She went back to the piano bench and settled herself on it. Her hands started kneading each other, kneading the opposite wrists, but she made them stop.
Right now Cree would be sitting in the dark entry hall with Paul. They wouldn't be saying much; they'd both be listening hard for sounds of trouble from back in the house. Cree would have her weird, empathic radar going. Those two were so drawn to each other, you could feel it in the air between them. But Cree was angry with him for some reason, probably because for all her insights and courage, she was afraid of the things he showed her about herself. Everyone had things inside they couldn't easily face. Paul, too. Right now, he was reeling inwardly, feeling sick and uncertain about everything after what he'd experienced at the Lambert crypt. Lila knew just how it felt.
What would happen to the two of them? Cree would go back to Seattle tomorrow or the next day. Paul – who knew? She hoped they wouldn't give up, wouldn't waste the good thing between them. It was too rare in life to waste.
More time passed.
She worried about Jack. He'd be sitting at home, still awake and sick with anxiety, or fallen asleep on the couch. He hadn't wanted to let her go without him tonight, but she had insisted. She was determined to be a new person, to break out of her old roles, but she wasn't sure what that really meant. It was all so new, and she needed time to decide just what she'd do differently. Jackie had never met this new person – would he love her? She kind of hoped he would; for all that he was not high class or exceptionally intelligent, he was a sweet man, earnest, funny. He had sure stuck through some tough spots.
Again, she recalled Cree's advice: Don't worry about Jack. Just trust that where you lead, he'll follow.
She felt her back grow tired of sitting. The fear abated, replaced by exhaustion. She struggled not to drowse. Her mood drifted toward a sweet sort of nostalgic melancholy. The past looked and felt different now. Cree said everyone did this – that important events, even just of the normal world, changed your view of yourself and your history and your family. You were always revising them.
Lila found herself returning to a memory she'd long ignored or forgotten, an afternoon from when she must have been six or seven. It wasn't anything particularly special, just her and Daddy wandering in the yard. He was always so sweet but so seldom had the time. He'd gone out to look at the eaves or something, and she'd hijacked him. She had led him around by the hand, Daddy in his suit pants and business shoes and shirt with suspenders and tie, Lila wearing her favorite dress, a frilly sort of thing that made her feel pretty. She showed off by naming every flower and then swore him to secrecy and brought him to the elf house she'd made under the bushy, arching branches of one of the hydrangeas. It was really little more than a collection of sticks, but Daddy seemed very impressed. After a while they went to the swing he'd hung from one of the big live oaks, and when Lila sat in it he began to push her. It felt so nice. She couldn't stop laughing, not because anything was funny, just because she was happy. She felt like she could go up into the green, right through the leaves and on into the sky. At the same time, it was nice knowing Daddy was there to catch her if she needed him to. The sun came through the branches and made everything so green and intricate and mysterious. You could easily believe in fairies. Daddy seemed very happy, too. She remembered feeling good that he was having as much fun as she was.
She savored the recollection for a little while. When she came away from it, she could swear there was more light coming in around the curtains. It startled her, and she wondered at the source of the glow. She got up, went to one of the windows, cracked the curtain, and was astonished to see that it was the sky, paling toward dawn.
She had been in here all night.
Immediately, she felt sorry for Cree and Paul, who must have gotten very uncomfortable, waiting for her in the hallway for, what, seven hours! She had asked enough of everybody. It was time to go. She had failed to make contact with her father's ghost. If she wanted that strength and freedom Cree had promised, she'd have to find it without him.
She stood up, every muscle and joint stiff. At the doorway she turned and faced the empty room once more. The memory of that time on the swing, the green aerial mansions above and having Daddy all to herself, was ebbing; she was sad to see it fade.
"Daddy, if you're there and I just can't see you? I just want you to know I turned out all right. So you don't have to worry." She listened and got no answer, and then corrected herself: "There was a bad time," she said quietly, "but now I'm all right."
Then she turned back to the door and went out to make it true.
46
Deirdre's house was chaos. The girls had hatched a scheme and had answered a flyer they'd spotted on a neighborhood telephone pole. The dog they'd come home with was a small, scruffy, miniature terrier mix, no puppy but a middle-aged dog they were calling Arthur for the time being. Now he skittered and biffed around the living room, kicking up throw rugs and terrorizing the cats, who watched him with loathing from the top of the piano.
"Tell me the other half of the plan," Cree insisted. Deirdre rolled her eyes.
Zoe took the lead: "It's the only way, Aunt Cree. If you don't want to do it, leave it to Hy and me. Who'd suspect two innocent kids of a scam like this? We go to where that old woman lives, right? And we give her Arthur somehow."
"Somehow like how?"
"That's kind of the hard part," Hyacinth told her. "Maybe we wait until she goes shopping and then we casually come up and ask her if she'd mind holding his leash for a minute while we go into a store or something. And then we never come back."
"Or maybe we just tie him to the fence in front of her house, and she sees him there and after a while figures he's been abandoned. And she'll take him in."
"Or we go up to her and say, like, 'Excuse me, ma'am, our dog is just drawn to you, like he knows you or something. Gee, it's almost supernatural, the way he keeps pulling us back over here. It's like he belongs with you – maybe you better take him.' Something like that."
Cree nodded doubtfully, trying to picture Mrs. Wilson's reaction.
"Well," Deirdre told them, "we're going to have to do something with him. He's a charming little guy, but he's awfully macho, and he's not meshing with the cats. He's also very set in his ways – he's a fussy eater, and he insists on sleeping only on the couch or on our bed. Don and I shoo him off, but – "
The dog yapped piercingly at the cats, who didn't move except to tick their ears back a notch. To distract him, Zoe began teasing him with a chewed-up leather belt, making him run in circles.
Deirdre gave Cree an accusing glare: You got me into this, you get me out.
"It's a terrific plan. We'll figure out something," Cree said. Actually, she thought, depending on the details, it might just work. And the habits that made Arthur less than appealing for Deirdre would probably be the very ones that melted Mrs. Wilson's heart.
" 'Innocent' kids?" Cree asked.
"Well, Hy is," Zoe clarified. "And I'm innocent looking."
Deirdre clapped her hands to get things moving toward the door; they were running late. Cree had just stopped to pick them up and had already distributed the beads, voodoo dolls, alligator teeth, and hot sauces she'd brought from New Orleans. The plan was to meet Mom at the gym, take her out to dinner. It was something of a rituaclass="underline" Whenever she came back from a ghost-hunting trip, she needed to reconnect, nestle up against the family, touch every base, reaffirm every contact. She was trying to remember where she was in life, who she was. This time it was particularly hard. She had to reclaim herself.
Not everything, though, Cree reminded herself. Some things were best left behind.