Sheila Connolly - Relatively Dead 02 - Seeing the Dead (19 page)

Abby was torn in multiple directions. On one hand, her heart ached for Ned, who now had to face that he had inadvertently passed something that he hadn’t even known about on to his offspring—something that could be a significant problem in their lives. If what Abby suspected was true, Leslie and George needed to know so they could help them deal with it. On the other hand, she was mad at him because his denial of his … trait had brought this about, and only because he had ignored it. If he had been open to it, at least to himself, he might not have volunteered to father a child. How had it happened that she had been more accepting of this peculiarity than he had? Well, of course, she’d had him to help her. But she believed in facing issues—problems—head-on and dealing with them, not ignoring them and hoping they would just go away all by themselves. So here they were, and the problem—Ellie’s apparently shared ability—had just blown up in their faces. And Leslie—Abby’s boss, Ned’s friend—didn’t even know about it yet. There were going to be some
really
awkward moments ahead.

The cat, newly released from its bag, now sat on the table between them, both a curse and a blessing. Without Abby’s brilliant idea, maybe Leslie and Ned could have pushed the discussion into the future. But now it had to be in the open, and maybe Ellie’s book had forced their hand. It was time that Leslie knew the whole story.

“So what do we do now?” Abby asked. “You know that Leslie is going to want to see Ellie’s story. Ellie may lose interest in finishing it, but if what we suspect is true, it’s going to come out one way or the other soon enough. Maybe through a teacher at her school who notices something odd. Maybe if Ellie throws a tantrum when her mother makes fun of her for seeing things.” Abby hoped that Leslie would be more sensitive than that with her own child, but few people knew how to deal with a child who sees dead people. She certainly didn’t.

“Abby, I don’t know. I didn’t mean for this to happen, and I’m sorry it has to affect Ellie.”

And maybe her brother as well? No, save that worry for later.
“At least if Leslie and her husband know about it, they can help Ellie. And you certainly had no reason to think you’d be passing this on.”
Before you talked with your mother; before you met me.
The thought that if she and Ned ever had a child, that poor baby would be cursed with a double whammy coming from both sides, darted into her mind and she batted it away. They were still a long way from that. “But let’s deal with the most immediate problem: the story. ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There.’ Which, by the way, I think is a brilliant title.”

“It is, especially coming from a kid. Okay, what does this story tell us?”

Abby noted that Ned had changed the subject, just a bit, from what to do about telling Ellie’s parents to what the characteristic of her “gift” were, as revealed in her surprisingly mature writing. But she was willing to cut him some slack. They would no doubt be coming back to the “how to tell Leslie” problem soon enough.

“I think that the two main points are one, that she’s seeing people, and two, that she knows they’re not real. Or at least, not in the here and now.”

“Both accurate,” Ned said. “I might add that she may not have said much to the adults in her world because she knows they would react negatively. Even though they may mean well.”

Like your mother?
Abby wondered. But at least Sarah hadn’t ridiculed her son, told him he was being silly. Abby countered quickly, “But then add to that the fact that she wrote
this
. She specifically told Leslie that she didn’t want her to read it yet because it wasn’t finished, and Leslie didn’t argue. But she knew
I
was going to read it, because I explained what an editor does and then I told her I was her editor. So maybe it’s a cry for help, or a trial balloon. Or maybe she senses that I would understand, where her mother wouldn’t.”

“You didn’t find the story disturbing?”

“Yes and no,” Abby replied thoughtfully. “If we didn’t know what we—you and I—know, then yes, I might be troubled. If her teacher saw this, she or he might think Ellie was hiding something, and of course everybody’s mind would leap to ‘stalker’ or ‘pedophile.’ And we know that that would make the situation a lot worse. Or else, she’d be saddled with the label ‘overactive imagination.’ But on the positive side, what she describes in the story sounds very much like my own experiences. I see someone, and I don’t know when or why it’s happening, but I’m never afraid of that person. And Ellie isn’t afraid either, in the story—assuming the protagonist is her, in her own mind. It’s interesting that she doesn’t question why this person is there, but that may be her young age—to her, grown-ups do a lot of unexplained things. What does seem sad to me is that the watcher seems kind of wistful. He looks on activities that may be modern, but he’s remembering whatever the equivalent was in his own life. As I seem to keep saying, it’s an extraordinary piece of writing. I really want to see where she’s going with this. Do you think I’ll get the chance? Should I?”

“You do not make things easy, Abby,” Ned said. “If I say don’t tell Leslie anything, just wait and see what Ellie comes up with, it’s like you’re conspiring against Leslie, and I don’t need to tell you that’s wrong on several levels. If you do tell her, she might not believe you, she might get angry or upset, and she might keep Ellie away from you, so you’ll never know any more.”

“Then
you
talk to her, Ned. To them. Even if Ellie doesn’t understand it now, we can’t assume for her that this will just go away. Or are you saying we should encourage that? Look, I’m willing to say that my life would be simpler if I hadn’t stumbled into all this. But would it be better? I don’t know. I do believe that denying this ability, whatever it is, would be wrong. Just as much as denying a gift for music or art would be. It’s just another facet of the whole.”

Ned was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t read. “I am so glad I met you,” he said softly. “Or you met me.” He cleared his throat. “If I’m honest, I’ll admit that whether or not I acknowledged this thing, I always felt there was something missing in my relationships. I mean, I loved Leslie, or I thought I did then. I enjoyed her company. She made me laugh, and she pushed me to do things I might not have on my own, so she was good for me. But at the same time, I always felt there was something missing. After we split up, I made a few more efforts to get involved with women—I haven’t exactly been celibate—but it always felt like I was walking through a play, saying the right lines. And then you showed up out of nowhere and wham, everything changed.”

“I hope that’s a good thing,” Abby said, smiling.

“It is, even though it’s forced me to reexamine a lot of my own assumptions.”

“It was pretty much the same with Brad. I thought I loved him. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do—find a nice guy, get married, et cetera. But I must have known there was something missing, deep down. Look at how easy it was to break it off. It didn’t hurt at all. I just took a realistic look at him and didn’t like what I saw. I mean, he’s an okay guy, but we didn’t fit together. And don’t give yourself all the credit for that, either. I really tried to make it work with Brad, and I wouldn’t have considered starting anything with you until we’d split. Although I have to admit that you were so much more tuned in to what I was feeling that Brad ever was, which was part of what made me start reevaluating my relationship with him.”

“Glad I could be of service, ma’am.”

She ignored his flippant remark. “So, what now?”

Ned thought for a moment, and finally said, “Much as it goes against my principles, I think we should wait until we see what Ellie does with the rest of this story. That will tell us something. I acknowledge that Leslie will want to see it, although maybe we should ask Ellie’s permission to let her do that. And if Leslie reads it and reacts the way I think she will, then the two of us will have to sit down and have a serious talk with Leslie. And her husband. But maybe Leslie alone first.”

Abby nodded, once. “I think I agree with you. It does feel kind of sneaky, but we’ll tell Leslie the whole story ASAP. Will she take much convincing, or will she tell us that we’re crazy? And fire me?”

“Let’s give her a chance first. She’s a good person, and she’s smart. And I’m sure she wants whatever’s best for Ellie.”

“And so do you, right?” Abby asked quietly.

“Of course.” Ned stood up. “I should go.”

“Why?” Abby said. “Do you want to stay?”

“Of course I do. But I don’t want to impose.”

That made Abby mad. “Ned, you don’t have to ask permission to sleep with me. Aren’t we kind of past that point?”

“Oh. Well, yes.”

“Look, if it’s an issue always being here, how about I come to your place now and then? Or we set up a schedule? Weekends versus weekdays? Every other day?”

“I … Well … My place is such a mess. I mean, I kind of camp out with a mattress on the floor and sheets over the windows in the one bedroom.”

“Ned, listen to yourself. You sound like some clueless college kid. You should be living better than that by now. Call in a contractor and get it fixed right. Or is it just convenient to have an excuse for not bringing anyone home?”

“No!” he said, obviously dismayed. “I mean, it hasn’t ever been a question, about bringing anyone home. I love the house, I love preserving old things, but I never seem to have time to get anything done there.”

“Why haven’t I even seen it? By daylight? Even if only from the outside? I’m beginning to think you have an entire family stashed there, that you don’t want me to know about. Or you’re raising aardvarks. Or growing pot or making meth. Which is it?”

Ned smiled weakly. “None of the above? Okay, this weekend I’ll give you the grand tour. Will that satisfy your fevered imagination?”

“We’ll see. So, staying or going?”

“I want to stay,” he said firmly.

“Then prove it,” Abby replied with a grin.

• • •

After a belatedly satisfactory evening, Abby woke up worrying. She and Ned had agreed to “wait and see” about Ellie in the short term, with the promise to explain to Leslie what they thought was going on as soon as possible. By daylight it smacked of procrastination. What startling revelations could Ellie’s next installment provide? Maybe they were both hoping that they’d been wrong about the first part, or that it had been a fluke, and the rest of Ellie’s “book” would turn out to be about kittens and ponies and dealing with mean girls at school. Abby still wasn’t sure whether she’d prefer to be right or wrong about what she suspected. But Ned had a say in this too, now. How had this become so complicated so fast?

“Hey,” Ned said sleepily, breathing into her ear. “Want me to get up and make coffee?”

“I’ll do it,” Abby said, sitting up. “I want to be sure I’m at work when Leslie arrives. You still okay with the plan we came up with?”

Ned rolled over onto his back. “I think it’s the best we can do right now. You want me to come by the museum at the end of the day, so we can talk to her together?”

“But Ellie will be there too. Leslie should be the first to talk to her, right?”

“Yes. Leslie is her mother.”

“And you’re just a donor with psychic genes. But you’re the best person to explain all this to Leslie.”

“No, we do it together. We’ve made more advances working together than I have in the last twenty-five years. She talks to both of us.”

“All right,” Abby said, hoping she’d still have a job tomorrow. “I’m going to start the coffee and take a quick shower.”

Abby made it to work early again, and sat and fidgeted, waiting for Leslie—and Ellie?—to appear. They arrived shortly before nine.

Leslie looked unruffled, so Abby guessed that Ellie had kept mum. “Ellie here has been very secretive about what you two were working on yesterday, but she said you promised she could finish it with your help today. Is that still all right with you?”

“Of course. I can’t wait to see how it turns out. Ellie, will you be able to let your mom see it by the end of the day?”

“Maybe,” Ellie said, her expression uncertain. Was she having cold feet? Abby wondered.

“I promise I’ll help you with it, and I’ll even show your mom all the great things you’ve done. It’s really good, you know.”

“Okay,” Ellie answered, avoiding everybody’s eyes.

“Well, there you go,” Leslie said briskly. “Let me know if you need anything. Maybe we could have lunch, just the three of us?”

“Give me a call if you can get away,” Abby said, crossing her fingers and hoping that Leslie would allow them the time to finish. “We’ll be here.”

When Leslie had left, Abby turned to Ellie, who was looking at her with a really odd expression. “You don’t want your mom to see it?”

Ellie shook her head. “She won’t understand.”

Abby chose her next words carefully. “And you think I understand?”

Ellie nodded. “You see them. I know you do.”

Abby sighed. There were so many ways to respond to that, and so many reasons not to. Ellie was a child—but a child with a special view of the universe. One that Abby understood, if imperfectly. “Yes, Ellie, I do,” she said gently. “And your mom doesn’t?”

Another shake of Ellie’s head, silently.

“I love your story, and I really do want to see how you finish it. And when you do, I will do my best to help you explain it to your mother. All of it. Does that help?”

Finally Ellie gave her a small smile. “Okay. Is your computer on?”

20

As she sat in her office, watching Ellie focus intently on the computer screen, typing busily, heedless of errors, Abby felt—what? Scared? Curious? Confused? She wanted to talk to Ellie, tactfully of course, but she wasn’t sure what to do with anything she might learn from that conversation. She wanted Ellie to finish what she was working on, to her own satisfaction. She and Ned had agreed to use that as a guidepost of some sort, but did that even make sense? Or were they just trying to postpone something both of them thought was going to be unpleasant?