After dinner, Drew presents the boys with a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee, the perfect alternative to their usual summer night activity: roasting marshmallows around the firepit.
‘Cool! Can we play with it right now?’ Max asks.
‘Yep.’
‘But it doesn’t turn on!’
‘It just needs batteries,’ Drew tells Jiffy.
‘I hope you’ve got some, Bella, ’cause my mom never does.’
‘I’ve got them right here, guys.’ Drew pats his pocket.
A minute later, the boys are tossing the glowing fluorescent green disk back and forth on the lawn as Bella and Drew settle into the Adirondack chairs.
‘Thank you,’ Bella says. ‘I don’t know how you always manage to know exactly what to do when you’ve never even had kids.’
‘I was one, remember? You don’t forget what it’s like.’
‘That’s what …’ She trails off.
‘What Sam used to say?’
‘How’d you know?’
‘Lucky guess?’ He reaches over and gives her arm a pat. ‘You don’t have to erase him when I’m around, Bella.’
She smiles in the dark. ‘Thank you.’
‘No! Jelly!’ Max shouts as the dog intercepts a toss and darts away with the disk in his mouth. ‘Get him, Jiffy!’
‘No, he’s going that way! Grab him.’
‘They’re going to sleep well tonight,’ Drew comments as the boys tackle Jelly.
‘Let’s hope so.’ She yawns.
‘You’re tired tonight.’
‘I’m tired every night.’
‘Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll take care of these two.’
‘What? No, I can’t let you do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because …’ She laughs. ‘My brain is too tired to think of a good reason.’
‘Max! Why didn’t you catch it?’ Jiffy yells.
‘Because you didn’t throw it to me!’
Bella spots the luminescent disk floating out in the lake. Uh-oh.
‘Now I have to swim way out there and get it!’
‘No swimming!’ Drew warns Jiffy, on his feet and hurrying over to the boys.
‘But what about the Frisbee?’ Max wails. ‘It’s going to float all the way to Chicago!’
‘It’s OK,’ Drew assures him. ‘I’ll get you another one.’
‘By the way, that’s not Chicago.’ Jiffy points to the hills and homes on the opposite shore. ‘It’s just Glasgow Road.’
‘Uh-uh. My mom and I flew over the lake to Chicago. I saw the water from the airplane window.’
Chicago. Airplane. Sam.
‘We did fly over the lake, Max,’ Bella says, hoisting herself to her feet, ‘but it was Lake Erie.’
Jiffy taps her arm. ‘By the way, Bella? Chicago is on Lake Michigan.’
‘Nope! Chicago is in Illinois, not Michigan. Right, Mom?’
‘Right, Max,’ she says around a yawn. ‘Come on, guys, it’s bedtime.’
‘Yours?’ Jiffy asks.
‘Everyone’s.’
‘Not mine. Good night, Max,’ he says. ‘I forgive you for throwing the Frisbee into the lake.’
‘Come on, Jiffy.’ Drew puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll walk you and Jelly home.’
‘But—’
‘Good night, Jiffy!’ Max says.
Jiffy waves. ‘I’ll be back bright and early in the morning.’
‘And I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ Drew tells Bella.
Upstairs, she helps Max get ready for bed, tucks him in beneath just a sheet, with Chance and Spidey curled up at his side, and reads aloud from the quickest book on his shelf.
‘Can I have another story, please?’
‘Not tonight, sweetie. It’s late. Sweet dreams.’
As she walks to the door, he says something around an enormous yawn.
She turns back. ‘What was that, Max?’
‘I want to dream about Daddy again.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I dreamed about him last night.’
‘You did? What did you dream?’
‘He was here.’ He yawns again. ‘Not in the golden car. But that wasn’t a dream because it was real.’
‘Did he say anything about Kevin Bacon?’
‘Huh?’
‘Never mind.’ She slips out the door, shaking her head.
‘Mom?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can I have some bacon for breakfast?’
She smiles. ‘We’ll see. Goodnight, Max.’
If Drew weren’t here, she’d go directly to bed herself. It’s been a long day, and there’s a lot to think about. Or forget about if she manages to fall asleep. Or even talk about, if by chance Odelia’s home and, ideally, Luther is there. He still hasn’t returned her call about Misty’s robbery, which is unusual.
Back downstairs, she parts the curtains in the front parlor and peers out at the cottage next door, hoping to see his SUV parked out front. It is not.
Odelia had left the window shades open, having departed before dark. When she returns, Bella knows, she’ll pull them down, same as always.
In the mudroom, the puppies are demanding to be let out, right on schedule. She heads outside with them and settles on the steps to wait for Drew. She’d turned off the overhead light that attracts insects, the better for her to see the fireflies flitting about the yard and the lake, reflecting a moonlit sky sequined with stars.
The air remains warm and sticky, but it’s a little more bearable now that night has fallen. Crickets whir in the tall grasses where the water laps the shore.
The foxhound settles at her feet, dropping something from his paws and then resting his nose on it.
‘Hey, fella, what do you have there?’
He lifts his head to look at her, and she sees that it’s a T-shirt she’d worn on her trip, straight from the basket of laundry she has yet to get to.
She laughs. ‘At least it isn’t anything unmentionable.’
She pets his head, and he rests it against her bare leg, almost as if he’s protecting Bella as much as he is the puppies.
Struck by the disquieting thought that Drew should have been long back by now, she can’t help but worry that something might have happened to him, even along the short distance between Valley View and Misty’s cottage.
Like what? This is Lily Dale, not the inner city, where she’d grown up. No speeding traffic or open manholes or street gangs around here.
Still, there have been a couple of murders – and now, perhaps, a break-in and theft.
Right. Misty is probably telling him all about it, or trying to convince him to try a homemade snow cone. Or maybe Jiffy persuaded Drew to tuck him in and read him a bedtime story.
That little boy really misses his dad. For his sake – for everyone’s sake – she hopes Misty and Mike can work out their differences and figure out how to become a cohesive family, whether that’s here or in Pennsylvania. She hates to think about Max suffering yet another difficult loss if his best friend moves away, and she herself will miss both Jiffy and Misty. But they’re truly fortunate because Mike can come back to them, while Sam …
‘Was that you?’ she whispers, closing her eyes and picturing the face behind the windshield at O’Hare.
The only response is a nightbird’s call from high in the gingko tree. Earlier, Drew had told her that it’s a mockingbird searching for its mate.
I get it, Bella silently tells the bird.
Behind her, the door squeaks open, and she turns to see Drew.
‘Oh, good, you’re back! I was starting to get worried that …’ She trails off, suddenly feeling silly for even considering that Drew might not safely return. ‘ … that Misty was talking your ear off,’ she says, and he chuckles.
‘She tried, but I’ve grown pretty adept at extracting myself.’ He sits beside Bella and hands her a white paper bag.
‘What’s this?’
‘I took the long way back, past the ice-cream place. There was a line out the door.’
‘I’ll bet.’ Opening the bag, she finds a pint of bittersweet chocolate gelato and two spoons. ‘Oh! My favorite!’
‘Yes, and it’s already halfway to soup, so we’d better dig in.’
She opens the lid, helps herself to a decadent spoonful, and passes the carton to Drew.
The big dog turns to look up.
‘Aw, I think he wants some.’
‘He can’t have any. Chocolate is toxic for him.’
Bella reaches down to pat the dog’s head. ‘Well, I think you deserve some other kind of treat, don’t you, big guy?’
‘I’ll take whatever you’re offering, little lady,’ Drew says in an exaggerated, suggestive drawl.
Bella laughs. ‘I hate to break it to you, but he’s big guy. Until Max gives him a name, anyway.’
‘Maybe we should come up with one for him.’
‘Maybe we should.’ She pauses, leaning in to fill her spoon from the carton Drew holds out to her. ‘What’s a good dog name?’
‘Jack? Buddy? Scout?’
‘No, it should be something that captures how sweet he is.’
‘Gelato?’
She laughs. ‘That would make him Jelly for short, and I don’t think there’s room in the Dale for two of them.’
‘True, but he’s not staying in the Dale permanently … or is he?’
‘He is not,’ she says firmly. ‘Hey, Drew? When you dropped Jiffy off, did Misty say anything about … anything?’
‘She said he could go upstairs to his room and play with his Playbox until bedtime.’
‘Wow – so he actually has a bedtime?’
‘Probably midnight.’ He takes another spoonful and hands the gelato back to Bella.
‘So she didn’t mention the robbery?’
‘Robbery! What robbery?’
‘She didn’t tell you about a robbery?’
‘She was up on a ladder painting the kitchen ceiling when I got there.’
‘You mean cleaning it?’
‘Painting it, using a long-handled roller. She’s painting it blue – like the sky, she said, and she’s going to paint a big yellow sun up there, too. She tried to recruit me to help, but I said I had to get back to you. What’s this about a robbery?’
Between spoonsful of gelato, Bella explains what happened at the Ardens’, and that there was also a recent break-in at the Slayton house.
‘Misty told you about that?’
‘Pandora did.’ She feels her face grow hot and is glad he can’t see her in the dark. Not that she’d ever tell him what Pandora had said about the two of them.
‘So you think Jiffy staged the break-in at his house after he heard about the Slaytons?’
‘I do. But Misty says he denied it and that she believes him.’
‘She must. If she really thinks she was robbed, then she should have called the police, instead of counting on you to tell Luther.’
‘But she’s Misty. You know how she is.’
‘And you’re Bella. I know how you are, taking care of everyone’s needs before your own. Anyway, Luther’s not even available tonight.’
‘He’s not? I was wondering why he hasn’t called me back yet. It’s not like him.’
‘He’s on security detail for that writer who’s visiting Chautauqua.’
‘The one who gets the death threats? Isn’t that dangerous?’
‘It is, but all things considered, Luther’s been in worse situations over the years. For that matter, so have you.’
Bella puts the now-empty carton back into the bag and leans back with a satiated sigh. ‘Thanks for the gelato, Drew.’
‘I thought you deserved it, after a day like this.’
Ah, you don’t know the half of it.
After a moment of silence, he says, ‘Bella? I heard what happened with Sam.’
Her jaw drops.
For one thing, it’s as if he just read her mind. For another, she’s not accustomed to her late husband’s name on Drew’s lips.
‘What, uh … what did you hear?’
‘That you and Max think you saw him yesterday at the airport.’
‘Max told you?’
‘Jiffy did.’
Ah, Jiffy. Of course Max would have shared the experience with him. And of course, Jiffy will now be sharing it with … everyone.
Bella reminds herself that it isn’t exactly an invasion of privacy, and the boys have done nothing wrong. It’s just that in a town this size … in a town like this, those who see her as the newcomer who doesn’t subscribe to spiritualism might assume she’s changed her mind.
Why does that matter?
Unable to answer her own question, she poses one to Drew. ‘What did Jiffy tell you?’
‘That Sam was following you and Max around Chicago in a golden chariot.’
Bella can’t help but laugh. ‘More like a beat-up Subaru, and he wasn’t following us around.’ Her smile fades. ‘And, I mean, it wasn’t really Sam.’
Drew says nothing to that.
‘Drew? You know it wasn’t Sam, right?’
‘I wasn’t there, so …’ He shrugs. ‘All I know is what Jiffy told me. Though I have to admit, I did think the golden chariot was a little far-fetched.’
‘But not the rest of it?’
‘This is Lily Dale.’
‘It happened in Chicago. It happened to me.’
‘And Max.’
‘And Max,’ she agrees, ‘but we’re not part of this Lily Dale stuff, and neither are you.’
Drew is a fellow outsider. Yet he’s lived in the area all his life and is long accustomed to people claiming that they’ve seen Spirit.
Is that what she’s doing?
‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’ Drew asks.
She does, in as matter-of-fact a tone as she can muster, neglecting to mention the profound longing she’d felt for Sam throughout a weekend spent in his hometown, and the tumult of emotions she’d experienced when she’d glimpsed his familiar face.
‘Maybe it was just a stranger who looked like Sam,’ Drew says.
‘I thought that – I want to think that …’
‘But?’
She voices the detail that’s been weighing on her; the fact that won’t allow her to believe he’d been a stranger.
‘But I didn’t just see him. He saw me. Us. He was staring at us. A stranger wouldn’t do that, right? A stranger would be oblivious, wouldn’t he?’
‘Maybe not, if he caught someone gaping at him.’
‘True, but … it wasn’t like that. He didn’t just look like Sam … you know, the way a person can look like someone else at first glance, but then when you look closer, you see the differences?’
Drew nods.
She goes on, ‘This was … when I got a better look, I saw that he had the same eyes, same hair with the same cowlick, just like Max.’
‘That’s pretty unique.’
‘Exactly. But how could it be Sam? There must be an explanation. Something that doesn’t involve the paranormal. Or my imagining him. Right?’
He seems to be weighing his words.
‘You’d just spent the weekend in Sam’s hometown, with his mother, at a milestone celebration. I’m sure you were wishing he’d been there, and you were probably missing him more than usual.’
He pauses, as if to allow her to chime in.
She doesn’t. Of course he’s correct, but admitting that to him might be hurtful.
Which is ridiculous, she reminds herself. Drew knows you loved your husband and grieves the loss.
‘All I’m saying, Bella, is that … well, maybe you saw what you wanted to see.’
‘I’d think that was the case, except Max saw him too. Actually, so did the security guard. We couldn’t have all hallucinated him at the exact same moment, right?’
He rubs his chin.
‘Drew? Do you think …’ She takes a deep breath. ‘You don’t think it might have been Sam’s ghost, do you?’
Unlike the mediums, he doesn’t correct her phrasing to ‘Spirit’. Nor does he brush off the suggestion of paranormal activity, as she herself so often has when the mediums chalk something up to Spirit.
But he says, ‘I don’t know.’
‘This wasn’t a filmy figure. It was a solid person. Definitely an alive person. A person who was driving a car! Ghosts can’t drive cars!’
Drew says nothing.
‘Wait … you think they can? Ghosts can drive?’
‘It’s not that. It’s … I don’t know,’ he says again.
‘Drew, you don’t really believe people can see dead people? You have a science background, like I do. You don’t buy into this stuff.’
‘For the most part, I don’t.’
‘But …?’
‘But I work with animals, and I’ve seen them do some extraordinary things. As far as I’m concerned, they have instincts that are on par with psychic perception.’
She thinks of Chance, rooted in a highway last summer, leading her and Max to Lily Dale.
And of Chance, perched in the second-floor window last night, looking out over the Dale as the wind chimes stirred without a breeze.
‘I can’t argue with that,’ she says. ‘Chance got us here. And whenever I try to convince myself that it was random, I think of my necklace.’
‘What necklace?’
She tells him about the tourmaline pendant she’d found at Valley View. ‘If Sam didn’t leave it here, how did it get here? And there’s something else …’
Something Max doesn’t know, so Jiffy couldn’t have told anyone about it. Something she hadn’t intended to tell Drew. But, oddly, it feels right to be discussing these things with him. He’s the one person in the world – other than Luther, perhaps – whose insight she values, when it comes to this sort of thing.
‘Odelia said she had a visit from Sam last night. And she said he had a message for me.’
‘What was it?’
She hesitates. It seems too intimate now – that he’d expressed his love for her, and told her that he misses her, that he’s proud of her for building a new life without him …
If all of that is true, and if she were to believe that Sam really had said those things, then she’d have to accept that he sees her life as it is now. All of it – including the part that involves Drew Bailey.
Suddenly aware of how close they’re sitting, her left side up against his right, she fights the urge to move away, to put some distance between them. It’s been months since she’d come to terms with her feelings for Drew, finally convinced that she shouldn’t carry guilt for moving on.
But right now, here in the moonlight with another man, it strikes her as a betrayal to reveal her husband’s words – even if Bella isn’t entirely convinced they’d actually come from Sam.
‘The message itself really doesn’t matter,’ she tells Drew. ‘Some of it was vague and general, and there were parts that made no sense whatsoever. The main thing is the timing. She’s never brought him through before, so why now?’
‘Power of suggestion? Unless you didn’t tell her you’d seen Sam at the airport?’
‘No, and Max couldn’t have, either. I didn’t even tell you about it last night. So there’s no way she knew, and … you know, dreamed it, or whatever. I keep thinking …’ She sighs. ‘I don’t know what to think. What do you think?’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘But it does.’
‘You probably won’t like it.’
‘Try me.’
‘Ever hear of Occam’s razor?’
Surprised, she turns to him. ‘Of course. The simplest explanation is probably the correct one.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But … there is no simple explanation in this case.’
‘There is the way I see it.’
‘Which is …?’
Drew shrugs. ‘You – and Max and Odelia, too – saw Sam’s spirit.’
‘That’s simple?’
‘All things considered … I’d say so.’
She ponders that.
Lily Dale being Lily Dale … maybe he’s right.