SIX
I wasn’t a fan of Wal-Mart. But that afternoon, wandering the aisles and collecting our weekly groceries, it was an awful lot better than sitting at home, fielding questions from my two eldest kids. Will had demonstrated the uncanny ability to channel the persona of a district attorney in his relentless questioning and Emily had quizzed me on all the finer details of setting up my account on the dating site. I’d given her a firm reminder that the minimum age for joining was eighteen and she’d just looked at me innocently.
I was barely out of the checkout line, my cart loaded with bags, when Connie Evener marched up to me, her expression of concern barely visible under the heavy foundation and pressed powder coating her face.
“Daisy, I just heard,” she said, breathless, setting her hand on my cart. She was a little thick around the waist but I couldn’t imagine catching up to me in Wal-Mart had required much exertion. “How
are
you?”
“I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile. “How are you?”
“Well,
I
haven’t had a corpse removed from my basement today,” she said, her mascara laden eyes growing bigger.
“No. Of course not.”
I pushed the cart forward but she stepped in front of it. “What exactly
happened
?”
Connie Evener used her mouth as a gossip megaphone in Moose River. The only reasons she wanted details was so that she could share—and distort—the story with everyone else in our tiny town.
I lifted my jacket out of the front basket of the shopping cart and slipped it on. “We don’t really know anything, so I’m afraid I don’t have much to tell you.”
“Sure, sure,” she said, scooting closer to the cart so an elderly couple could pass by. “How’s Jake taking it?”
I zipped up my jacket and fished around in the pockets for my gloves. “Jake?” I asked, puzzled. “He’s taking it fine, I guess.”
“Well,” she said, tugging on one of the small gold hoops in her ears. “I just mean given that it was your ex-boyfriend and all.”
I froze. “Excuse me?”
“It was Olaf, correct?” she asked, leaning closer. I could see her pores under the thick coating of make-up. “Stunderson? That’s what I heard.”
“Well, yes, but…”
She smiled, her painted lips revealing unevenly bleached teeth. I’d often wondered if she’d gone to one of those teeth-whitening chairs set up in the malls. She was the kind of woman who would have no problem lounging in a chair, eye mask on, her teeth glowing under a black light while passersby gawked openly.
“Daisy.” She lowered her voice. “Everyone knows you two had a thing going. Apparently that night at Lotto’s…well, I don’t want to say…”
My mind spun for a moment. What the hell was she talking about? I’d gone on one date with the man almost two years ago. I wasn’t surprised that she knew Olaf—Connie seemed to know everyone—but how on earth did she know we’d gone on a date?
I cleared my throat. “Connie, I literally have no idea what you’re talking about. Olaf and I had dinner one time. That was it.”
“Right,” she said, nodding, her brown curls bouncing on her shoulders. “After Thornton left you.”
My temper flared. “He did not leave me,” I said. I reached for my purse and debated hitting her in the face with it. I settled it on my shoulder instead. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
She narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth but I cut her off. “And I went to dinner with Olaf one time. That was all. There was nothing to get excited about over that night at Lotto’s.”
“Interesting,” she said, tapping her fingernail to her lip, her eyes locked on me. “I heard…other things.”
“Well, you should know how stories get twisted,” I said, pasting a smile on my face. “Like how you told everyone that Jake and I were making out during Grace’s play practice?”
Grace had a role in a community production of The Wizard of Oz—she was a Munchkin—and Jake and I had attended most of the rehearsals. Not just because we’d had to get her there but because we helped paint the sets for the play. Jake and I were an affectionate couple no matter where we were and I was sure we’d hugged or kissed a few times during the two weeks of evenings we spent painting the set. Because, after twenty years of having no attraction to a man I’d married and his feelings apparently being mutual, it was unbelievably awesome to be touched and kissed and looked at like I was beautiful. So we were affectionate.
Connie, however, had exaggerated our public displays a little bit when discussing us with her denizens. By the end of the play, I was pretty sure most people thought we’d had sex on the yellow brick road we’d painted on stage while Dorothy and the Munchkins cheered us on.
Connie was not my favorite person.
She waved a hand in the air. “Oh, that. You know how people get carried away.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“So,” she said, tilting her head toward me. Waves of perfume rolled off of her and I fought back the urge to sneeze. “Olaf. What happened?”
“I have to go, Connie,” I said, covering my nose with my gloved hand. I sneezed loudly. “Nice seeing you.”
“Was Jake jealous?” she called after me as I pushed past her. The Wal-Mart greeter, an elderly lady with bluish curls, eyed both of us suspiciously. “Was that it? Did something happen there?”
“Goodbye, Connie,” I said over my shoulder.
I guided the cart out to the frozen entryway and the cold air assaulted my nostrils as I hustled to the car.
I made a mental note to send the kids in for groceries from then on.
SEVEN
“I’m expecting kids in here tonight,” Jake said, stretching out under the covers. “So you should probably keep your hands off of me so they don’t see anything inappropriate.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, sliding into bed next to him.
He’d turned the electric blanket on while I read a bedtime story to Grace and the warmth enveloped me. My eyes were heavy and my body felt like I’d just run a marathon. The whole day had been draining, mentally and physically, and the only thing on my mind was sleep. Even a bed full of little people creeping in at various hours wouldn’t keep me awake. I was certain of it.
I threw my arm over him and snuggled against his chest. His skin was heated from the blanket and I felt the warmth of him through the thermal long-sleeved shirt I was wearing. “Still mad at me?”
He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close. “I was never mad at you,” he said. “I was jealous.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say. I’m able to admit my flaws. And I’m a jealous person.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You know that.”
“I honestly never thought to mention to you a single two-hour date with a person I never thought about again,” I told him.
“I know.” He looked at me, smiling. “I just like giving you a hard time, too.”
“Probably could have picked a better time,” I said. “I was pretty sure you were ready to join the force so you could arrest me.”
He chuckled and squeezed my shoulder.
“Some things never change,” I said, yawning.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You teased me incessantly in high school.”
“I’ve told you this a thousand times. Boys tease girls they like. It’s like written in the Guy Code somewhere.”
I smiled. Jake and I had been friends all through high school and had dated for a few months during my junior year. He was one year older and we’d easily transitioned from a friendship to a romance. After a string of loser boyfriends, I thought I’d found a guy I could be serious about. I could talk to him and laugh with him and there was definite chemistry with the blue-eyed basketball player who always had a smart ass remark or teasing comment for me.
“Do boys also break up with the love of their lives? Is that written in the Guy Code, too?”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” he asked.
With my free hand, I pulled the comforter closer. “Nope.”
“Good,” he whispered. His lips dusted my hair again. “Don’t ever let me forget what an idiot I was for breaking up with you. For letting you walk out of my life.”
“Oh, I won’t,” I promised. “I also won’t let you forget that I was the one who brought us back together.”
“Really?” he asked, arching his eyebrow. “And here I thought it was Facebook…”
I dug my elbow into his side and he groaned. Part of me hated that we fit the cliché of being one of those couples reunited through social media. It sounded so…lame. But it was exactly what had ended our twenty years of non-communication. It wasn’t like I’d forgotten about him after he broke up with me and graduated and went off to college. But I’d started dating someone else and, in the days before social media, I couldn’t exactly engage in any stalker-like behavior to keep up with what he was doing as the months turned into years.
But then I saw him through a mutual friend on Facebook. And my heart had hiccuped, staring into those blue eyes, registering that smile that was so achingly familiar. I’d hesitated to contact him. It had been twenty years and I wasn’t sure how he was going to respond to me, if he’d even remember me or want to reconnect. After an argument with Thornton about child support, I’d downed a stiff rum and Coke, sat down with my laptop, and fired off the friend request.
Three days later, he accepted it and the rest was history. We’d chatted—about what we’d been doing the last twenty years, about time in high school, and, finally, about our personal lives. He was in the middle of a divorce, too, and after a few more weeks of messages, he decided to come to Minneapolis for a weekend visit. The rest really was history because, less than two years later, he’d uprooted his life, gotten full custody of his daughter, and we were all living in a century old house in the middle of Moose River. Together.
And that’s what we were doing and despite all of the crap with the house, I was happier than I’d ever been.
At least until they pulled Olaf’s body out of the coal chute.
“How would he have gotten here?” Jake said, his arms tight around me.
I yawned again. “I have no clue. We weren’t even living here when I met him. It was two years ago.”
“So weird.”
“Weird and creepy. It makes me think he was watching me or something,” I said, shuddering against him.
“What creeps me out is how he ended up in there,” Jake said. “Pretty sure he wouldn’t have gotten in there on his own. Be interesting to see how he died.”
I nodded. I had so many questions. Why Olaf? Why in my house? When? Who?
Too many interrogatives.
“Just relax,” Jake said, squeezing me again. I loved how solid his touch felt. “It’ll be okay. It’ll all get worked out. We’re safe and the house is fine. But you gotta relax.”
“It’s like you don’t even know me,” I said. “How am I supposed to relax?”
“I was hoping I could catch you in a moment of weakness,” he said.
I snuggled in tightly against him. “You should know better.”
“You’d think.”
The door swung open then and the two youngest girls burst into the room. Sophie wore a Hello Kitty nightgown that barely covered her thighs and I wondered why she hadn’t turned into a Popsicle in the drafty bedroom she shared with Grace.
“Mom!” Grace said, her hands on her hips, a frown plastered on her face. “Will says there is probably another ghost here now.”
I didn’t want to tell her that I had contemplated the same thing. Olaf.
“He says it’s going to be a mean ghost,” Sophie added. She’d taken off her glasses for the night and her blue eyes were wide. “Because…well, I don’t know why. But that’s what he said.”
“Is there?” Grace asked, scrambling on to the bed. Her knee caught Jake in the stomach and he groaned. “Is there another ghost?”
“No,” Jake said. He picked her up and shifted her off of him. “There is not.”
I scooting to the side, making room. “Probably not, no.”
Grace settled in between us. She was like a pixie, small and compact. Sophie followed her up and sat cross-legged between us. I glanced at her exposed legs; not a goose bump to be seen. I shook my head and pulled the comforter tighter to me.
“He says we live in a haunted house,” Sophie said. “But we don’t. Right?”
“We do not,” Jake said.
Her lip quivered and she nodded, like she was trying to believe her dad.
“Will! Get in here!” I yelled.
Footsteps bumped slowly in the hallway. Will stuck his head around the door. “What?”
I stared at him. He was also sparsely dressed, clad in thin pajama pants and a Vikings t-shirt. My eyes traveled the length of him. The pants were only two months old and were already sitting above his ankles. At the rate he was growing, he’d be taller than me by spring.
“Are you telling them there’s another ghost in this house?”
“Well…no,” he said, looking everywhere but at me. “Not exactly.”
“Then what exactly?”
“Well,” he hedged. “I said it was
possible
.”
“No, you didn’t!” Grace yelled in my ear, pointing at him. “You are a Pinocchio!”
Jake covered his mouth to hide the smile on his lips.
“You’re a Pinocchio,” Will retorted. His eyes finally met mine. “Isn’t it? Possible?”
“Yes, it’s possible,” I conceded. “But this probably isn’t the best topic of conversation before bed, is it?”
He made a face. “I guess.”
“I hope the ghost sleeps in your room,” Sophie said to him, her expression a mirror of similar looks I’d seen on her dad’s face.
“Enough,” Jake finally said. “All of you. And all aboard that’s coming aboard.” He looked at Will. “You in or out?”
Will hesitated, then sprinted for the bed. “In.”
The three of them squirmed in between us until they’d each claimed their own space in our king-sized bed. Grace snuggled into me and Will pressed against the other side of me and I was the middle of a kid-sized sandwich. Sophie had bedded down on the other side of Jake. I reached above their heads and found his hand. He squeezed gently, then reached over with his free hand and turned off the light. Darkness engulfed the room and Grace sucked in her breath and burrowed closer. If she’d been a joey, she would have climbed right back into mama kangaroo’s pouch. No doubt.
“I sure hope the new ghost doesn’t try to get in this bed,” Jake whispered.
All three tiny bodies stiffened.
“Kidding,” he said. He chuckled and squeezed my hand again.
I laughed and shook my head.
The happiest I’d ever been.