Rock N Soul (41 page)

“Being a jerk to everyone who loves him?” she challenged.

I paused for a second. “I’m sure that’s how it comes off, yeah. But it’s more complicated than that, you know?”

“I just never saw it,” she said, raising one shoulder in a helpless shrug. “I’m sorry. I could forgive him if I believed that he cared about us at all. But he never showed it. Not once.”

Chris stared down at his feet and didn’t say anything for a long time. “I cared,” he said finally, so softly I almost didn’t hear it.

“He cared about you,” I said to Allison. “He just wasn’t good at showing it.”

There was an awkward silence.

I frowned, took a minute to be thankful I didn’t have any siblings, then tried again. “How can he show you?”

Allison raised an eyebrow at me. “He’s dead. He can’t show me anything.”

“He’s right here,” I said, pointing at him. “And he wants to make it right. So tell him how he can show you he cares. That’s why we’re here, you know. He needs to resolve things with you. So if there’s anything he can do that will show you he cares about you, anything he can say or explain or whatever, he’ll do it.”

She pursed her lips. “Can he hear me?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And I can hear him, so I can relay what he says back to you.”

“Who else have you talked to, Chris?” she asked him.

He glanced at me. “For the love of God, don’t tell her about Jerri.”

“We went out to LA and saw Eric,” I said to Allison. I felt a little bad about the half truth, but then again, if she
already
didn’t want to forgive him, throwing in a reference to his dealer might have sealed the deal. And the point of this was to settle things between them, not to stir up even more shit.

She curled her lip at that, but nodded. “I expected as much.”

“And now we’re here talking to you,” I continued, “and we’re thinking that you’re the last one. He can move on after this.” My voice didn’t crack or anything, and I was super proud of myself.

“She’s not going to be the last one,” Chris said. “You said you wanted to be. And I’m going to make sure you are.”

Tyler-to-ghost telepathy would really have come in handy during this whole ordeal, but sadly that didn’t seem to be one of my new ghost-related abilities. So instead I let my weight rest against him and tried to communicate through just touch and warmth that I appreciated him.

Allison, however, didn’t look pleased. “So he’s not going to go see Mom.”

Chris’s fingers tightened in my skin. “We talked about this. You and me. Should I go?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He seemed to think that it wouldn’t make any difference.” I figured that was an answer to both questions.

“Well, that’s how he can prove it, then,” Allison said. “We’ll go see Mom and depending on how that goes, maybe I’ll believe him.
Maybe
.”

Chris sucked in a deep breath, then nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “Now?”

She paused, glancing back into the house. “Yes. I’ll meet you there. Chris knows where it is. Give me half an hour.” She stepped inside quickly and closed the door.

I looked at Chris. “You fucked a PTA mom at your niece’s birthday party?”

He grimaced. “Yeah. Not my proudest moment, definitely.”

I rolled my eyes and turned around to head back down the sidewalk. “How far away is this place?”

“A few miles,” he said. “You should go ask if she’ll drive us.”

“I’ll just call a cab,” I said. “I mean, I’m a strange man with a crazy story, so I wouldn’t be alone in a car with me either. And besides, I’m guessing this is a secondary test. See if I know where to show up without her telling me.”

“Good point,” Chris said. “Do you have the money for a cab?”

I patted my backpack. “Got it covered. Eric was pretty generous.” I pulled out my phone, looked up the number for a cab company, and called a ride. The guy who’d dropped us off earlier wasn’t too far away, so they just sent him back to get us. I struggled to get the guitar inside the cab and repeated the address of the nursing home to the driver.

“I haven’t seen her in a long time,” Chris said softly while we were driving through town.

The cab driver was engrossed in his talk radio and not paying attention to me, so I answered, keeping my voice low. “I don’t know what she wants us to do. I mean, she can’t see you and so she won’t understand what I’m talking about.”

“And even if she did, she wouldn’t remember me,” he agreed. “Or at least not me now. She remembers she has a son. When I was alive, she’d always tell me I looked like him.”

“Do you care about her?” I asked. “I mean, for real. You can be honest.”

He watched the city speed by outside for a long time without speaking. I stayed quiet, but I put my hand on his leg.

Finally, he spoke, drawing the words out like he was still coming up with them while he was talking. “She’s my mom. I love her. But . . .” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to say to her. Not since she got like this. And I feel like coming to see her doesn’t help her out at all because she doesn’t remember, and it hurts me to see her like that, so why bother going?”

“Are you really asking, or was it a rhetorical question?” I traced circles on his leg and kept my eyes on his profile.

He shrugged, still staring out the window. “If you have an answer, I’d be happy to hear it.”

“For Allison,” I said. “You should bother going for Allison. Because she needs you to be there. To show her she’s not alone, you know?”

He frowned, but after a few seconds he nodded. “Yeah. I get that. But she should have done something to show me
she
cared. Come to a show, or called me on my birthday, or even just sent me a Christmas card.”

I leaned against him and shifted so that our legs pressed together. “Hey, I’m not saying it was all your fault. She did shitty things to you, and she should apologize. I’m just saying that going to see your mom today is for you to say good-bye and for Allison to see you caring. It’s really not about your mom at all. So don’t worry so much about what to say, you know? Just be there.”

He put his hand on top of mine. “I guess I can do that. Even though they won’t be able to tell if I’m there or not.”

“I’ll tell them you are,” I reminded him. “Your sister seemed to believe me well enough on the porch.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s hope for that.”

It was a really nice nursing home, one of those where the rooms looked more like apartments than hospital rooms, and there were lots of common areas where people were sitting around watching TV and playing board games with each other. There was even a piano in one corner where an elderly man was playing some sort of jazz tune. If you had to live in a nursing home, this wasn’t a bad one to live in.

I wondered how much of this Chris had paid for before he died. I decided to ask him.

He shrugged at the question. “All of it.”

“And Allison let you?” I asked. “Didn’t call it hell-money and set it on fire?”

He shrugged again. “I sent the checks directly here. They cashed them. There wasn’t anything she could do about it.”

“That was good of you, though, to take care of your mom like that.” I propped the guitar and my backpack up behind a potted plant so I wouldn’t have to lug them around, then sat on a bench just inside the main doors and waited for Allison.

“Allison didn’t think so.” He paced back and forth, and I took a moment to appreciate how he moved, how inhumanly gorgeous he was. It was hard to believe I’d ever thought I’d be happy with anyone else when there was someone like him in the world.

“Really?” I asked him after I got my thoughts back under control. Because honestly, that had been gross. True, but gross. “Why not?”

“She thought I was paying Mom off. You know, putting her somewhere so I didn’t have to feel guilty about not taking care of her.” He paused in his pacing and bit his bottom lip. “It wasn’t like that. I just . . . had money. And Allison didn’t—not a lot of it, anyway. And so I paid for the best place I could. So Allison wouldn’t have to have all the pressure on her to take care of Mom and so Mom could be somewhere nice.”

I smiled. “That’s good of you, though. Whether she believes you or not.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Jesus, I don’t deserve you, Tyler.”

“You really don’t,” I agreed, but I gave him a little grin.

The door opened, and Allison walked inside. She saw me sitting on the bench, and her mouth fell open. “You’re here.”

“We’re here,” I corrected. “Chris and me.”

Chris stepped forward and raised a hand to touch her, but paused before his hand landed and glanced over at me. “Give her a warning.”

Good thinking. “He’s going to touch you. To show you he’s here. On your arm.”

She nodded, wide-eyed even though this wasn’t the first time he’d touched her, and only jumped a bit when his hand landed lightly on her shoulder. “Hi, Chris,” she said softly.

He sucked in a surprised breath. “Hi, Allison.” I repeated after him, which felt sort of weird in this case since I’d been the one doing most of the talking back at her house.

“I called ahead,” she said. “They’re prepping her to see us.”

Chris sighed. “She gets flustered and confused if they don’t warn her first. We think that something in her recognizes us just enough to set her on edge, but not enough to actually register.”

I nodded and stood up from the bench. “I’m ready whenever she is.”

“Chris,” Allison said, pursing her lips, “please don’t say anything awful this time.”

“He won’t,” I assured her. And besides, I had to parrot everything he said anyway, so even if he decided to be a jerk, I’d cover for him. But I didn’t want to tell her so because that would make it seem like I thought him being a jerk was a distinct possibility.

Chris nodded. “I won’t. I’ll be good.”

“What did you say last time?” I asked him.

“That I was in love with Eric and that our music was satanic,” he answered. “Only half of that was true, though.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, then. Don’t say any of that this time.”

He smiled at me, with tiny dimples. “I won’t.”

“And don’t tell her about . . . the two of you,” Allison said. “Either.”

“Um . . .” I looked at Chris. “I won’t? I guess?”

He shrugged. “She won’t know who we are, so it won’t come up. Just tell her you’re a friend of her son’s.”

A nurse walked up at that point and told us that Mrs. Raiden was ready to see us. We followed her to Chris’s mom’s apartment and went inside. The nurse headed back for the lobby but left the door open. The woman sitting in the room was a lot younger than the residents I’d seen out in the lobby, who’d been mostly elderly people with canes and walkers. She had dark-brown hair with no gray in it at all—although it may have been dyed, I don’t know—and a pleasant smile, and when Chris saw her he deflated like all the air had been sucked out of the room.

“It’s been a while,” he murmured. “She looks so much older.”

Allison went over to her mother and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Hello there,” Mrs. Raiden said. “They said that you were friends of my kids? Aren’t you a little old to be friends with my kids?” She narrowed her eyes a bit and watched us.

“My name is Allison.” She stepped forward. “We’ve met before.”

“I love the name Allison. It’s my daughter’s name, you know. I’m Emma,” she said, smiling. “I don’t really remember meeting you. I’m sorry.” She peered at me expectantly, folding her hands in her lap.

“Oh. Hi. I’m Tyler. I’m Chris’s friend,” I told her. It gave me a twinge of regret that I couldn’t tell her that I was head over heels in love with her son, but she thought her Chris was just a child and I didn’t want to have to lunge for the phone so she wouldn’t call the police.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” she said. “What can I do for you today, Allison and Tyler?”

Allison smiled. “We just wanted to spend some time with you.”

Mrs. Raiden smiled back. “Well, that’s kind of you. I don’t have a lot of visitors.”

“I have a message for you from your son,” I said to Mrs. Raiden.

Allison raised her eyebrows at me and started to speak, but I continued over her. “He said to tell you that he loves you, and that he’s sorry for all the things he did that made you think he didn’t,” I told her. “And he wishes he could be here right now to tell you this stuff himself, but he sent me to tell you so he could be sure you knew.”

Mrs. Raiden blinked rapidly. “Chris is just a kid,” she said after a moment. “He hasn’t done anything wrong, not really. And even if he had, I would still love him. He’s my little boy.”

Chris squatted down in front of her chair and looked up into her eyes with the most open expression I’d ever seen him give anyone other than me. “Tell her she’s beautiful.”

I swallowed. “He thinks you’re a wonderful mom and that you’re beautiful.”

She blushed. “That’s so sweet of him.”

I shrugged and gave her a half smile. “That’s what he said to tell you. And also that he might not see you for a while, but he will always love you.”

She raised her eyebrow at that. “He’d better see me soon. He knows he’s supposed to be home by the time it gets dark out.” She looked over at the window and frowned. “He should be back any minute.”