Liars and Fools (15 page)

We got into the car and headed onto the highway back to Victoria. No one spoke. I could see Kathy's fingers drumming furiously against the wheel. I'd bet her aura was an ugly color right about now.

When we were halfway home, Kathy stopped at a red light and twisted in her seat to face me. “Did you run off because I wouldn't try to contact your mother? Because I can see how that might upset you, but I can't go against your father's wishes. Surely you can understand that?”

“It's not like I believe in this stuff anyway,” I said sullenly.

She sighed. “Being in contact with Nicole brought me such comfort. I'd love to give that to you, Fiona. I really would. But you have to talk to your father about it first. Would you do that?”

I couldn't imagine that conversation.
So, Dad,
is it okay if your psychic girlfriend passes on the odd
message from Mom? Any objections to me getting back
in touch with her?
“Do you give him messages from my mother?” I asked her.

She turned to face forward as the light turned green. “Talk to him, Fiona. Talk to him.”

Abby cleared her throat. “Who's Nicole?”

Uh-oh. I bit my lip and looked out the window. I should've known that story would come out eventually.

“My daughter. My older daughter.” Kathy sounded surprised. “She died in a car accident with my husband. Nicole's my guide in the spirit world. Didn't Fiona tell you?”

“No,” Abby said. Her voice was very quiet. “No, she didn't tell me.”

I turned to look at Abby. She was staring at me thoughtfully, and I could tell that she knew exactly why I hadn't told her. “Sorry,” I mouthed.

She shook her head and looked away. Neither of us spoke the rest of the way home, and when we dropped Abby off at her house, she didn't even say goodbye.

eighteen

I headed straight to my room. I figured Dad would give me a lecture as soon as Kathy had a chance to fill him in. I couldn't decide whether I should ask him about letting Kathy try to contact Mom. Since I didn't believe she could do it, it seemed stupid to ask. Still, there was that nagging possibility that I couldn't leave alone.
What if she could?
I kept poking at that question the way you poke at a bruise, checking to see if it still hurts.

Sure enough, not more than five minutes had gone by before I heard Dad's footsteps pounding up the stairs. He opened my door without knocking first.

“So.” He sat down beside me on the edge of my bed. “I guess you don't need me to tell you that Kathy was pretty upset by what you did.”

“I didn't do anything. I went for a walk, that's all. I needed fresh air.” I stood up and moved away from him, walking a few steps to lean against my dresser. “She made this huge deal out of it.” A car door slammed and an engine started. I hoped that was the sound of Kathy leaving.

Dad took off his glasses and started wiping the lenses with the bottom of his shirt. “She said you asked her to contact your mom.”

“She was doing readings for us. She said she had a message from Abby's gran.”

He kept polishing his glasses, working at it as if he was trying to wear a hole right through the lens. “I asked her not to get into that kind of thing with you. Thought it wouldn't be helpful.”

“Thought
what
wouldn't be helpful, Dad? Being lied to? Or talking to Mom?” I raised my voice. “Do you believe Kathy? Has she given you messages?”

Dad didn't say anything for a long time. His eyes were pink and watery, and his mouth got this odd wavy look, sort of uncertain and shaky. “Fiona…”

I waited.

“I worry that it isn't helpful for you. Thinking about this kind of thing. Better for you to try to move on with your life.”

“Tell me the truth,” I said. “Please. I need to know.”

He put his glasses back on, glanced up at me, took them off again. “I don't know what I believe,” he said at last. “I've always been a practical sort of person, but Kathy does seem to know things sometimes. And the world is full of mysteries that defy explanation. You know that.”

I didn't want to get off on a tangent about Stonehenge or crop circles. “Has she given you messages?” I asked again. “Has she said she can talk to Mom?”

“Look, I don't want you talking to other people about this, okay? Or making too much of it.” He cleared his throat. “She gave me a message the first time I met her. She said that your mom wanted me to know that she was okay. She was happy. And she said that it was okay for me to move on.”

“Jesus, Dad—”

“Don't swear.”

“—that is such bull. Mom wouldn't be happy without us. You know she wouldn't.” My chest got tight. “And telling you that it was okay to move on? Duh. Of course she'd say that if she wanted to, you know, go out with you.”

I expected him to be angry, but he just looked sort of sad and defeated. “I don't know what to say, Fiona. I haven't asked Kathy to get in touch with Jennifer again. In fact, we haven't talked much about her…her communications. Not since that one time. Because…” He cleared his throat again. “Because I don't know what to think about all this. But I do know that Kathy is a kind and intelligent woman who genuinely wants to help people. Who
does
help people.”

“She's a liar. A big fake.” I thought about what Kathy had said the first time I met her—about the waves and the bright lights and the fear—but I didn't want to tell Dad anything that might lend support to her claims.

He shook his head. “She believes in what she does. That much I know for sure. Her daughter, Nicole…”

“She told me.”

“Oh, honey.” Dad's forehead creased, and his face got this crumpled sort of look. “To lose your partner
and
your child. I don't think I'd have survived that. Having you to take care of was the only thing that kept me going.”

I swallowed, and it felt like a knife was lodged in my throat. I thought about all those weeks last spring when I stayed with Joni because Dad was so depressed and how sometimes I'd felt like Dad hadn't even noticed that I was still around. “How did you meet her?” I asked at last.

His neck flushed red and blotchy. “I picked up her business card somewhere. Made an appointment.”

I stared at him. “Seriously? I mean, because she was, because she said she was a medium?”

He nodded. “You know, your mom wasn't as much of a skeptic as you and me.”

“Mom didn't believe this stuff.” I remembered the palm reader at the fair. “She thought it was fun. A laugh. Not something serious.”

“She used to have this Ouija board. When we were first married, she and her girlfriends would pull it out every weekend, more or less. They'd drink wine, get all giggly. Ask it questions, I guess.”

“Like what? What kind of questions?”

“Oh, I don't know. Girl stuff, she said. They always kicked me out.” Dad laughed softly. “I don't think Jennifer took it seriously. Still, when I saw Kathy's card, I just thought, why not? Why not try it?”

I wanted him to keep talking about Mom. Not Kathy. “Because you missed her so much.”

“And because things were very unresolved between us. We fought before she left on that trip. Well, you know that. Your mother and I…we both said things we shouldn't have said.”

I wondered what would have happened if Mom hadn't died. Would she have come back to us? Or were she and Dad heading toward divorce? But I didn't really want to know the answer.

“When your mom didn't come back, I kept thinking about that last fight. I never said goodbye properly to her, didn't tell her I loved her before she left.” He looked at me. “I really did love her, you know.”

I swallowed hard. “I know you did.”

“I guess when I saw Kathy's card, it seemed like a chance to say goodbye, somehow.” He sighed. “Whether the message came from your mom or not, it's the truth. I do have to move on.”

Forget about Mom
. It seemed to me that was what people meant when they said
move on
. “Dad? About
Eliza J
…”

“There's no point in holding on to your mom's boat any longer.” He shook his head. “You have to move on too, Fiona. She's not coming back.”

I ate mac n' cheese alone at the kitchen table. Dad went out with Kathy to have dinner at some fancy new Moroccan place. I hated thinking about the two of them together, talking, laughing, eating. Doing their best to erase every last trace of my mother.

It would be so much easier to deal with someone dying if you believed they weren't gone forever, that they were just elsewhere. On a higher plane, as Kathy said.
In a better place
. That was what Abby's Mom liars and fools always said about Abby's gran.
We miss her, but she's
in a better place now.
Sometimes I envied people who believed in things.

I kept looking at the phone and wishing Abby would call, but I couldn't blame her if she didn't. Finally I picked up the phone and dialed her number.

“Abby? It's me.”

“Oh. Hi.” Her voice was stiff.

“Look, I was wondering about your gran. About how you think she's in heaven?”

“You know what, Fiona? I don't really feel like talking about it.”

“Oh. Sorry, I didn't mean to…”

“I have to go,” Abby said.

I tightened my grip on the phone. “Abby, wait a minute. What's wrong?”

“Seriously, Fiona? You don't know?”

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Kathy's daughter, if that's what you mean.”

“It's not just that, Fi.”

“What is it then?” My chest was suddenly tight.

“Look, I know your mom died and I'm sorry, okay? But I'm tired of you being so mean all the time.”

“Abby. I'm sorry, okay?”

She was quiet for a moment. “You always say you're sorry, Fiona.”

“But I am sorry! I really am!” I started to cry and quickly slid my hand over the phone so she wouldn't hear me.

“My mom says I should be patient, but you know what? I'm kind of tired of being patient. It's been a year, Fiona.”

I was crying too hard to speak, and besides, what more was there to say? I listened to the silence coming over the phone for a few seconds; then I hung up, ran into my room and threw myself on my bed. Everything good in my life seemed to be slipping away: Mom,
Eliza J
and now Abby too.

I rolled over and looked at the photographs on my bulletin board. Me and Abby sitting on the grass, me and Abby wearing Santa hats, me and Abby with our arms around each other. I wiped the tears from my eyes. Kathy had stolen Abby as well as Dad, and I didn't think I could stand it.

Though in some ways, I felt like I'd lost Dad even before Kathy came along. He was so distant, and sometimes I wondered if he blamed me for what happened to my mother. If I'd begged her to take more safety precautions, she might have listened. But I didn't even try. I just took her side like I always did. Dad never invited me to take sides, but Mom… I felt sort of disloyal for thinking it, but the truth was that if I didn't take her side, my mother got all quiet and sulky and hurt. She needed me on her side more than Dad did.

But Dad had been right. She should have taken precautions. Or not gone at all.

Tonight had been the first time in ages that Dad had talked about my mom. The Ouija board stuff was before I was born, but I could imagine it, could picture her laughing about it the way she had about the palm reader we'd seen together. Not really believing it, but having fun all the same.

I rolled over on the bed. If Mom wanted to get in touch with me, and if such a thing was possible, then I didn't need Kathy.
Mom
didn't need Kathy. Why would Mom choose to talk to a woman who was dating her husband when she could talk to me directly?

It took me all of five minutes to find the Ouija board. It was in the crawl space in a box labeled
Games
, along with an old Monopoly set and a bunch of jigsaw puzzles. I pulled it out and took it up to my bedroom.

A beige plastic board, with the letters of the alphabet on it. Also the words
yes, no
and
maybe.
It looked oddly familiar, and I wondered if I might have played with it before, when I was little. I pulled a little triangular robin stevenson pointer out of the box and placed it on the board with a soft
click
. Then I turned off the overhead light in my room and lit a candle, even though it felt like kind of a dumb thing to do. If my mother was able to contact me from some spirit world, I didn't really think that the lighting in the room was going to make much difference.

I sat cross-legged on my bed and rested my fingers lightly on the smooth plastic of the pointer. Mom, I thought. Mom…if you are out there…if you can talk to me…

Nothing happened. I thought maybe I should ask a question, but I didn't know where to begin. I had so many. Why did you leave us? What happened? Was it really a navigational error? Are you still out there somewhere? On a tropical island? In a spirit world with Kathy's dead husband and daughter and Abby's gran? How am I supposed to get by without you? Do you think it's okay that I still want to sail?

In the end I just stayed quiet. It slowly grew darker outside, and after a very long time my legs started to cramp. Nothing had happened. No movement beneath my fingers, no whispered words, no chill breeze disturbing the air. Not the slightest sign. I pushed the pointer, sliding it over to the letter
I
. Then
M
.
I
.
S
.
S
.
Y
.
O
.
U
.
I miss you.

I stood up stiffly, walked over to the window, slid it open and pushed my nose against the screen. Dad's car wasn't back yet. “I love you, Mom,” I whispered. My voice disappeared into the night air. I stood there for a long moment, and an awful aching certainty settled deep inside me. If Mom could have answered me, she would have done so. I knew that was true.