Chapter Twenty-Two

After the fire, we stayed with the Levesque-Gergeses. Until it felt too much like imposing, we were comfortable there. Cole had to wear turtlenecks for a while to mask the bruises that bloomed on their neck following Ellis’s attack. Since it’s getting cooler, no one asked questions.

I slept on Cole’s floor, sometimes in their bed, and things were good. Quiet. We found an easy understanding of each other’s presences in the small space, Cole’s drawings multiplying and improving while my piles of books grew. We became used to each other’s sleeping patterns—Cole an early riser, me definitely not—and grew closer. Without Aggie’s house to drive a wedge between us and raise my temper, we’ve found ways to talk about hard things without hurting each other. Even better, we have more time to joke around and just be teens. It’s our last chance. Next year, we’ll both be eighteen. Where life will take us after high school is anyone’s guess.

Mum and Kelly grew closer too; they talked deep into the night about all their years apart. Mum and Jeff still see each other occasionally, but less and less frequently. He had a brief hospital stay after Ellis possessed him the night of the fire, but he’s recovered since and moved back to the city, closer to his work. Their entire relationship, I thought the end would be a bang, but here we are, at the end, and it’s more of a fizzle. Even me and Jeff reached a sort of peace. I didn’t feel so threatened by him after seeing him taken over by Ellis. I realized that even though he’s older than me, he still has a lot to learn. It’s up to him to decide if he wants to. He got his promotion. I don’t think he’ll ever change much, but I can leave him in the past knowing I made my peace with his flaws. If I see him in the future, the ball’s in his court.

Mum is planning on breaking things off for good next week. Finally, it did come out that he was planning on getting surveyors out on the land to see if there were resources that could be extracted from Aggie’s property, expansive as it was. Even with the house gone, Mum couldn’t bear to let him take advantage of the forest that way. Maybe on some level, she could understand that he was taking advantage of us too, to try and soothe his insecurities. We haven’t really talked about him cheating on her since I blurted it out in anger. Maybe we never will.

The Saturday before school starts, we go back to the market for blueberry pancakes and head down to the dock. We stick our feet in the water, like the first time we came here. It’s colder. After a few minutes, I can feel my blood starting to chill and rush up my legs. I pull my them out. Mum reveals a folded wad of paper from her pocket.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Open it up.”

It’s a land deed, I can see that from the first page, but I don’t recognize the address. “Where is this?”

“The insurance money for Aggie’s came in. I bought the farm back. For you. Well, for you when you come of age. For now, if your Nan and father want to live there, or spend their summers there, that’s up to them. Your father will need a place to go when he’s released.”

It’s instinct; I pull Mum into a tight hug. She wraps her arms around me tight too, and rocks me a bit, just like when I was a little kid. “We can fix it up. The structure’s not in bad shape. Aggie’s was grand, but your Nan’s old house is solid. It’s filthy inside from those parties kids have, but that’s easy enough to clean.”

“I can’t wait to tell Nan about this!” I splash my feet around in the water again. “How’d you find the house?” I hadn’t shown her or even mentioned where I went when I left her and Jeff after our blowout.

“Cole helped me.” Mum smiles mischievously. The two of them kept a secret from me—a beautiful secret I’m happy to receive. “They’re a good friend to you, Asha. They brought it up to me, actually. Then they showed me where the property was. Hidden in plain sight. I did the rest.”

Mum protects the papers by stuffing them back in her jacket. I never expected her generosity to extend to Dad and Nan. I never expected her to understand what I wanted or needed. But here we are.

“Asha,” she takes a steadying breath, “I know it’s hard for you to talk about, and you don’t have to say anything. I just need you to know that after everything, I’ll always be here for you, ok?”

I nod. I know she believes this. My throat tightens as I think about all the ways she hasn’t been here for me in recent years, because of her own baggage, because of circumstances beyond our control, because she doesn’t understand some things that I do, and one day, I won’t be able to talk to her anymore, even if I want to. Where I used to feel resentment is a big pool of grief.

“I think, sometimes, maybe you can’t be there for me.” Tears start dripping from my eyes. I don’t try to hold them in.

I expect Mum to disagree with me, to tell me she does understand, that everything’s going to be ok, because she’ll be there for me one hundred percent from now on. Instead, she pulls me close and lets me lay my head on her shoulder. She sniffs my scalp.

“I know I don’t always understand what you’re going through—I never will, probably, because we’re different.” Mum’s voice is tight too. “You know so much more about what you need than I did at your age. You don’t let people cross your boundaries. I wish I knew I had boundaries when I was your age.

“I try to help you. I try to know what you need. It was easier when you were a little kid—you’d just cry if something felt bad, smile if something felt good . . . Now it’s so hard when you won’t tell me what’s wrong.” She stops to wipe her eyes and nose. It’s my turn to pull her close in a hug. She feels small in my arms. I guess having a kid who’s almost grown is a kind of grief too.

“Sometimes I don’t know how to tell you. I’m scared of what you’ll say.” It’s honest and I can see it stings for her to hear. “I know you love me now, but what if one day you don’t because of something I do or say?”

She pulls away from me and makes me look her in the eye. “Asha, I promise I’ll always love you and I’ll always believe you when you say you’re hurting. That will never change, even if I get hurt sometimes too.”

It’s time for me to ask the question I’ve been holding back since our early days here. “Why couldn’t you see how much it was hurting me to be in that house?”

“I could see something was hurting you.” She admits. “But I thought I knew what you were feeling. When I moved in with Aggie, I hurt all the time. I was on edge, cranky, angry—like you. You know, I thought I used to see ghosts—” My heart jolts as Mum chuckles to herself. “—but it was just growing pains. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to go out in public again after my mum died. I thought people would be able to see how broken I was inside just by looking at me. But Aggie gave me time, and I got better. I made friends, I started going out too much, even. That grief never went away but there was space for it to reside in the house, space for it to reside in me, if that makes sense?”

I nod. “There was no space for me at Aggie’s.”

Mum takes a deep breath. “I know. I know that now. I hurt you, and Jeff hurt you and living in that house with its history hurt you, and I wasn’t listening. I’m sorry.” She places a hand over mine. “There were things I knew I should have shared with you. I just thought you’d never come with me if I told you. I thought I’d lose you if I told you your great grandfather worked at the house and was accused of Sabrina’s murder or told you the rumor about Aggie murdering Ellis . . . I was worried that if you knew how complicated our family’s history is in this town, how much of it is contrary to your identity and values, that you wouldn’t even want to stay with me for a short time. I convinced myself life would be easier the less I told you. We’d be able to start fresh. Now I know the only person I was protecting was myself.”

I let her words sink into me. Neither of us was able to start fresh. Even though that’s what we both wanted, I don’t think that’s what either of us needed. Now, sitting here, I feel like I’m finally getting to understand where Mum is coming from and she’s actually listening to me.

“I’m sorry too,” I tell her. “I’m sorry I made this move hard and living with Jeff hard. I was scared of losing you too.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I’m just grateful I still have you.” Mum holds me for a while. I breathe in her apple cider breath, the bacon smoke wafting down the path.

I’m still not ready to tell her the full story. I might never be. There are parts of it I told her, the photo I found of Sabrina in the wall, her and Aggie’s relationship. Other things, I kept to myself, like the possessions and the intentional fire. How me and Cole’s relationship has shifted to something more than friends, something less than together. For now. I honestly think Mum knows, but it feels good to have a part of my life that’s separate from her. And a few things remain a mystery to me. I never did learn if Aggie murdered Ellis.

Whatever happened, it’s over now and I’m ok with not knowing. I’ve let go of trying to understand everything. Like Nan said about her father, sometimes justice is fast, but most times it’s a slow and winding path.

When we’re ready, we head home. We’re staying in town now. Mum signed a lease for an apartment on Main Street. When she asked me if I wanted to move back to the city, I said no. I still want to give this new life with her a chance. I could tell she was happy to stay in this place too. She’s starting to make new friends in town, and she got a job organizing events for the county.

The place we moved into last week is much smaller, on the top floor of a pink Victorian house. I haven’t seen any ghosts yet, but maybe it’s just because I’m too zonked after school to wake up during the night. Sometimes I fall asleep in Mum’s bed next to her, just like when I was a kid. It feels good to fall asleep and wake up next to her.

The breakup was hard on her, but not as hard as the relationship was. We still fight sometimes, and this is by no means the fresh start Mum or I envisioned, but it is the continuation of the best parts of us into a new phase of life.

Nia’s back and planning on driving up to visit me in a couple weekends. It’ll be her first road trip alone. I’m excited for her and Cole to meet. She’s bringing pictures from her trip and sketches. Even better, stories. We’re going to spend all night talking, the same way we used to before this long, exhausting summer.

Mum took me to visit Dad. It was good to see him in person. I realized as soon as I saw him that even though he’s locked up, he still loves me just as much as he did when he was outside. I was able to stop worrying about whether he did the crime or not. It doesn’t matter. He’s still my dad and if he could, he’d show up for me when I needed him. If he did do it, he will have to repair the relationships with the people he hurt, and if he didn’t, those relationships will repair in time. The system is unjust. But the entire carceral state is harder to burn down than a single house . . . maybe my life’s work is haunting oppressive systems until they turn to ash for some better future to rise out of.

School here isn’t so different from the city. Same dramas, same conflicts, different cast. Cole and I share a few classes. Sometimes we jig and drive out to the ocean, walk along the red rocks and try to discern the Bay of Fundy’s horizon from the fog. Every so often, Devon will join us. We’re becoming a little friend group, opening to more people in the community, more sure of ourselves, and where our lives are headed.

After school, I get off the bus with Cole, and we walk in the woods. Sometimes our hands or lips reach for each other, other times we talk, or walk in silence. We’ve been making new paths and letting the old ones grow over.

It’s by accident today that we take one of our old paths. We end up at Sabrina’s grave. Neither of us knew how to get there. She chose a well-hidden spot to rest, and I don’t remember much from the darkness of the night I buried her. We don’t notice right away. We almost step over it before we feel our bodies jerk back and a familiar dizziness washes over us. I don’t know if it’s really her or a different kind of ghost, something closer to memory that affects us. It doesn’t matter. We stop and look down in silence at the red and gold leaves decorating the surface of the earth that contains her bones.

And then there’s a rustling. A rabbit emerges from the dead matter, soft, tiny, frightened. Both Cole and I kneel to watch it without threat until it calms, acclimates to our presence. We stay even after it calms. Its breathing slows, and it hops away. So, then, as is our new habit, we part ways at sunset, knowing we will see each other tomorrow and the day after that.