The Widow's Walk (13 page)

Liz murmured as Mike’s cold arms wrapped around her. She snuggled closer, but it was only a warm body to comfort him, not her presence, not her curves, not the promise of a joyful pairing, or the delicious citrus perfume that banished the cloying lavender essence of her ghost. Dead from the waist down, he’d nap tomorrow, on the couch in front of a fire, which would soothe him as much. He’d keep watch and sleep no more tonight.

Chapter 20

Pale winter sunlight bathed the room. Liz leaped to her feet when she looked at the time, then remembered her substitute gig was over. Instead of relief, and the promise of a whole day to putter around the house and play with Eddie, restlessness, annoyance irked her. Mike, Mae, and Kevin would be around, and the only moments alone would be in the bathroom. They’d take turns watching her, driving her wherever she needed to go, protecting her from herself, or so they thought.

Why the hell was it taking so long for the CD proceeds to be deposited? No more fretting that a check would clear before the meager funds coming in were available. No more paying overdraft fees, minimum payments, and watching finance charges rack up like pin balls behind a sticky lever. Her paycheck this week would be the last for a while, unless she got a new assignment. She stretched the cramped ligament in her knee with a resistance band until it relaxed. Time to stop the physical therapy. Saving on the co-pays would help, and she knew all the exercises anyway. Instead of riding a stationary bike she’d take a walk. Yes, a walk to the beach would be nice, pushing Eddie in the stroller. He loved being outside, and the forecast was for a pretty mild day with not much wind. He’d be fine bundled into his snowsuit.

Elisabeth agreed. She’d become restless the minute the dress came back from Liz’s museum friend who’d fixed it as a favor. The widow’s walk was in shambles. Kevin had nailed the tower door shut, and there was no way for her to connect with Edward.

Liz had left the dress in the plastic bag, as if the thin barrier would help her resist the temptation to run her hands over it, savor the sensation of soft silk against her skin, remember Edward’s fingers lingering on each button as he undid the back, the shush as it dropped in a puddle onto the floor, and the comfort as she stepped out of it into his arms.

"Green was always my favourite colour and it looks stunning on you.” Edward kissed her cheek and brushed his lips down her neck. She stooped to unbutton her shoes, slip off her pantalettes, and unfasten her garters.

Edward watched, then slid behind her. “You’ll need some help with the stays, I imagine.” He loosened them one-by-one, brushing his lips over her satin smooth skin of her back with each twist of his fingers.

Liz shook it off. No. She would not put that dress on. She could not go back. Too bad that Mae hadn’t burned it. That she hadn’t just donated it to the museum. That it was here.

Elisabeth turned somersaults.
It was his favourite dress, the one I wore the day I came to America. It must stay here, with me.

She hungered for Edward’s sea spray kisses and, if she was lucky, the tide would be high when she got to the beach. But she’d have to sneak out.

Eddie whimpered.

Liz went to his crib. “Good morning, handsome.”

He smiled as she changed his diaper and dressed him in warm flannel, socks and his new shoes. God, he was almost walking. Sadness washed over her like waves over sand, obscuring any trace of the past. Edward had never see him. He would never come back, couldn’t come back.

Stop. It’s no different than the hundreds of soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan before they see their babies. It sucks, but it happens. Eddie is lucky to have Mike. And Mae and Kevin. And his half brother, who despite valiant efforts to resist, is smitten by the jack-o-lantern grin no matter how much time has gone by since they’d seen each other.

Liz peered out the window. Kevin mucked out the barn. Mike stacked wood in a wheelbarrow and trundled it toward the pile. The vacuum hummed from somewhere upstairs. She’d be back before they even realized she was gone.

She took Eddie, but left behind her brace and cane. For the first time in weeks, Liz took the stairs one foot after the other without favoring the right. Mike wasn’t the only one recovering.

The oven-warmed kitchen welcomed her.
Fresh-baked muffins,
mmm
. The thud of logs against the back of the house evidenced Mike’s efforts to keep the wood rack stocked.

Liz filled a bottle for Eddie. She doused the twinge of guilt for whisking him out to indulge her own impulses as she wolfed down a pumpkin-raisin muffin heading to the front porch.

“Think you’ve got plenty there, Michael.” Kevin’s voice projected from the side of the house. Too close. 

“Yep, done with that. Now I’ve earned me a nap.” Mike’s boots clunked on the back porch and he fiddled with the doorknob. “Mae locked us out.”

They’d both come around the front! Liz hurried toward the barn and ducked in the open door. Two horse heads poked through the stall doors to catch a glimpse of the intruders. Eddie giggled with delight.

“We have to spend some time in the barn this summer, Eddie. Mama wants to learn to ride.” She’d bought the horses when things looked good, before all this. Thank goodness they had new shoes and the vet had come out in the fall, when she still had money to pay for it.

Kevin had stockpiled feed while it was on sale, so for now she wasn’t faced with the dilemma of selling them.
But if the house . . . No, I’m not going to think about that now.

She rubbed Bump’s nose. Eddie squealed. Jump insisted on equal time. Liz moved over one stall and obliged. He butted his head against her chest.

“I have to spend more time with you guys, too.” Another thing she’d neglected while wallowing in the morass of past and present.

Elisabeth wiggled. How she’d loved the horses, especially her mare Ruddy. So much so she’d nearly convulsed when Liz considered a roan filly. It would have been too much to take. Maybe, just maybe, learning to ride would provide an outlet for the ghost to expel her angst.

Appeased, the horses went back to the fresh bundles of hay Kevin had loaded in their feeders. “No.” Eddie protested as Liz turned toward the barn door.

“More horsey?” Liz tried to get him to repeat it.

He couldn’t get his little lips around that yet.

“Later. We’re going to take a walk.” She peeked out into the empty yard. The men had gone inside and were probably having tea. Mmm, with milk and sugar and another muffin, if there were any left when she got back. Hunger pricked her gut, but not strong enough to override Elisabeth’s urgings. The ghost was hungry for Edward.

Liz’s heart pounded.
I’m not doing anything wrong. I have the right to take my son for a walk. I’m not a naughty child
.

She strode to the car, opened the trunk, and pulled out the stroller. Well practiced in the one-handed maneuver, she popped it open, bundled Eddie in and, closed the trunk with an insistent thud.
Let them hear me. Let them see me. Let them try and stop me.

The low whine of the vacuum sounded through the closed windows. There was no one to see, no one to hear, no one looking for her–yet. Liz tucked a wool blanket around the baby and headed toward the beach.

She’d underestimated the effort of pushing the stroller through the frozen, rutted mud coating the side of Paine’s Creek Road. And this was downhill. She’d be going back up, into the wind, which was now jabbing at her back like any angry finger.

Liz draped the plastic rain shield over Eddie to keep the stiff breeze off his already ruddy cheeks. Only his face and eyes were exposed, and he stared at rotting leaves, stuck in roadside goo, flapping in the breeze.

“No birdies or bunnies today, Eddie. They’re all snuggled in their nests.” And they should be, too.

The effort had her breaking a sweat, but her fingers went numb in thin leather gloves. Her toes tingled, her knee and ankle stiffened and ached with every step. On a summer day she could sprint down here, but not today. No, it wasn’t because she was old. She hadn’t walked this much in weeks. And her muscles were stiff from cold, not age.

Kate’s, the bustling clam shack, was shuttered, the parking lot coated with a crispy blanket of unplowed snow left over from the last storm. Liz hurried past, needing no further reminder of the winter season, both the Earth’s and her own.

The seething, roiling expanse of Cape Cod Bay at high tide came into view. Whitecaps surged into the normally placid marsh, frothing over the sandy bank. Small rocks clicked and clattered. Nary a seagull braved the gusts. The world was holed up, hibernating, all except her. And her son.

Liz pulled her hood down and adjusted a scarf over her face. She turned Eddie so the wind was behind the stroller.

“Wawa.” He protested looking at the road.

“It’s too dangerous to go down to the water today, baby.” She pulled the scarf down and let the icy spray hit her in the face like pins pricking her skin.

If these were Edward’s kisses, he was angry. Her foot stomped, venting Elisabeth’s frustration. Liz started to leave, but Elisabeth insisted they linger longer. Tears welled in her eyes. Edward would never see his son.

“What are you doing down here?” Mike’s voice, shrill with anger, startled her. He stood next to Mae and Kevin, the trio in a single line, their faces set in an identical expression of anger and relief, rigid with cold and fury.

“I . . . took Eddie to see the horses, then decided to take a walk, get some exercise.” None of that was a lie, but her earlier bravado faded under the collective glare.

“Ya didn’t’ say anythin’ and when I knocked at your door to come in and clean up, no one answered. Imagine how I felt, seein’ the bed made up and empty, Eddie gone . . .” Mae’s voice broke.

“Liz, please, my heart can’t take this.” Kevin looked like he was going to cry, too.

“Get in the car.” Mike tore the plastic shield off Eddie’s stroller and snatched him out.

His barked order raised her hackles. She resisted, to prove a point.

“Wawa!” Eddie complained and arched his back while Mike tried to get him into the seat–a difficult enough task in the bulky snowsuit.

“No wawa today, champ.” Mike struggled with the baby, and to contain his frustration.

“Let me help.” Mae slid into the backseat of the BMW and flicked her hand, motioning to Kevin to do the same.

It took Kevin a moment to respond. He moved like a rusty robot.

Mike deferred the squirming child to Mae. He stared into Liz’s eyes. “I said get in the car, goddammit. I’m not playing games with you.”

Could this be Jared, or had Mike reached the limit of his patience?

“If you ask me nicely, I might consider it. But I’m not in the habit of taking orders from anyone. I have as much a right to take a walk as anyone else.”

“Not with the baby, in the middle of winter, to this of all places.” His voice cracked with emotion. “You’re killing us all, do you understand? Elisabeth’s not going to rest until we’re all dead.” 

“Stop it, Mike. I took a walk. The baby is bundled. I didn’t go anywhere near the surf.” She ignored her frost-nipped hands, not daring to even put them in her pockets and refute her own words.

He exhaled loudly and took her arm. “Please, get in the car.” There was no warmth, no comfort in his tense, heavy-handed grip.

Liz let him lead her to the passenger side, and she slid into the running car. The welcome warmth of the heater began to defrost her heart, but Mike, Mae, and Kevin, pronounced her sentence with silence. The car door slammed shut, like a prison door, like the lid of a coffin.

Mike was still quaking, despite the heat blasting in his face. It was either fury, or he’d made contact with Elisabeth again. Probably both. He mustered every iota of restraint to stay quiet and under the speed limit.

When Mike pulled the car next to the barn, the only sounds were the click of seatbelts and the thud-thud of the back doors. Even Eddie knew something was going down, and it wasn’t good. He buried his head in Mae’s coat, and she took him inside.

Liz stared straight out the windshield, motionless. Her eyes drifted to the widow’s walk for a moment. Elisabeth was back with a vengeance, and so was Jared.

Mike’s chest ached from the effort of controlling his ghost, and he knew Liz was going through the same thing. Her breaths were shallow, her teeth clenched. Saying anything now would be a mistake. But he couldn’t leave her alone, couldn’t trust her.

He got out and walked over to the passenger side door. Liz ignored his outstretched hand. “Please. It’s freezing out here.” His hands trembled more from frustration and fury than the cold. He would not manhandle her; he’d never stoop to that, although controlling Jared at this moment was taking more effort than he wanted to admit.

Her eyes blinked away that vacant ghost–in–control stare and flickered back to life. “Yes, and you shouldn’t be out in this wind.” Liz slithered out of the car, walked past him, and back to the house.

Despite her injured leg, she moved pretty fast. He hustled to get in the front door before it slammed in his face.

She passed by Kevin and Mae, who stood in the hall holding Eddie, and went upstairs without a word.

“I better go talk to her.” Mae turned on her way up the stairs. “Somehow, we’ve got to make her understand that she can’t do these things.”

“Good luck, she wouldn’t even look at me.” Mike waved to Eddie who hung on Mae like a monkey.

The tyke waved back. Nothing had happened to Eddie last night. But Elisabeth had been circling around him, and now this. He had to take action. But what? Mae and Kevin knew nothing about the apparitions. Liz had sworn him to secrecy, and if he enlisted anyone else and fanned the flames it would destroy more of the already unsteady foundation they all stood on.

Liz was acting more like the entitled noblewoman haunting her than the level headed businesswoman he’d fallen in love with. He was losing the battle against a frustrated, jilted Jared Sanders, who’d landed in jail accused, of murder after his wife’s ridiculously impulsive act. And goddamn Edward Barrett dropped by and took Liz for a whirlwind visit back in time, left her pregnant, handed him the keys to the kingdom then split, leaving a giant mess behind just as he had the first time he’d sailed into the sunset.