Sanders spent much of his morning on the phone, then half an hour with Clarisse to go over things she would need to handle, or potentially notify him about, over his four-day weekend. Next was answering questions about trades that he could hardly understand, and making decisions that hardly made sense. This was not right. With the scale of investments he managed, it was dangerous for him to work distracted.
Though he often skipped lunch on office days—relying on Francesca for breakfast and dinner and not bothering about in between when there was work to be done—today, Sanders pretended he was taking a lunch break.
He sat at his glass-topped desk, fingers steepled, and gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows into sunny Geneva below.
It wasn’t ghosts clogging his mind and making him hesitate to give intelligent answers to perfectly normal managerial and market questions today. If they were there, Sue would sort them out. And, if they were not, they hardly seemed worth feeling concerned over.
So it was Sue? Sue being there? No. He didn’t care if she was there. He didn’t mind how long she stayed. She was no bother to him. If others came out at the weekend that was fine too. It was no more work for him now to have people over than it ever had been in London.
Not so much staff these days. Without the city environment and with Tom home, Sanders had found there was no need to keep a live-in butler. Ms Jindal had overseen the move, helped them get settled, and trained a new man for Sanders earlier in the summer. Then she’d moved back to London to stay near family. Mr Rossi lived in the city and they rarely saw him. He was simply on call for special events, such as business meetings Sanders may host, but, like a driver and doctor no longer being necessities, Sanders was finding he seldom did call upon Mr Rossi.
Similarly, the house cleaners came once a week and that meant no special arrangements had to be made for just one or two overnight guests. Inform Francesca there would be more to feed, making sure he had a day or two off to be polite—that was it.
His new PA, Clarisse, unlike Robin, assisted exclusively in work and office affairs. She had never even been out to the manor.
Everything was so much simpler here, and with his own work shifted into more supervision and oversight than before, neither ghosts nor guests should have been throwing him off his game today. He didn’t waste much time worrying over either.
What he did keep thinking about was Tom last night, silent and miserable after Sue had mentioned his dead brother. Plus Tom distressed about the strange things going on in the house. And Tom last weekend, not even having been thinking of the Chicago conference being any special milestone or moment for them. Unless he had been playing dumb precisely to throw Sanders off the trail, which didn’t seem like Tom.
If Tom wanted to ask Sanders, he would.
Of course, Tom had many other things to fret about just now—something Sanders had learned he was skilled at doing. It wasn’t so much right now. This had been churning around in his mind for a couple of months. The right now part was just all inclusive of the slow build. From anticipation to impatience to confusion to now ...
Sanders was going to have to say something. Tomorrow was another date night. A nice dinner, a place for them to talk. Hopefully Tom would feel better after Sue had a chance today and tomorrow to poke around the house and let them know if she was able to ... whatever it was she did.
Yes, time to say something himself, not just turn it over in his own mind all day. And why not? It didn’t matter who asked. Sanders had assumed Tom, who could be a bit insecure, would want to ask. The masculine thing to do, right? If he didn’t, Sanders would just—
But there it was again... If Tom did not want to ask.
Because there couldn’t be any other reason Tom hadn’t proposed on their first date night. It wasn’t like they were unsure about their relationship. It wasn’t like they didn’t know this was it. After all they’d been through, they knew. Or so Sanders had thought. Which was all part of what had led him to thinking he knew Tom. Knew that Tom was the kind just to ask. Not make a big production of it. Not drag it out for months and save it up for a special occasion. If he wanted something, he said so.
And he hadn’t said so.
Now Tom was upset about ghosts and a stranger saying that Danny’s death wasn’t his fault—what had that been about? Tom had never even mentioned his dead brother to Sanders more than in passing. What had happened? Was Tom carrying that accident from many years ago?
More pieces: Tom had not told Sanders that the house bothered him. Yet apparently it had for some time. Tom hadn’t remembered or been thinking about their meeting anniversary being at the Chicago conference. He hadn’t bothered to discuss old wounds or traumas from this lifetime like his brother’s death.
He seemed so open, easily bringing stuff up. They talked about their work and their families, the nightmares they both still had, their preferences in everything from exercise to food to sex. Lately, they’d been talking more about travel. Tom loved to travel but had done little of it due to financial limitations and demanding jobs as a young man. Sanders longed to travel more after having been physically restricted for his whole life until this past winter. With the conference coming up and them still settling into their new place, they had no immediate plans, but soon. Something they both looked forward to.
So it seemed, and Sanders had believed, they spoke freely and communicated well these days. “These days” because good and open communication had not been a strongpoint of their early experiences together. Now they were on the same page, both in sync.
Besides Tom keeping it from Sanders that he didn’t like the house and didn’t want to talk about the really important things that bothered him. And did not want to get married.
For all things a reason. But what? How could Sanders have been ignorant enough to think all spring and summer that things were blissfully perfect between them when Tom was so unhappy? How could Sanders be that off when he always felt instinctive and natural with this man? How could he have been so wrong?
Was he, Sanders, doing something wrong? He understood better these days that admitting one’s own shortcomings were all part of a good relationship. Just last Friday, he had made a mistake, double-booking the evening. It had been no small thing to cancel that conference call. There were other people involved in different time zones, needing timely information and discussion. But he had cancelled because he was the one who had made a mistake. Tom and their relationship came first.
So what was his mistake here? If it was him ... how? What was he doing that kept Tom from wanting to make an actual legal commitment to him?
Strangely, he thought of calling Evan. He never called Evan these days. They kept very loosely in touch by email. Evan was apparently founding a nonprofit and buying property for it with the money Sanders had left him, but it was hardly as if they kept up with one another’s lives. He couldn’t just suddenly ring Evan to ask why Tom wasn’t proposing. Like a child asking his father why the other boys wouldn’t play with him.
And he had no one else. The only person in his life who came to mind to ask for relationship and emotional or psychological advice was Evan. Or Tom.
By the end of his lunch break Sanders had to drag himself back to the world of other people looking to him to make smart choices. Yet, far from sorting anything out in his head, he felt more distracted and more confused than before.
* * *
Thursday night dinner with his team remained as difficult to focus on as his work had been all day. He wished it was Friday date night with Tom instead. Or a solitary meal. Or that he could skip it and just go to bed.
He arrived home shortly before dusk to find Tom and Sue, accompanied by London, in what Sanders thought of as the back living room. With the open floor plan around the enormous central fireplace, many rooms overlapped or served dual purposes. While the living room was off to the left, past the kitchen and opening with two sets of French doors to patio, pool, and fire pit, it also wrapped around the back of the house with breathtaking picture windows to capture the Alps beyond.
Here, on the far side of the hearth, Sue had set out her apparent wares for conversing with ghosts. One glance explained why she could not have flown here, and Sanders was a bit surprised about the trains as well.
She had a little structure made of wood, upon and beside which she had placed candles, incense, a chalice, herbs, carved stones, a silver knife, and more. She also had instruments lying out in their travel cases, a polished stick of wood, a book of matches, and a plate of nuts and fresh fruit beside a glass of water.
Sanders only said hello to them—Sue drumming her fingers on a reverie harp case as if trying to decide if she wanted it out or not, and Tom sitting on an end chair while London played with a feather toy he held absently, then he started upstairs to change. Sue stopped him before he could get out of sight around the mantel.
“Sanders? I know you’ve been working all day, but it would help if you could be down here tonight. You’re both connected to whatever is going on here.”
He did not ask how or why, but said he would be back. There was something different about Sue since yesterday and this morning. Following her afternoon out sightseeing with Tom, she seemed more serious, more reserved, maybe even put out about something. Perhaps, though, the somber air was all part of her ritual.
He took as long as he could changing from the charcoal suit and tie into a soft chambray shirt and worn khakis that he didn’t mind London climbing on. He washed his hands and face, brushed his teeth, then puttered around the bedroom putting his watch away and hanging up his suit. He glanced longingly at the books on his bedside table before admitting defeat and descending back downstairs.
It turned out, his presence didn’t seem all that important. Sanders took a chair by Tom while Sue stood before whatever it was she had built.
Tone serious and frowning slightly as if she was trying to figure something out, she asked them if they were both certain they wanted her to request that the spirits leave the house.
The question baffled Sanders. “Why would we want them to remain?”
“To talk with them, invite a dialogue and understand what’s going on here.”
Sanders shook his head. “That’s really up to—”
“We don’t want our house haunted,” Tom said.
“No,” Sanders said. “I’ll second that. So yes, if you can remove it, that’s probably best.” He didn’t want to have to talk about this. It didn’t make sense, wasn’t rational, wasn’t possible. And here he was anyway, having to discuss ghosts in his house.
London marched over from mauling a feather below Tom’s chair to Sanders. She bashed her little body against his shins and rubbed across them, then turned and pressed her offside in as well.
Even as Sanders bent forwards to rub London’s head, he couldn’t miss the disappointed look on Sue’s face. She had left her harp in its bag. A very long flute case also remained unopened. She hadn’t wanted Sanders to agree, obviously. But what was he supposed to do? He hadn’t been with her and Tom all day. Tom felt strongly about a quick dismissal and Sanders was too tired and distracted to care what she did as long as she didn’t set anything on fire with all those candles now burning on the hearth.
If that was all she was doing, clearing the place out, why did she need them? And what was she clearing? Sue didn’t seem to be in contact with anything like she had at breakfast. The cat wasn’t even upset.
London purred like a Ferrari as she leaned into the petting, smiling with her eyes shut against his hand. Before having a cat, Sanders had had no idea they did such things. He thought the grinning Cheshire Cat was purely a creature of Lewis Carroll. But, no, Tom had been so fascinated by her appearance he’d done research—his forte—and discovered that the facial muscles of cats were closer in structure to that of human beings than any other animal, including other primates.
The eight-month-old kitten now striding to Tom for more attention did indeed express joy, contentment, fear, and hostility with a complex array of facial expressions that still surprised Sanders.
It also made checking to see if she thought a ghost was in the room easy. If London wasn’t disturbed, maybe Sue would conclude there wasn’t much happening just now and they weren’t needed after all.
Sue, however, wasn’t watching the cat. She was ... Sanders decided not to dwell on what she was doing. He thought of memos he needed to send to the office in his absence tomorrow as she talked to the hearth. He thought about environmentally responsible vehicles as she moved around the room, murmuring something, as if the lyrics of a song. Then about renewable energies and global rare earth supply in general when Sue returned to her setup. His thoughts had moved on to helping Tom improve his French, and polish his own at the same time, which led him to thinking about Tom and wondering what he, Sanders, was doing wrong in the relationship, when Sue turned to face them.
“You can help with your mindsets and your intentions,” Sue said. “We’re opening the door into the light and sending this spirit peacefully on its way to rest.”
Sanders and Tom just looked at her. London was trying to climb from the arm of Tom’s chair onto his shoulder in an effort to rub her head on his face. To prevent her clawed climb, Tom lifted her to his shoulders against the back of the chair. Sanders had never seen such a people-orientated cat. All that feline independence stuff was turning out to be rubbish.
“Does that make sense?” Sue probed in answer to the blank silence.
“Um,” Tom said.
London slipped, then clambered onto the back of the chair.
“Have you ever done creative visualization?” Sue asked.
“You just want us to picture that image? Of the open door?”
“With some intent and goodwill behind it. You have to mean it. Not just, ‘Here’s a door.’”
Tom nodded. “Okay, I can do that.”
Sanders had been thinking how much he wished he and Tom were alone right now to talk about an array of issues when he noticed both of them were looking at him.
“Yes, of course,” Sanders said. “We’ll do whatever we can.”
Come to think of it, what did he even want to say to Tom? Veux-tu m’épouser?
His reply seemed to have been satisfactory. Sue sat cross-legged on the floor, facing the hearth, and talked about the door they were opening, the passage away from here, the freedom to move forwards and beyond this physical place.
Sanders wished he had that freedom as he watched her, but was distracted by Tom jumping in his chair. London had just leapt over Tom’s shoulder to land in his lap. This was only a springboard, however. From up on the chair, she must have seen the candle shadows because she was making a dash for them, eyes gleaming like she’d spotted a mouse.
Tom followed and grabbed her before she got her paw into a candle flame. He muttered an apology as he sat back down with his pet in his lap, though Sue did not seem troubled. Not about London, Sanders thought. She certainly seemed troubled about something though. What had he missed? Tom had been at the manor and in the city with her all day. He’d seemed so taken with her the evening before, Sanders could not imagine Tom had now done something to offend her.
She went on talking about the path being clear, nothing to cling to, nothing holding anyone back.
London perched on Tom’s knees, looking around them, ears pricked ahead, eyes wide, no longer purring.
While Tom watched Sue, only holding onto the cat, but paying her no heed, Sanders watched London as her expression gradually changed. From the smile to the fixed prey focus on the candle shadow, now she was watching something around them that was not shadows, not people, not anything but open air. Yet watching with a stark interest as if a flock of birds was gathering in the living room.
When she quit leaning forwards and instead crouched back against Tom, Sanders felt his own muscles tense. Now Tom noticed as well. He removed his hands from her lest she struggle to get away, but she only stared and stiffened. Fur stood up on her back. Her pupils dilated to giant full moons. Her jaw tightened and her ears slid back.
Glancing at Sue, Tom opened his mouth, but she was still speaking in almost a chant about the clear space and openness, freedom and light.
Tom glanced at Sanders.
Before Sanders could decide if they should mention the cat to Sue, she concluded in a forceful voice. “Go now. Clear this place and leave this home to the living.”
Hardly had she spoken the last word when London exploded in apparent terror off Tom’s lap, streaking for the stairs like there were firecrackers on her tail.