Pen Pal(77)

As if she were talking about me.

Like an army of spiders, cold horror crawls over my skin. I whisper hoarsely, “No.”

Fiona says quietly, “Yes, my dear. I’m afraid so.”

With the explosive force of a bomb, a hundred different memories detonate in my head all at once.

How shocked Fiona was when she saw me the day after Michael’s funeral. How she asked in that peculiar tone, “So you’ll be staying in the house?”

How all the people at the grief group ignored Madison, the woman whose child was abducted years ago. How she sat alone in the circle, as if she were invisible to everyone except me.

How Eddie the handyman who dressed like a hippie didn’t have a cell phone and thought David Letterman was only a therapist. How, when I went to find him, that therapist didn’t exist.

How all the roofers I called never called back.

How the security camera only recorded static when I went out into the yard.

How Destiny the psychic said mournfully, “I’ll pray for you.”

How when I rang the bell, her mother opened the door, looked around, then closed it, as if there was no one standing there.

The Death card. The Lovers. The reversed Magician, indicating I needed to let go of my illusions.

The upright Ten of Swords that hinted at deep wounds, painful endings…

Betrayal.

Fiona saying, “Reality is simply what we believe it to be. Each of us make our own truths, even ghosts.”

How, when Claire first came in tonight, she referred to the spirit she came to contact as “her” before correcting herself.

Shaking so hard, I can barely stand, I whisper, “If you give people light, they’ll find their own way.”

When I meet Fiona’s gaze, her eyes are shining with tears.

I sob, then slap a hand over my mouth to stifle it. Then I grab the phone from Claire, run back to the junk drawer, and pull things out, frantically tossing pens, post-it notes, take-out menus and batteries onto the floor until I find what I’m looking for.

Eddie the handyman’s business card.

I didn’t notice it before, but the card is fragile and yellowed with age, the ink flaking in places. It looks as if it was printed decades ago.

Which it probably was.

With the sound of the raging storm outside nearly deafening me, I dial his number.

The phone rings twice before a man picks up. “Homefront Handyman, three generations strong. How can I help you?”

Gripping the phone in my shaking hands, I ask, “Is Eddie there, please?”

His short silence seems surprised. “Uh, no. This is Mark. How can I help you?”

“Please, I really, really need to speak with Eddie. Can you put him on the phone? Is he around?”

After another pause, the man on the other end of the line says, “Is this a joke or something?”

I shout, “Just put him on the phone!”

He sighs heavily. “Look, lady. I normally don’t pick up this late, but business has been slow, so I did. You’ve made me regret it. Have yourself a good night.”

“Please!” I beg, desperate. “I have to talk to Eddie! I have to talk to him right now!”

He snaps, “Yeah, well, that’s gonna be kinda hard, lady, because my grandpa died in 1974.”

All the breath leaves my lungs. A sob catches in my throat. Two more fluorescent light bulbs in the ceiling explode with a pop.

“Kayla.”

When I whirl around in panic, Fiona is holding out one of Dante’s envelopes to me.

“Read the name on the return address,” she says gently.

Hyperventilating, I snatch it from her hand. “Dante Alighieri,” I cry, shaking my head. “His name is Dante Alighieri! So what?”

“Don’t just look at it…see.”

When I return my gaze to the upper left corner of the envelope, all the letters in the return address are now moving, trading places with one another and slowly rearranging themselves into something else.

I blink rapidly, trying to clear my vision. It doesn’t help. The letters move sideways, overlapping then straightening out into another name.

A name that rips a hole straight through the fabric of my heart.

Aidan Leighrite.

Dante Alighieri is an anagram for Aidan Leighrite.

Into my mind flashes an image of the framed Thoreau quote on the wall of Destiny’s parlor: “It’s not what you look at, it’s what you see.”

I’ve been blind. Refusing to acknowledge the truth.

Looking at everything, but seeing nothing at all.

Tears streaming down my face, I drop the envelope and run from the kitchen. I burst through the door of Michael’s office and fall sobbing onto his desk.

I snatch up the newspaper with Michael’s picture on the front. With shaking hands, I unfold it all the way. When I see the rest of the headline that was obscured, my heart stops beating.

The headline isn’t Local Man Drowns, as it appeared when folded.

The full headline is Local Man Drowns Wife.

From the other side of the crease, my photo stares back at me.

I see myself standing at Michael’s grave the day of the funeral, hearing a woman sob my name, and realize with the sensation of the floor disappearing beneath my feet that the name on the headstone wasn’t my husband’s.