Page 35 of Ghostlighted
“Maz. Please.” He lifted a hand toward me, but stopped, his fingers curling as though he’d just remembered that he couldn’t actually touch me. “I didn’t mean to upset you. And I certainly didn’t mean to imply that Sofia won’t be perfectly fine. But understand, from my perspective, this house, her cooking, the times Oren and I sat around her table—all of that is in the past.” He glanced away. “Just like me.”
I told the storm around my heart to settle down. Sofia would befine, and I could scarcely blame Avi for seeing things through a decade-old lens.
“Um… Can you smell anything now?”
He shook his head. “No more than I can at our house, which is to say, not at all.” He turned to me, hope flickering in his expression. “Could we… That is, I know you’re only here to lock up, but would you mind if we walked around a little in here?”
“Weeelll.” I shifted from foot to foot, clenching the keys in my fist. “I don’t want to creep around in here like a, well, creeper. Or snoop like?—”
“A snooper?” he said with a half-smile. “I don’t want tosnoop. I just want to discover thememories. If you recall, I couldn’t even remember what should have been in my own house until I saw it. If I can…” He made a helpless gesture. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not exactly priming the pump. I mean, I can look at that picture—” He pointed to yet another framed photo of Liam that hung right next to an icon of the Virgin Mary and squinted. “Hunh. When did Liam start dying his hair?”
“I don’t kn?—”
“Never mind. But see, that’s what I’m talking about. Until I saw that, I didn’t remember that Liam used to have hair as black as Ricky’s. But that photo… It’s like it filled in a blank spot on my mental gallery wall, and now I remember what Liam looked like when he was a surly nineteen-year-old, the last time he visited Sofia before I, well, wasn’t around to see him anymore.”
“That may have been the last time he was here. Ricky told me he doesn’t visit much, especially after he started college.”
Avi snorted. “I’m shocked he managed to find a college he deemed worthy of his valuable matriculation.”
“Harvard,” I said, deadpan.
“Eh.” Avi waved a dismissive hand. “If you can’t manage Oxford, I suppose it’sadequate.”
“Says the guy who went to the University of Oregon.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. “Actually, it was my first choice. I landed my agent with a story I wrote in my junior year and paid off all my student loans with the royalties from the first Harcourt and Corchran book.”
“Hey.” I held up my hands. “I’ve never graduated from anywhere, so all respect, man.”
He tilted his head, the lift of his eyebrows like a question mark. “Never? I’m surprised, considering how advanced your writing skills are.”
I shrugged. “I left U Conn when my parents were killed. I tried to get back into student mode a couple of times—PSU was the last attempt, which is how I ended up in Portland. My folks didn’t leave me much money, though, and student loans are the worst, so my academic career just kind of”—I made a rolling motion with one hand—“folded. Inertia. What can I say?”
“You don’t need to justify yourself to me, Maz. I was just surprised, that’s all.” He turned toward the kitchen, his expression wistful. “Could we go in there next?”
“Let’s leave that for last, since that’s the best route to the back door and we’ll have to lock up. Come on.” I jerked my thumb toward the stairs. “I don’t remember leaving lights on upstairs, but I wasn’t actually firing on all synapses at the time, so I need to retrace my steps.”
In case Ricky tried to contact me, I kept my phone in my hand as we meandered at Avi-discovery pace through Sofia’s house. We didn’t spend much time upstairs, although he did snort and mutter, “Typical,” when he peeked into Liam’s man-suite. Downstairs, while he was fascinated by Sofia’s meticulously organized crafting room, it was the kitchen where he lingered the longest. I gave up trying to read the expressions on his face, because he was clearly going through some things.
Hanging more memories in his mental gallery walls.
I didn’t rush him, just leaned against the counter and stared at my phone, but I wasn’t able to conjure up a message from Ricky with the power of my glare.
“All right,” Avi said softly. “We can go now.”
We walked onto the back porch, its light illuminating the yard enough that I could make out the crushed tomato plants and the hollow in the soil where Sofia had lain.
It took me three tries to get the door to latch because my hand slipped off the doorknob twice.
When I caught up with Avi, he was standing on the lawn, halfway down the slope between the house and the garden, gazing up at the night sky.
“I can see stars from the attic windows, but it looks different from out here.”
I looked up, spotting Ursa Major right away. Ghost didn’t have the kind of light pollution that Portland or even McMinnville or Hillsboro did, and since the moon wasn’t up, the sky was pretty glorious. “Yeah. It does.”
We walked slowly toward our house, but when I started up the back porch steps, Avi didn’t follow me. I turned to look down at him. His shoulders were hunched under his shapeless cardigan and his hands were shoved deep in its front pockets.
“You okay?”
