Maybe This Time (44 page)

“Alice, no!”
May howled, like the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, and then Alice put the curl into the flame and held it while it seared her fingers, staring at Andie, and Andie felt the flame everywhere, blue and red, and then she was back in her body, clinging to Carter as the world swung around, and she screamed at May,
“Go toward the light, damn it!”
and May cried out, “
There is no light!”

And then May was gone, heat rushing back, color and sound, and Andie was free again.

“Andie?” Carter said, and she put her head on his shoulder, exhausted and dispossessed, and said, “It's me,” and saw North boosting Alice up on the counter and running cold water over her burned fingers.

“Andie?” Alice said, her voice full of tears.

“You saved me,” Andie said to her, her voice shaky as she held on to Carter and fought the nausea that was swamping her. “You and Carter. You were so brave, and you saved me.”

“She's gone,” Carter said stolidly. “Right?”

“Yes,” Andie said. “It's over.” She took a deep breath. “And now I'm going to throw up.”

She shoved herself up off the floor and bolted for the powder room, and behind her she heard North say, “Good job, Carter,” while he cooled the burn on Alice's fingers.

 

After throwing up everything she'd eaten all day and then standing under a hot shower in the attic bathroom for twenty minutes, Andie pulled herself together, toweled off, brushed her teeth, put on her pajamas, and came out to face North who was sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for her in the quiet night.

“You okay?”

“I will be.” She went over and sat down beside him, and he put his arm around her.

“Well, the good news is, now I believe in ghosts.”

“You knew it wasn't me,” she said, and felt the tears press against the back of her eyes again.

“Of course I knew,” he said, sounding insulted. “I asked the questions just to make sure, but I could see it wasn't you from your eyes. It was obvious.”

“She looked just like me. She
was
me.”

He moved his arm against her neck and pulled her over to him and kissed her on the top of the head. “She wasn't anything like you. Should we get you a doctor? Did she strain your heart?”

Andie looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “Whatever she did to my heart, you fixed it.”

“You sure?”

“I'm positive,” Andie said, and he kissed her again, solid and sure, and she thought,
He knows me,
and kissed him back.

“Get into bed,” he said finally. “You need rest.”

“I need you,” she told him. “But I need to see Alice and Carter first.”

“I talked to them. I told them what they did was brave and that they saved you.” He tightened his arms around her. “They really are amazing kids.”

“You have no idea,” Andie said.

“Well, I'm going to. I'll have years with them to find out.” He stood up. “Want me to go with you?”

Andie shook her head and stood up, too. “I'll just be a minute. Don't wait up. Make the bed warm for me.” She tried a smile, and he bent and kissed her again, and she thought,
Oh, thank God, he knows me,
and then she went downstairs to the kids' rooms.

“Carter?” she said, knocking softly on his door, and he said, “Come in.”

He was sitting on his bed, holding his bandaged hand, looking exhausted, but finally at peace.

“That was really brave,” she began, and he shook his head.

“I should have stopped it.” He sounded older, serious, and Andie got a glimpse of the adult he'd become. “I knew she wasn't gone, but—”

“She was your aunt,” Andie said, coming to sit on the side of his bed. “She was the last family you had left.”

“She was dead,” Carter said. “And she wasn't the last. We have you. And North.” He tried to make the last two words casual, but there was respect there.

“Yes, you do,” Andie said, vowing not to cry. “And Southie.”

“And Lydia,” Carter said, not sounding as sure, and Andie laughed and then he did, too. “No, she's cool.”

“She's a good person to have on your side,” Andie said. “Like you're a good person to have on mine. I'll never forget this, Carter.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Never. Now go to sleep. You're starting school next week.”

“Already?”
he said, appalled, and she laughed again and ruffled his hair and made him duck away.

“Sleep tight,” she said, and went to talk to Alice.

Alice's room was empty.

Andie felt a clutch of panic and then got a grip. Alice would not run away, Alice would not leave the house, Alice would never leave Carter, Alice—

She heard voices from below and went to the head of the stairs. There was light in the hallway, as if from another room, and she went down to the ground floor and into the law office's reception room.

She's in the office,
Dennis said.

“Did she tell you—”

About May? Yes. Sorry, I never saw her. I was in the van with North and Carter. She must have been in the car with you. And then she didn't come in here—

“She wasn't stupid. What's Alice doing?”

Talking to Merry.

“Who the hell is Merry?”

I don't know. They're in the office. I'm stuck to the couch, remember?

“Right.” Andie went to the door of North's office, trying not to panic. She was really too damn tired to panic.

Alice was sitting in the chair across from North's desk, talking to North's desk chair. “I'm not going to remember all of that,” she said. “I'm
eight.
”

“Remember what?” Andie said, and Alice turned around and smiled, all her tension gone, and Andie thought,
She's all right, she smiled.

“Merry has a lot of stuff he wants me to tell Bad.”

“Merry who?” Andie said, keeping a wary eye on the empty desk chair. “Nobody named Merry . . .”

Something moved in the desk chair and she saw, in flickers, the patterned waistcoat, the cigar, and heard a fat under-the-breath laugh that she hadn't heard in over ten years.
“Uncle Merrill?”

Alice looked across the desk and then back at Andie. “He says you're looking good, Andie.”

Andie looked at the desk chair, trying to organize the shifting shadows there. “You've been there for
ten years
?”

Alice listened and nodded. “He has a lot of stuff he wants to say.”

“Yeah, well, North has a few things he'd like to say to you, too. And also, I know about Southie. What the hell were you thinking?”

Alice listened and then said, “He says not to be such a prune. Why are you a prune?”

“Prude,” Andie said. “Merrill, you should meet Dennis, he's out in Reception. I doubt if you'll bond, he's a good guy, but later on, I'll kill a deck of cards and you can play gin. Don't cheat. For now, Alice goes to bed.”

Alice got up. “It was very nice meeting you, Merry,” she said,
and then walked over and took Andie's hand. “I'm very sorry,” she said, looking up at Andie, but she seemed confident now that she was loved.

“You did the right thing,” Andie said, knowing she meant May. “And it's okay now. From now on everything's going to be . . .” She looked back at North's desk chair that was swiveling gently, and then in the other direction, into Reception at Dennis's couch. “. . . normal.”

“That's good,” Alice said and went up the stairs with her, and when Andie tucked her into bed, she said, “I like this room. Can I draw on the walls?”

“You'll have to negotiate that with Lydia.”

“Oh, hell,” Alice said and scooted under the covers with Rose Bunny.

Two minutes later, Andie crawled into North's warm bed and sighed in relief.

North slid his arm under her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Everything okay?”

“Everything is perfect,” she said, cuddling against him. “Well, almost. Your uncle Merrill has been haunting your office for ten years.”

“Joke?”

“No, for real. I can't see him, but Alice can. He has a lot to tell you, Alice says.”

“Yeah, well, I have a lot to tell that old bastard, too,” North said. “I suppose this means he's been watching everything I've done since he died.”

“Including all the sex we had on that desk. Knowing Merrill, he'll probably be critiquing your style and my thighs.”

“There is nothing wrong with my style,” North said, running his hand down her side. When he reached her hip, he said, “And there's definitely nothing wrong with your thighs.”

She laughed and he kissed her, and she thought,
Thank God I
found my way back to him,
and then he held her tighter, and she said, “North?”

“I didn't have a damn clue how to save you,” he said. “If the kids hadn't been here, she could have—”

“We'd have found a way,” Andie said. “She wasn't just up against us, she was up against Fate. We're supposed to be together. Will you marry me again?”

His hand tightened on her hip, and when she went up on one elbow to meet his eyes without blinking, saying, “I'm sure, I really am,” he said, “Yes.”

“Good,” Andie said, snuggling down into the covers he'd made warm for her. “We should have the wedding here. Small ceremony, just family. That way Merrill and Dennis can come, too.”

“Wonderful,” North said, and turned out the light.

“You going to sleep?” Andie said, putting her hand on his chest.

“You had a rough night,” he said and kissed her on the forehead.

“Not that rough,” Andie said, and pulled his mouth down to hers, kissing him hard.

“Now we're back to normal,” North said, and Andie wrapped herself around him and thought,
Now I'm home,
and made love with her husband in the attic, while her family slept below.

 

It was close to midnight, the clock ticking loudly in the dark kitchen, the game of solitaire on the big table lit only by one steadily burning candle, when Mrs. Crumb lifted her head to listen.

“You're back, are you?” She gathered up the cards and began to shuffle them.

How the hell did I get back here?

Mrs. Crumb stopped shuffling long enough to hold up the old church envelope that had been on the bulletin board by the phone. “I cut an extra lock of hair from your head that night you fell through the railing. You died bad. I thought I might need it if you walked.”

Jesus Christ—

“You know I don't like that kind of language.”

Fuck you. You don't even belong here. They threw you out.

Mrs. Crumb shrugged. “They're never coming back. They'll never see this place again. I got my social security to live on.”

So now I'm trapped with you? Goddammit!

Mrs. Crumb pushed the envelope toward the other side of the table. “You don't like it, take me and make me burn it.”

The silence stretched out.

“That's what I thought. From now on, you just remember, any time I want to, I can snuff you out like a candle.”

After a moment, the candle on the table flickered as if somebody had passed behind it.

Mrs. Crumb nodded. “That's what I thought.” She leaned back and got the card rack from the drawer behind her and put it in front of the chair across from her.

“It's my deal,” she said, and began to pass out the cards.