Page 66 of Paper Ghosts

“Am I happy?” she asked out loud.

“Tash?” She turned to see Gary standing in the doorway of the laundry room, looking sleepy and warm. “Why are you doing laundry at this time of night?”

“Um, there were wet towels. I didn’t want them to sour,” she said helplessly.

“Do we need to talk, Tash?” he asked seriously.

She nodded.

“Just say it. I can take it.”

She couldn’t look at him, at all she could be losing, so she took his hands in hers and stared at them. “I’m pregnant. I don’t know how it happened. I mean, obviously I know how it happened. But I want it, Gary. If you’re not okay with that, I understand. But there’s no going back for me.”

Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. “Not okay with it? How could you say that? Tasha, look at me.”

She finally did.

He had the most incredible smile on his face. “That,” he said, “is the best news I’ve ever had in my entire life.”

“It is?”

“Yes.” He laughed and embraced her. “I’m not getting any younger, you know,” he whispered into her hair.

Tasha clung to him. Her life had been a series of panic and worry, so she had never known what relief smelled like. She discovered in that moment that it actually had no scent at all.

Which was the whole point.

Bailey walked down the foyer hallway, her wet shoes squishing. She stood outside Mim’s bedroom door for a long time.

She finally knocked. “Mim, open up.”

There was no reply. She was reaching for the doorknob when it opened and there was Mim. She was so pale and ethereal that Bailey could almost see through her.

“You figured it out,” she said, as if with admiration.

Bailey nodded.

Eight years ago

Willamena sat up in bed. She thought she’d heard something outside, voices.

“What’s going on?” she asked Jack.

“Someone yelled Citizen’s arrest. Is that a real thing?” he said. “I thought it was only in movies.”

She put her head back on the pillow. Still, there was this feeling. She couldn’t shake it. She finally reached for her bottle of sleeping pills. They would rid her of this portentous feeling.

That’s when there was a knock.

She waited several seconds.

Another knock.

She got up and quickly put on her robe. She started down the hallway, not realizing until she was in the foyer that she was still holding the pill bottle. She pocketed it and opened the door to find Clutch Vallow on her doorstep, completely soaked.

She didn’t react. She’d learned that from her grandmother. If she remained calm in any confrontation, the true feelings of others eventually rose to the surface. She only had to wait with a perspicacious look, and the other person eventually broke.

He tried to wait her out. He, too, was used to being in control. He finally said, “Willamena Wester, answering her own door? Can’t afford the help? Fallen on hard times?” He pushed the door open and limped past her into the foyer. He was carrying some sort of car part.