Page 40 of Richmond’s Legacy

He handed me a bag of Sour Patch Kids, and the tears that I’d been trying to hold in started rolling down my cheeks.

“Hey now, darlin’. I’m sorry I gotta go back. Don’t make me feel worse than I already do.”

“No, I’m sorry,” I choked out. “It was so…great of you to come. Thank you for all your help.”

“Well, now, I don’t know how much help I was. You were in a sad state when I showed up, but it only seems to have gotten worse in the past few days.”

“The past is a painful thing to confront.” I smiled weakly. “But I think I might know the worst of it now. It’s all uphill from here. I’ll be okay.”

“Listen…the night I got here, I had in my mind to tell you a few things. I don’t know what it is about this house, but there never seemed to be a good time. I guess I’ve been keeping secrets too.”

“Don’t tell me you’re dying, Wade,” I said, suddenly stricken. “I can’t handle it.”

“I’m not dying. But I might be dead to you after I tell you…I’m gay, Greer.”

It took several seconds to process what he’d said, and only a few seconds later my biggest smile broke free.

“Wade…that’s great. That’s…wonderful.”

“Careful, or you’ll run out of adjectives to describe my gayness.” He laughed. “So I’m not dead to you?”

“Not at all. If anything, I wish you lived closer so I could help support you. Return the favor. Does your family know?”

“Not yet…and funny you should want me to move. The other thing I failed to mention was that I didn’t come out here just to support you. I mean, I did come here for that, but not just for that—”

“Spit it out, Wade.”

“I came here to interview for a job. At the biweekly in town.”

“The Observer?”

“They’re after an editor. I’ve never been an editor before, but it’s a small operation, and…”

“Wade! That’s amazing! Did you get it?”

“Don’t know. I won’t know for a few weeks. But even if I don’t get on there, there are lots of papers out west. Since I’ve been here, it’s felt like…not home, but a place for new beginnings. And that’s what I’m after.”

Wade’s ride showed up just before sunset. I hugged him tightly, tighter than I’d ever hugged anyone, trying to internalize his goodness so I could draw on it when he was gone.

“Oh, Wade. What am I going to do without you?”

He cracked a smile before getting into the taxi. It was just like when I left, but the opposite. Wade had refused to let me drive him back to the airport, or even into town, having found an inexpensive shuttle to take him the bulk of the way.

As the taxi bounced down the ruts away from Richmond House toward the road, disappearing into the fog, I realized tonight would be the first night since the séance I’d be on my own. I looked back at the house looming above me, remembering the night I’d seen it for the first time. All romance and fading light. Now it just looked faded. And vaguely threatening.

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