you girls might catch whatever I had. And trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted it.”

I hugged her more tightly, turning my face in the other direction, so I could see into the living room. That’s when I spotted the doll slumped in my mother’s old rocker from the basement, head tilted sharply to one side as though someone had snapped her neck. “What’s that doing here?” I asked, pulling away.

“Penny? Oh, I don’t need to cart her around anymore. I handed her over to your father. From the looks of things, he found a home for her in the living room.”

Footsteps trudged up from the basement just then. We turned to see my father emerge, holding his 35 mm camera. “I know it’s your first time out of bed in almost a week,” he said to my mother, keeping his eyes on the dials and fiddling. “But we’ve only got a few exposures left on this roll. I want to get it developed before our next lecture. So we may as well put it to good use and get a picture of you—”

“Oh, Sylvester. I can’t get my picture made now.”

Getting her picture made—that was a turn of phrase left over from my mother’s childhood in Tennessee, something I never heard anyone but her say. “How about taking one of Mom and me?” I asked.

“Actually, Sylvie, I was thinking of taking a photo of your mother and Penny.”

“Penny?” my mother said. “What for?”

“You know what for, Rose. We’ll file it with the others. Maybe show it in our talks or allow that reporter to use it when he writes another article or that book about us.”

“That book,” my mother said with a sigh. “Sylvester, I’m not sure I want a photo like that turning up in a newspaper or a book or anywhere at all.”

“You didn’t let me finish. I was about to say, only if you feel comfortable. But those were just ideas I was tossing around. We can discuss them later. For now, let’s just take a photo for our records. Best to do it while there’s still daylight, since the flash on this thing doesn’t always work so well.”

I watched as my mother walked reluctantly to the rocker, picking up the doll and propping it over one shoulder, just like during that car ride. She followed my father outside and stood before our Tudor, which looked more run-down than usual in the fading light. My gaze stayed on her as she cradled Penny the way she must have once cradled Rose, the way she must have once cradled me as well. My father wasted no time before snapping away. Despite his reasoning that there were only a few exposures left, I counted nine before I interrupted to ask if he could please take one of my mother and me.

“Oh, angel,” he said, looking at the dials and fiddling again. “I just used the last exposure. You should have said something sooner.”

“I did say something sooner,” I told him before I could stop myself.

My father lifted his head and fixed me with a look. “Sylvie,” he said. “Your mother and I are doing this for our work, not for fun and games.”

“Don’t worry, dear,” my mother said, heading back in the house with Penny. “I promise to buy a disposable camera at Mars Market. We’ll get a nice photo made of us.”

After the doll was returned to the rocker and my father returned his camera to the basement, there was homework to be done, followed by dinner. As we sat at the table, Rose’s empty chair became the ghost among us, since she did not come downstairs or respond when I knocked on her door. A roast made in the slow cooker—that’s all it was, but the food tasted better than anything we’d eaten in some time, since my mother prepared it. It was my turn to clear and clean the dishes, but both my parents helped, and my mother wrapped the bone in aluminum foil and put it in the freezer for some future day when she might need it to make soup stock. When all that was done, I figured we’d gather in the living room to watch a documentary on PBS, but my father said he had a handful of work things to discuss with my mother. The business of that book by Sam Heekin, I guessed. Whatever it was, I left them to it and went up to my room.