The Ghost of a Chance (11 page)

I stop short at sight of the
rumpled quilt, the tossed-off sheet. Catherine never did bother to make a bed
after she slept in it.
 
Her fuzzy green
monster slippers peek out from beneath the bed frame. I nudge them toward me
with my foot and then slip both feet inside the pair. They fit. We always wore
the same size, in shoes, clothes—even rings.

My hand clutches the engagement
ring now as I seat myself on the bed and run a hand through my tangled hair.
Before Catherine died, I always made an effort to look my best for her.
 
Being a writer, she had a neverending supply
of compliments poised at the tip of her tongue, words that made my whole body
tremble.
 
But lately I resemble nothing
so much as a starved Yeti. And I couldn't care less.

Another shiver. The generator must
be broken. Or off? Did I even turn it on yesterday? I meant to, but... It's so
hard to remember, to keep time straight. There's been something very nonlinear
about the past months, and it's taken a toll on my grasp of the present, past
and future.

The compulsion to sit down at the
typewriter brings me to my feet, the slippers sliding over the floor with a
dry, sandpapery noise, and I find myself seated once again in the desk chair,
fingers positioned, expectant, over the keys.

I owe this to her at least, I
think, as the edges of my perception blur—like seawater pulling back, ever so
subtly, from a damp shore—because the face I dreamed of this night was not
Catherine's.

Two women haunt me now. Past and
present.

My skin tingles. The scent of
flowers assails my nose, but then all senses fade. I’m lost.

Chapter Thirteen

"I think we should throw a party."

I hold the knife over the cutting
board, mid-chop, and shoot Alis a look of disbelief. "A party? As
in...food? Wine? Music? Fun?"

"Yes," she laughs, her
hands buried in banana bread dough. There's a streak of flour on her cheek, and
her apron strings have come undone. "A little dancing might be nice, too.
What do you think? We could both use a pick-me-up, and it will be Christmas
soon... You've got this big, beautiful house." She raises her arms,
gesturing all around us. "Let's make it festive! Come on, Darcy."

I drop the knife when she grabs me
from behind at the waist, turning me to face her fully.

"Pleeeeease?" Alis falls
to her knees and folds her hands, pleading in her best imitation of a whiny
five-year-old girl. She succeeds in looking heart-stoppingly adorable and
making me all too aware of her womanly assets, barely concealed beneath the
loose apron and deep vee of her white sweater.

"Oh, Alis. You're serious
about this?"

"Deadly," she grins, with
a flutter of her lashes. "I'm tired of being responsible and worrying
about the divorce papers and worrying, most of all, about you—"

"Why me?"

"You're miserable, and of
course you have every right to be sad and grieving, but it's the holidays!
Everyone has to be happy during the holidays. Or else! It's, like, a law."

I shake my head at her and smirk.

"Darcy, we should be hanging
up lights and decorating a tree. Shopping! We have to go shopping!"

"I don't know, Alis..."

"Okay, listen, I'm hardly in
the Christmas spirit myself, but I think planning a party would force us to
muddle through all of our twisted emotions and realize that, yes, our lives
have changed, drastically, but there's still time. There's still hope."
Her eyes shine. "For both of us."

My heart pounds, caught up in her
passion. But a party? With people and their questions, their clichéd
condolences, their whispers and stares?

"We'll make up a guest list
together and only include the people we both feel comfortable inviting."

"But that's the thing, Alis. I
don't feel comfortable around anyone right now. I'm not even comfortable when
I'm alone."

"Darcy—"

"Besides, I'd be an awful
hostess. Morticia Addams is cheerful in comparison."

She smiles and lays a hand on my
shoulder; its warmth distracts me, makes my heart beat even faster. "Stop
thinking so much. You need this. You want it, too, although you'd never admit
it."

I open my mouth to speak, but she
silences me with a look.
 
In the short
time since Alis moved into the house, I’ve learned to recognize that look: like
magic, it vaporizes contrary opinions.

"No more excuses. I'll handle
the details. Just say yes."

"You aren't leaving me much
room for argument," I laugh.

Alis crosses her arms over her
chest in mock frustration and begins to tap her foot on the floor.
"So?" she leads, eyeing me closely.

"So..." I sigh, defeated.
"All right, let's do it."

Alis flings her arms around my neck
and squeals. "Thank you so much! You won't regret it, I promise. We've
going to have the best Christmas party in the history of Christmas
parties—"

"Setting your sights a little
high, aren't you?" I turn back to the cutting board and resume my task.

"Always," she says,
flashing me a victorious smile. She pours her dough into an oiled bread pan and
turns on the oven. "Well, with Jason, I didn’t really set my sights on
anything.
 
But now I feel—I don’t know."
 
Her hands still, and she glances over her
shoulder at me.
 
"I feel renewed,
Darcy.
 
Thanks to you."

"Me?
 
I haven’t done—"

"You have.
 
I’d still be suffering beneath his roof if
you hadn’t—"
 
She shrugs, turning
back to her pan.
 
I watch her shoulders
rise and fall with a sigh.
 
"I just
needed someone to say aloud what I’d been thinking silently for years.
 
And, anyway, it's nice having something to
look forward to again, isn't it?"

I take a deep breath, regarding
her. Heat floods my chest, and for a moment I find myself unable to think, only
feel. Gratitude. And friendship. I've never made friends easily. But it seems
as if I've known Alis forever, as if all of my life led me up to this point,
here, right now, standing together in the kitchen, baking bread and making
plans.

"Yeah, it is nice," I say
finally, watching her clean the counter with a kitchen towel, listening to her
humming gently to herself.

---

I remove a can of tuna from my
pocket and open the lid, pouring its contents into the small bowl at the foot
of the sofa. "Eat up, Portia. You need your strength." I pat her
back, and she meows appreciation.
 

Closing the cabin door softly
behind me, so as not to wake the sleeping kittens, I trek back to the house to
fetch some hot water bottles, raising my hood against the falling snow.
 
It’s the fluffy kind of snow: the flakes
whirl in the air like bits of cotton candy, weightless and glittering blue in
the afternoon sun.
 

Christmas is in six days, and it
will likely be a white one—though, if Alis has any say in the matter, it will
be a silver-and-gold one, too.
 
In
preparation for the party, she’s begun decking the halls of the house with
sparkle: shining bows and ornamented wreaths, strings of vintage lights wound
round the banister, old-fashioned tinsel garlands swooping above every
entryway.
 
Whenever I find myself
sinking into somber thoughts, one of Alis’ decorations glitters at the corner
of my eye…and I smile, despite myself.
 

But the smile never lasts for
long.
 
It’s my first Christmas without
Catherine.
 
Without a Catherine I can
hold in my arms, a Catherine who laughs at my punny librarian humor and hides
Shakespeare-inspired love sonnets inside my pillowcase.

The ache of her absence is
constant, even though Catherine—her spirit, her essence, her ghost—is still
here, still with me, I know.
 
Still
waiting…
 

For what?

My feet glide over a frozen patch,
and I catch myself with my gloved hands, scrabbling at a tree trunk.
 
"Whoa, thanks."
 
I pat the tree with gratitude, then sigh and
tilt, touching my forehead to the rough bark.
 
It’s so solid, this tree.
 
So
opposite from how I
feel—like a drifting thing, hardly here at all.

Sighing again, I crane my neck to
watch the sky.
 
Snow whispers against my
face, chills the tip of my tongue.
 
It
tastes white and clean, and its ice numbs, for a moment, the part of me that
can’t bear the thought of putting up a Christmas tree without Catherine by my
side, that can’t imagine buying gifts without buying one for her, and then
eagerly awaiting her reaction on Christmas morning:
Oh, Darcy, I’ll wear it
always…

We thought we had years,
decades.
 
Our whole lives.
 
We thought the cancer was in remission, that
we could stave it off permanently with the strength of our love.
 
We thought neither of us would ever live a
lonely day again...

Well, my life since Catherine’s
death could hardly be called
living.
 
Only being—and only because I have no other choice.

I collect a layer of falling snow on the flat of my
glove, tilting my fingers toward the sun so that the snowflakes shimmer,
casting rainbows into the bright, thin air.
 
The sparkle of the snow makes me think of Alis, with her armfuls of
glimmering holiday trimmings and her big, blue eyes full of hope.
 
She’s making a new life for herself—bravely,
boldly.
 
And I feel honored to witness
it, to play the smallest role in her rebirth, though sometimes I wonder if my
somberness is a hindrance to her.

I know, innately, that her presence is a blessing to
me
.
 
When I’m with her, I laugh
before I can restrain myself; my lips curve into smiles before I can chastise
them into frowns.
  
When I’m with her, I
forget myself: my darkness and my grief.
 
When I’m with her, I forget—

I almost forget…

I
can’t
forget.

Shaking snow from my hair and crossing my arms over
my chest, I bid the tree good-bye and march toward the house, my crunching
footsteps breaking the silence of the still, empty woods.

---

"Would it be all right if I posted this on the
bulletin board?" I push a flyer across the returns desk, and Marjorie
peers down at it curiously, adjusting her glasses.
 
"It isn’t library-related, but I want the kittens to find
the best homes possible, and we all know the best people are library
patrons."

Marjorie laughs gently, tapping the photocopy with a
red-polished fingernail.
 
"That is
certainly true.
 
I have thirty-three
years of experience to back it up."
 
She gazes down at the black-and-white image of the six kittens and
Portia, snuggled together on the couch in the cabin, and sighs.
 
"Well, aren’t they sweet?"

"Believe me, I’d love to keep them all.
 
I wasn’t even a cat person
until—um…"
 
My face burns,
reddens.
 
I cough and swallow and
pretend to glance over my shoulder as I swipe the sting of an errant tear from
my eye.
 

"Honey—"

"So," I breathe, staring down at the
flyer, my gaze stubbornly fixed to the large black words announcing
FREE
KITTENS.
 
"I mean, I’m hardly
caregiver material right now, and these babies deserve someone who can spoil
them with love."
 
Someone like
Alis
, I think, smiling faintly to myself.
 
Alis has already chosen her kitten, the black one with three white feet,
and named him after her favorite artist, Rossetti.
 
"He looks like he stepped on some poor painter’s wet
clouds," Alis said, patting the little boy’s tiny paws.

I take another deep breath and look up at Marjorie,
whose eyes are wistful, still flitting over the image of the kittens.
 
"Hey, Marjorie, would you like to adopt
one—"

"Oh, I shouldn’t! I haven’t had a cat since I
was a little girl, you know.
 
And, well,
I…"
 
Her mouth twists to the side,
and when she lifts her gaze to meet mine, I’m surprised to see that her eyes
are shining.
 
She’s near tears.

"Marjorie—"

"To be honest, I have been feeling terribly
lonely lately, Darcy, just me all alone in that empty house.
 
Lloyd used to fill it up, you know.
 
He was so
big
.
 
His presence was so
big
, so
comforting, like a fire in a cold room.
 
But now…"
 
She lowers her
eyes, and her lip trembles.
 
My heart
breaks for her.
 
"Now there’s just
the cold."

"Oh, Marjorie."
 
I reach for her hands upon the desk and squeeze them gently; her
skin feels cool and paper-thin.
 
"If there’s anything I can do—"

"Well, now I’m thinking…
 
It might be nice to have someone around to
take care of."
 
Her mouth upturns
as she looks at me, squeezing my hands back.
 
"Even if that someone is an energetic white kitten who’ll probably
tear up my drapes and drop dead mice on my favorite books."
 
She laughs, letting go of my hand to catch a
tear slipping over her cheek.
 
"So
I’ll adopt one of the babies, if you deem me fit."