Page 51 of Haunted

He pauses at the door. “It was good to see you too.” He says it carefully, like he’s testing the words for weight. Then he nods once and walks out.

I wait until the front door closes. Then I lean back in my chair, press my hands over my eyes, and fight the urge to cry like I haven’t since I was seventeen.

Not because he hates me. Because he doesn’t. And that’s so much worse.

Chapter eighteen

Jonny

The fog on Flint Street is thick enough that the streetlamps look like distant yellow orbs, disembodied and floating. For a second it isn’t fog at all, and I’m back on Denning Court with the garbage in my hand, looking up to see my neighbors packing their cars. I shiver despite my jacket.

The campus is quiet this early in the morning on a Tuesday. Fog sits low over the grounds and softens everything into an Impressionist painting. Shapes come and go: a student with a backpack, a man locking up his bike, two friends engaged in a heated conversation that it looks like it’s best to make a wide berth of. I cut across toward the west side, where the university land runs down to the water, and even this early there are joggers on the loop trail and a woman with a stroller. A man is stretching against a bench.

The unpaved trail that runs to the back of the park has been packed hard by generations of students. I can see the boathouse ahead of me, a dim shape in the mist, the lake behind it breathing tendrils of fog off its surface.

Alice is waiting at the top of the boardwalk with a man in a waxed jacket and a big yellow Lab, and I am more relieved to see three of them than I want to admit.

Alice smiles at me. She’s wearing a sensible coat that I instantly envy. “Jonny. This is Tom. Tom, Jonny.”

“Morning,” Tom says. He has a paper bag in one hand and the leash in the other. The dog puts her nose in my palm without being asked.

“That’s Maggie. She does that to everybody.” Alice hands me a paper cup. “Tom, would you give us a few minutes?”

“I’ll do the top loop and catch you on the second lap? Maggie seems to have the zoomies anyway. Come on, Maggie! Who’s a good girl?” he calls. The dog wags her tail enthusiastically as she pulls against the leash to investigate the root structure of a tree.

Alice and I stare after him, smiling at the dog. I turn to her as the fog swallows them. “So,” I say. I don’t know how to start the rest of the question.

“Let’s go back there. It’s a little more secluded, don’t you think?” Alice suggests, gesturing behind her back at the boathouse. There is a narrow walkway on either side of the structure that leads to a little veranda overhanging the water. They’ve put in a bench since I was here last, which is nice, because I used to have to sit on the edge of the overhang with my legs dangling over the water. Alice sits on the bench. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“You look cold,” she says. She takes off her scarf, which is a nice cream one, and offers it to me. I go to refuse, but she doesn’t take it back.

I put it on and shiver. “I used to be able to come out here in shorts in the middle of January,” I complain. “Now, I’m freezing all the time.”

“Tropical climes. It must be a shock to be back here.”

In so many ways. I lean against the railing. “It is. Do you think they still have boats in here?” I don’t know why I’m starting with that, of all things. It’s like the big things are too big to talk about now.

She looks over at the boathouse in surprise. The back deck area is hinged so that it can raise up like a bridge in the middle to let the boats out, but the door encloses the boats has been closed for so long it looks like it’s rusted in place. “I don’t know, honestly. Funny how you look at something for so long and don’t ask questions about it. And then somebody from outside your little word pops in and asks a question that should have been obvious to everybody.”

“Like, who’s my father, and why didn’t he come forward during the fires.”

She looks down at the rough wooden planks. After a brief pause, she pats the space on the bench next to her. “I don’t want to say the name, because I want to be sure. If I’m wrong and the connection was innocent, then I’ve put a man in your head who has no business being there.” She cuts her hand against her coffee, and then looks up at me. “But I don’t think I am wrong. It isn’t only the features. Yours are softer than his. It’s the way you tilt your head when somebody’s talking. Those dimples. When I saw you at the meeting it took me straight back thirty years and I couldn’t think about anything else all evening.”

I don’t say anything. The fog moves across the water. I sit next to her and clasp my hands in front of her.

“He had a reputation,” she says. “A ladies’ man, they’d have called it then. I don’t tell you that to be cruel about him or about her. I tell you because it means there was a pattern, and your mother may have got caught up in it.”

“Until a few days ago I thought I was IVF,” I say. “That’s what she told me. That’s what I’ve believed my whole life.”

“That’s possible. Again, I don’t want to make more assumptions than need be. It’s been a long time.” She turns to me on the bench. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes. After the fire I kept thinking that if I could find him, maybe I could tell him about what happened.” I smile. “Did he move away a long time ago? Do you think you could still track him down?”

She looks surprised. “Oh. Oh, honey, if I’m right, he’s still here.”

I stare at her. “Then he knew about me. And Mom. And Elliott.”