And she couldn’t believe what she read.
One day, years ago, Fiona was in the fruit and veg shop when Hattie had made some vicious comment about some famous pop star who’d gone off the rails and Old Lady Kilbride, who was also there, heard her.
“You don’t know the demons she carries, Hattie Fennick,” Mrs. Kilbride said sharply. “You don’t know. Her life may seem charmed and glamorous to you but everyone has demons. Everyone.”
Old Lady Kilbride was right.
And Isabella Austin Evangahlala had demons and her demons were doozies.
She seemed like she had it all. She was beautiful, rich, well-educated, jet-set, stylish, classy.
But she had an abusive father who used to berate verbally and alternately beat her mentally unstable mother.
This, Bella had witnessed.
He also verbally berated and sometimes slapped Bella.
She had a best friend who’d lost her joy for life and Bella worked for years trying to help her find it again and luckily succeeded, Fiona learned through the journals, that while she and Prentice were encouraging Dougal from close by, from a distance, Bella was also encouraging Annie.
Bella also had a husband who played around on her constantly, even once she’d walked in on him and another woman.
He’d also taunted her with her inability to give him children, something Bella yearned for to the point of despair.
And he’d not allowed them to settle down even though she wanted a home. They owned several properties but they never stayed in one long. They travelled around like nomads from party to party, yacht to yacht, ski resort to ski resort, event to event, incessantly.
Bella missed her mother who she adored and she had vivid, excruciating dreams, even after all these years, of finding her dead in the tub.
And last, but not least, Bella loved Prentice in a fierce, beautiful way that Fiona had to admit that even she hadn’t loved him.
And that love never, never died.
Ghostly tears were falling from her ghostly eyes at all Bella had endured (and it was never-ending, no wonder the woman clenched her fists, all that pain had to be unleashed somewhere) when Fiona sensed Prentice’s presence nearing the house.
She flipped shut the third journal (her ghostly abilities extended to super-fast reading which had been a boon) and carefully arranged them in the tidy pile in which Bella liked them.
Then Fiona dematerialized and materialized in the living room.
Prentice was standing stock-still staring at the rug.
He looked angry.
Oh for goodness sakes. What was he pissed off about now?
Then he took off his coat, flung it on the chair and stalked to the hallway.
Fiona followed him, worrying so much she was wringing her hands and shouting at him to leave Bella be. She needed her sleep. She had to get some rest for the wedding tomorrow. She didn’t sleep well and she was sleeping soundly now.
But, of course, he didn’t hear her. In fact, when he encountered Bella’s closed door, instead of knocking or, better yet, turning away, he walked right in.
Fiona followed and as she would have floated over the threshold, she disappeared and reappeared in her whatever-it-was place.
And there she remained, all night.
She’d tried to dematerialize and go back but she couldn’t. Her efforts exhausted her and, finally, she slept.
Opening her eyes, she saw the light coming through the silk tent.
She threw off the covers wondering again why she was bloody well there, hoping she wouldn’t be there long and terrified she’d be there for eternity.
She had to warn Bella that Prentice was angry.
She walked out of the flaps of the tent and instantly vaporized, returning to her home.
Returning to the guest suite in her home.
To be precise, the bedroom of the guest suite in her home.
She floated back, reeling at what she saw and nearly floated through the wall of the room (she tried not to float through walls, it gave her a spooked feeling, seeing insulation and floating through supports, it was creepy).
She drifted and stared at the bed.
Prentice and Bella were in it sleeping, the sunlight shining through windows on their bodies.
They were naked, the covers down to their waists though Fiona couldn’t see much of anything considering Prentice had Bella tucked tight to him, his arm around her, his bicep shielding Bella’s breast from view. His arm was cocked, as was hers under his, their fingers laced, hands resting on the mattress in front of her face which was tilted forward on the pillow. Prentice’s head was tilted too, his face in the hair at the back of her head.
Fiona felt her ghostly chest tighten at the sight of them.
Prentice cuddled Fiona only after they’d made love and sometimes when they went to bed together (he usually worked late or read and came to bed after her).
And he usually did this only for awhile, eventually rolling away from her.
Never sleeping with her cradled in his arms. Never holding her all night like she was a precious possession he was keeping safe.
Fiona knew why whatever powers that be sent her from her home last night.
And she was thankful for that.
But she was in agony over what she was witnessing right now.
She wanted to scream, she wanted to rail, she wanted to tear her hair out or, better yet, Isabella Austin Evangahlala’s long, thick, golden tresses.
But before she could do any of this, Bella’s eyes opened.
For a second she looked sated, satisfied…
Happy.
Nearly instantly, that look disappeared and utter fear filled her expression.
Fiona forgot her wrath and stared.
What on earth?
Taking great care, Bella uncurled her fingers from Prentice’s and, gently, with agonizing slowness, she exited the bed.
Prentice didn’t move.
Once he was in a deep sleep, Prentice could sleep through almost anything. Fiona had been lucky he didn’t snore, he would never wake if she had to shove him or kick him, that’s how deeply he slept (which meant, when they were babies, Jason and Sally never woke Prentice with their middle of the night cries and Fiona practically had to push him out of bed when it was his turn to feed them which drove Fiona up the blooming wall).
Therefore, Prentice slept through Bella leaving him in bed.
And he slept through Bella, on silent feet with silent but trembling hands and completely silent tears, packing every single possession that was hers in the guest suite.
She did this quickly but tidily, leaving behind only the scented candles she bought.
Then she dressed in jeans, a sweater and high-heeled boots that she’d set aside. Then she carried her cosmetics case and her heaviest suitcase out to her rental car.
Fiona floated in the bedroom while all this happened, not sure what to do.
Fiona Cameron, Prentice Cameron’s wife, wanted the woman gone.
But Fiona Cameron, the dead woman who loved her husband and children, had conflicting thoughts.
She looked at Prentice, unaware and asleep.
He was a handsome, fit, forty-five year old widower who deserved more out of life than grief, a heavy workload, an anguished son and a constant mountain of laundry he hated to do.
He deserved to bicker.
He deserved to be challenged.
He deserved to laugh.
He deserved to have a beautiful, rich, well-educated, jet-set, stylish, classy woman in his life (and, also, one who was corporeal and breathing).
A woman who had loved him for twenty years.
A woman who had carried around his photo in a silver frame and wore his ring on a chain around her neck for twenty fucking years.