Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(64)

“I don’t really like this song,” Emma had said.

“You told me it was your favorite.”

“It’s beautiful. But it always makes me sad.”

“Why, love?” he’d asked gently. “It’s about finding each other again. About someone coming home.”

Emma had lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him earnestly. “It’s about losing someone, and having to wait until you’re together in heaven.”

“There’s nothing in the lyrics about heaven,” he’d said.

“But that’s what it means. I can’t bear the idea of being separated from you, for a lifetime or a year or even a day. So you mustn’t go to heaven without me.”

“Of course not,” he had whispered. “It wouldn’t be heaven without you.”

What had happened to them? Why hadn’t they married? He couldn’t fathom that he would have left to fight in the war without first having made Emma his wife. He must have proposed to her … in fact, he felt sure that he had. Maybe she had refused him. Maybe her family had stood in the way. But he and Emma had loved each other so much, it seemed impossible that any force on earth could have kept them apart. Something had gone unspeakably wrong, and he had to figure out what it was.

The song finished with a near spectral chorus of voices. Slowly Alex lifted his head and looked down at Emma.

“He used to sing that to me,” she told him.

“I know,” Alex whispered.

She squeezed his fingers until the veins showed on the back of her hand like delicate blue lace.

Zoë came forward to slip an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders, pausing only to tell Alex in a distracted tone, “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

As Zoë guided her to a chair at the dining table, Emma said, “You were right, Zoë. He does have big muscles.”

Zoë darted a mortified glance at Alex. “I didn’t say that,” she protested. “I mean, I did, but—”

His brows lifted into mocking arcs.

“What I mean is,” Zoë said awkwardly, “I don’t sit around discussing the size of your—” She broke off and went crimson.

Alex averted his face to hide a grin. “I’ll get my tools from the truck,” he said.

The ghost followed him outside.

“Thanks,” the ghost said, as Alex hefted a couple of tool buckets from the back of the truck. “For taking care of Emma.”

Alex set the buckets on the ground and faced him. “What happened?”

“She woke up distraught. I don’t know why.”

“You sure she can’t see or hear you?”

“I’m sure. Why did you play that song for her?”

“Because it’s your favorite.”

“How did you know that?”

Alex looked sardonic. “You sing it all the time. Why do you look so pissed off?”

After a long moment, the ghost said morosely, “You got to hold her.”

“Oh.” Alex’s face changed. He gave the ghost a sympathetic glance, as if he understood the torture it was to be so close to the person you loved beyond anything, and yet not be able to touch her. To comprehend that you were only a shadow, an outline, of the physical being you once had been.

In the yearning silence, Alex said, “She smells like rose perfume and hairspray and the air just after it rains.”

The ghost drew closer, hanging on to every word.

“She has the softest hands of anyone I’ve ever met,” Alex said. “They’re a little cool, the way some women’s are. And her bones are as light as a bird’s. I could tell she used to be a good dancer—if it wasn’t for her weak leg, she’d still be able to move well.” He paused. “She has a great smile. Her eyes light up. I’ll bet she was as fun as hell when you knew her.”

The ghost nodded, comforted.

Zoë served breakfast to her grandmother and went to the bathroom for her medication. She saw her reflection in the mirror, cheeks too red, eyes too bright. She felt as if she had to relearn how to breathe.

Thirty-two bars of music. The length of an average song. That was all the time it had taken for the earth to spin off its axis and go tumbling into a net of stars.

She loved Alex Nolan.

She loved him for every reason and no reason.

“You are everything that’s ever been my favorite thing,” she wanted to tell him. “You are my love song, my birthday cake, the sound of ocean waves and French words and a baby’s laugh. You’re a snow angel, crème brulée, a kaleidoscope filled with glitter. I love you and you’ll never catch up, because I’ve gotten a head start and my heart is racing at light speed.”

Someday she would tell him how she felt about him, and he would leave her. He would break her heart the way people did when their own hearts had been broken long ago. But that didn’t change anything. Love would have its way.

Squaring her shoulders, Zoë brought the medicine to Emma, who was already midway through the bowl of apple crisp. “Here are your pills, Upsie.”

“He has the hands of a carpenter,” Emma said. “Strong. All those calluses. I used to be sweet on a man with hands like that.”