When Ghosts Come Home(42)

“Mom,” she said. She turned off the bathroom light, and the hallway fell into near darkness. She could see her mother’s hands where they gripped the tray; the boniness of her arms made her hands appear monstrous. “Mom,” she said again, “are you bringing dinner to my room?”

“Why not?” her mother said. “You’ve been traveling all day. You don’t need to sit downstairs with two old people and listen to them gossip.” She turned and pushed Colleen’s bedroom door open with her foot. Light cut into the dark hallway. She looked back over her shoulder and gave Colleen a nod. “Come on,” she said, “before it gets cold. I’m not carrying this down the stairs to reheat it.”

She set the tray on Colleen’s bed. It was just as Colleen had expected: country-style steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a glass of sweet iced tea. Her mother had wrapped a knife and fork in a paper napkin and left it resting beside the plate.

“You didn’t have to do this, Mom,” Colleen said. She sat down on the bed and picked up the glass of tea and took a sip.

“No, I didn’t have to do this tonight, but I did,” she said. She sat down beside Colleen. “You didn’t have to fly all the way home from Texas today, but you did.”

“That’s true,” Colleen said.

“And I’m glad you did,” she said.

“I feel bad. I should eat with you and Dad.”

“Why?” her mother asked. “So you can hear him grumble about driving back to the Wilmington airport tomorrow morning? Listen to me annoy him with my theories on that crashed airplane?”

“Why’s he going back to the Wilmington airport tomorrow?” She unwrapped the silverware and scooped up a forkful of mashed potatoes. They were salty and warm.

“There’s an FBI guy from Florida who’s coming up to fly that airplane out of here,” she said. “Your father’s picking him up tomorrow morning.” She sighed. “And he’s staying with us for a few days.”

“Here? Where?”

“In the office, I guess,” she said. “I’ll tidy it up in the morning. We’ll worry about it then.”

Colleen cut a piece of steak and swirled it through the potatoes.

“I’m glad to see you eating,” her mother said. “It doesn’t matter how old you get, you’re always happy to see your child eat the food you’ve made for them.”

“It’s good,” Colleen said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had food like this.”

She could actually feel her mother wanting to ask what she and Scott ate for meals in Texas. Colleen had never been a very good cook, and Scott wasn’t either. She would’ve been ashamed to tell her mother that they heated up foil-covered TV dinners in the oven or went out for dinner on nights when Scott didn’t work too late. At that moment, Colleen couldn’t picture a single meal they’d made together in the kitchen since they’d moved to Dallas. Colleen imagined Scott coming home to the empty house and opening the freezer and turning on the oven. She wondered if he was feeling the same heavy loneliness she felt, or if he felt anything at all. It was too much to take with her mother sitting on her bed watching her eat, so she shook the image of Scott from her mind.

“You said Dad doesn’t want to hear your theories on the plane,” she said. “What are they?”

“Drugs,” her mother said. She sat up straighter. “I think it’s a drug plane.”

“You think Rodney Bellamy was flying a drug plane?”

“No, I don’t think that,” she said. “I don’t know how he was involved. That just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Me either,” Colleen said. She wanted to bring up what her father had told her about Rodney and his wife having a little boy, but she didn’t. She didn’t want her mother to read her face and turn the conversation toward her and Scott and what had happened to them.

“Do you remember the story I used to tell you when you were really little about the Magic House?” her mother asked.

Colleen laughed, more out of surprise than humor. The story of the Magic House had lingered in the corners of her memory since childhood, and she knew she might never have thought about it again had her mother not just mentioned it. “Yes,” Colleen said. “I remember it.”

In the story, Colleen’s mother would be lost in the woods, and she would discover a house that was an exact replica of their own. She would be surprised when her key fit the lock, and she would go inside to look around. In each room—the kitchen, the living room, Colleen’s room, her and Colleen’s father’s bedroom—she would find a different version of Colleen, some older, some much younger. Colleen’s mother called it the Magic House because it was a place she could always go to find all the Colleens that Colleen had ever been.

“I was thinking of that story just now,” her mother said. “I was thinking of it when I walked up the stairs and saw that your bedroom door was open. I thought you were in here, and I thought of the Magic House and I wondered which version of you I would find.” She stopped talking and looked around the bedroom. She unfolded the napkin and laid it across Colleen’s lap. “I always told you that whatever version of you was in front of me was my favorite version. That’s still true,” she said. “Right now, you are my favorite version of you.”