Page 71 of So Close

“Am I?” he queries eagerly.

Opening my eyes, I study him. “You know I’m not dead, right?”

Even though I say it, I’m not sure I believe it. It feels like I’m in a snow globe, trapped in a contrived moment in time.

“They say you are. Drowned in your pretty little boat. It used to worry me, you sailing off alone all the time. It broke my heart when Robby told me you weren’t coming back.”

“Oh, Ben.” I set my hand over his. His knuckles are thick, the age-spotted skin nearly translucent. “I’m sorry.”

“And your poor husband.” He shakes his head. “He worried me, too. I don’t think he slept all the days they searched for you. The night Robby told me, I sat here on the deck and cried, but Kane … That boy walked to the water’s edge and yelled with all his might.”

Oh, my love… You’ve suffered so much because of my weakness for you.

Ben rubs his chin thoughtfully. “It sounded like somethin’ between a wolf’s howl and a banshee scream all twisted together. It was the eeriest thing I ever saw or heard, a man standing under the moon and falling apart that way. Could you hear him up there when he did that? I think he was shouting for you.”

My hand is over my mouth. The pain in my chest feels like a heart attack, and maybe it is. Possibly my heart can’t survive the picture Ben has painted in my mind.

If there’s a part of you that will always hate me for what you’ve endured, I’ll accept that. Anyone who hurts you should pay, including me.

The screen door swings outward with a creak and Ben’s grandson, Robert, steps out. “Oh, my heavens.Lily?”

“Can you see her, too?” Ben asks, alarm on his face.

I notch my cigarette in the ashtray and swipe at my face, knowing my makeup must be a fright from all the tears I’ve shed.

“Hi, Robby.” I stand and hold my arms out to him.

“How are you here?” he asks over my shoulder, hugging me tightly. “Where have you been?”

Through Robert, I can picture Ben as he must’ve once been. He’s about my height and lanky, his face square and earnest. Freckles dance across the bridge of his nose. He’s near my age but looks much younger. Like his grandfather, Robert’s a charmer, the kind of guy who never settles for one girl but is so sweet that there’s never a fuss.

“It’s a long story,” I tell him, resuming my seat and taking another drag on my cigarette. My fingers are trembling, but I feel like I’ve smoked marijuana instead of tobacco. Everything is murky and odd, distant and dreamlike.

“You’re really not dead?” Ben asks, his gaze narrowed.

“I don’t think so.” But they are both looking at me so strangely. “What?”

“Are you back in the house down the beach?”

“Yes, we’re back. We live in the city, but we’re here for now, and we’ll hopefully return often.”

Robert runs a hand through his auburn hair. “I need a drink. Pop?”

“Yes. Me, too.”

He heads inside.

Ben leans back, shaking his head. “If you’re really alive, you should know your house is haunted.”

I pause mid-exhale, smoke trapped in my lungs. “How do you know?”

“We’ve seen you there, Robby and me. It was just Robby at first; he walks the beach more than I do. He saw you through the patio doors, staring at him. I told him it was a trick of the light and grief. He’s carried a torch for you a long time. But then he saw you in the upstairs window a couple of years later.”

He pauses to light a cigarette, exhaling heavily. “I saw you last year. It was dark, and the upstairs light was on. You stood in the window with a glow around your head. Like a halo. It scared the bejesus out of Robby every time, but I felt real peaceful about it. Like everything was going to be okay.”

Robert returns with a tumbler in each hand and a bottle of water under his arm. The door slams shut behind him, and even though it’s a familiar and expected sound, it makes me jump. Filled with anxious energy, I rise to help, taking the water for myself and one of the drinks for Ben, which I place on the table in front of him.

“Whew.” Robert stares at me. “Why’d you cut your hair?”

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