Page 61 of Paper Ghosts

“I worded that very, very poorly. I’m sorry. You’ve always been special, Bailey. Always. What I meant was, despite the heaviness that came with being a member of this family, there was nothing wrong with you.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Bailey said wryly. “But thank you.”

She needed to stop all this Clutch talk before Bailey asked any more questions, so Willamena set her cup aside and grabbed her umbrella. She limped over to the shelves, where she shook out the Polaroid from her Andy Smooth album. She handed it to Bailey before she sat again. “That photo you found was taken at my senior prom. Tug’s father was my date, but Jack was there to play. I’ll never forget that night. He sang ‘Time in a Bottle.’”

Out in the hallway, Jack put his hands behind his neck and sighed in a hedonistic way. “Man, that was a great song.”

“If you start humming it, I won’t be able to do this.”

“I couldn’t hum it if I tried,” Bailey said, staring at the photo. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.”

“She knows who Andy Smooth is, but not Jim Croce,” Jack said. “Oh, the humanity.”

Willamena focused on Bailey. “Jack was an accomplished guitar player, but his voice was going to be his ticket to something big. Everyone who heard him that night knew it. But he never got the chance before he disappeared. In fact, I believe that’s the only photo that proves he ever existed. It was taken on May 15, 1976, moments after our first kiss. I obviously didn’t know we were seen. Jani had followed me outside and taken it, then she mailed it to my grandmother because she didn’t like the hold our family had on the town, and this was her way of getting even. It’s taken me a lifetime to realize she wasn’t an inherently bad person. She was a teenager, just like I was. Our emotions weren’t regulated and we did careless things. But because of that photo, my grandmother invited Jack here and confronted him about our secret relationship. She offered him a check to leave town and to never come back. And he took it.”

Bailey had been completely engrossed in the story until that point, and Willamena saw the moment that she lost her. “He took it? That’s your great love story? But I was beginning to think I could…” She paused. “Never mind.”

Willamena looked to Jack for guidance.

“I’m not sure, but she’s mentioned the grandson of the owner of an ice cream shop? She was with him yesterday.”

“Ah,” Willamena said. “That’s not the end to this love story, Bailey. There is no end. Yes, I was crushed at the time that he thought so little of our relationship that he would cheapen it like that. I thought he was just like everyone else, after all. Instead of seeing me as something more than I was, all he saw was my grandmother’s money. But that rainy night he snuck into the house, into my bedroom, and he told me he took the money so we could leave together. That’s when he asked me to run away with him. My grandmother only saw me as her legacy. My friends weren’t who I thought they were. I was going to marry a man I didn’t love. I’d never seen the world beyond a television screen. I was scared to go with him, because I had always been ruled by fear. But my life was hopeless without Jack. He was my destiny, and I was his. So I packed a bag and we left my room. We only got as far as the staircase. My grandmother heard us, and ordered Jack to leave. I was holding his wet umbrella, and she tried to take it from me. We struggled, but she was angry and drunk, so she lost her balance and fell into Jack, which sent him falling down the stairs.”

“Mim?” Bailey said slowly. “You said he disappeared. You didn’t mean he died, did you?”

“Yes, I did. And my grandmother covered it up.”

“She covered it up?” Bailey repeated. “How?”

Willamena shook her head. She wasn’t going that far. “I was hysterical that night, and she sedated me. When I woke, Jack, his possessions, and the car he stole that was sitting outside waiting for us were all gone.”

Bailey was quiet for a while, working through it. Finally, she crossed her hands in her lap and said gently, “I don’t want to diminish what was obviously a traumatic experience, but if you don’t know exactly what happened to him, how do you know he’s dead? He could have been all right, and he just took your grandmother’s money, after all.”

Willamena couldn’t point to him and prove it without consigning Bailey to a lifetime of knowing she could see ghosts. And she would accept being misunderstood forever, if it meant sparing Bailey that. “I know because he never would have left this behind.” She set the umbrella on her lap. “It meant more to him than anything.”

“Not more than anything, Wills,” Jack said. “Not more than you.”

“The cover had been off the foyer register that night, and the umbrella slid in after he fell. I left it there, terrified my grandmother would find it, the last thing that belonged to him. But even after she died, I couldn’t bring myself to take it out. It became my rule to keep it there.”

“So you’ve been living with this guilt all your life? Mim, it wasn’t your fault.”

Willamena smiled. “I wish I could believe that. I could have taken what Jack taught me, what he showed me, and lived a different life. But I didn’t. I’ve held on to him here, the last place he was alive, even though I know he didn’t want me to. What I’m trying to tell you, the whole purpose of this long-overdue story, is please don’t let your past define you like it defined me. Experience the moments, even the bad ones, then leave them behind. And most importantly, when you find happiness, don’t hesitate. Run with it.”

Bailey stared at the photo. She finally sighed and said, “I love you, Mim.”

Willamena tilted her head curiously. “But you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you told me for me. And that’s enough.”

“I love you, too. Although that’s probably hard for you to believe, as well.”

Bailey got up and kissed her on the cheek. She extended the Polaroid, but Willamena shook her head.

“My grandmother used to call photographs paper ghosts, the only ghosts everyone can see,” she said. “Keep that to remind you to focus on what’s real.”

Bailey nodded and walked away. She passed Jack in the foyer, and he looked at her fondly. He reached out as if to touch Bailey’s arm and Bailey stopped suddenly and turned. When she didn’t see anyone, she looked back into the sunroom at Willamena. Willamena only smiled. The veil was thinning between her two worlds.

As soon as Bailey was gone, Jack extended his hand to her. “Come with me, Wills,” he said, his exact words from that long-ago night. It had such a lovely symmetry. The beginning, the end.