Chapter Ten

Ethan stared at the flowers, trying to figure out if they were peonies or pansies. The entirety of Aurora’s balcony was covered in window boxes and potted plants. Dirt spilled over the side of one orange pot, along with the vines of a spider plant. She was on the second floor of the apartment building like Ethan but had somehow managed to avoid any complaints from the downstairs neighbour about her plants and the constant spillage of dirt over the edge. Not to mention the cats, the birds, and any other creatures Aurora decided to keep for any number of weeks.

“Ah, you’re lucky,” she said.

“And why’s that?”

“It’s spring now and the flowers are blooming. So you can take the pansies if you want.”

Aurora lifted the red clay pot he’d been eyeing. The purple, yellow, and white petals fanned outward toward the sun hanging low in the sky. Another two hours and it would be time for dusk. Another two after that, and Ethan was going to have to figure out what job was more important: going over the border and fucking Jacob, or making sure some kind of plant got to his sister for his father’s funeral in the next two days.

He sighed. The answer should be easy. Most people knew the right one. But most people didn’t have to deal with a family who still had scattered information about his gender identity. He didn’t want to see his stepmother, who for all the issues she had with him transitioning, actually called him Ethan because Ethan was the only name she knew. Leslie, too, was also calling him Ethan. In the text messages they exchanged about the service, how their dad had died, and what the next step was, Ethan knew she was thinking of him as her brother and calling him Ethan to everyone else. She was most likely the only one in a sea of Cohles (and Abernathys) who was doing so, however; everyone else was far more likely to be too stubborn to change syllables and too obstinate to understand the pain those actions caused.

“Do pansies even belong at a funeral?”

“You belong at a funeral,” Aurora said. “But if you can’t go, it’s customary to send flowers. What sect is your family?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Lapsed Anglican, maybe. I think my sister said she was going with an Anglian service, or I learned it was Anglican when I googled the church. I can’t remember, and it’s not exactly like we went to church every Sunday, and we definitely never said prayers before dinners.”

Aurora made a small noise of comprehension. She set the potted plant back on her balcony. When the black cat, Trina, rubbed her face against Aurora’s legs, she stopped searching through plants to pet her.

“I know I should go.” Ethan shifted uncomfortably. “But it’s difficult.”

“Families are difficult.”

“I know. I know. All families are unhappy in their own way, I guess. But this is my difficult. It’s more—”

“I understand,” Aurora said. “Trust me. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

Ethan nodded, though the action was tinged with disappointment. He did want to tell Aurora everything and not walk around the object of himself anymore. Maybe there could be relief in explaining how going home meant seeing old photos of himself that weren’t himself. A graduation in a dress, sitting on Santa’s lap in kitten shoes, a girl who was familiar but so distant. A girl who had been real but now had no future. It was like being stalked by a ghost, a half ghost of himself. That’s why it’s called a dead name, he told one of his first girlfriends. That part of me is dead now. Now that death had truly invaded his life, though, he wasn’t so sure if he could be so callous anymore. He rubbed the spot on the back of his neck and checked his fingers, as if the blackness that marked him would come off with enough force.

While Ethan pined, Aurora chatted about the different funeral services she’d performed, especially those from her connections at the circus. She’d once carried out seven different services in one month since the entire family had a crippling disease that wiped them out all next to one another.

“That was how I became an expert at eulogies. I had to learn seven different ways of explaining grief,” she said. “I couldn’t say the same eulogy for each one with the same platitudes. It would be offensive. So I learned more poems, more adjectives for sadness, more customs for the living and the dead. And now I hate funerals, but I understand them. Way better than I should.”

Ethan would have written off this story as pure mythology a month ago. Her circus? A sudden crippling disease taking an entire family? Nonsense. Hogwash. Like the pamphlets in the break room about Bat Boy and alien implantations. But now he’d transported a different bat boy across the border and held dragon eggs in his hands. Jacob said there were no aliens, or at least, not in his trafficked circle, but his lack of sight didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Ethan stepped closer to Aurora and smelled a flower she’d severed from the root.

“Do you believe in ghosts, Rory?”

Aurora chuckled. “Oh, that’s a question. A big one.”

“Is it?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know if you’re asking existentially or if you really want to know,” she explained. “For instance, are you worried about never seeing your father again? Do you want me to tell you something nice to think about so you can grieve without the fear of a big black void of impermanence?”

“I’ve had my mother die, you know. And I’m used to parent figures dropping off the face of the earth, even when they were alive. The void doesn’t scare me.”

“Mm. But you weren’t as close to your mother, if I remember. Yes?”

“I’m not close to anyone.”

Aurora narrowed her eyes. Her gaze flitted between the green stems of un-bloomed plants, as if she was dissatisfied with everything around her. “I understand conflict. I even understand turning your thoughts to stone on your parents. But I do think the heart longs for reconciliation.”

“You don’t know what they did.”

“They did what parents do: make children’s lives miserable. It’s a lot of pressure, bringing something new into the world that never existed before. You’re bound to fuck it up.”

Ethan laughed. He wanted to tell her about the fight which had split all of them apart, scattered across the province. The divorce, the coming out, the abuse allegations against his mother’s new husband, which were nothing but a tangled nightmare and wholly unreal, and Leslie’s exodus and reunion through their mother’s sudden death. But it seemed like too much drama, too much to unload on the woman down the hall as she dug through flowers and tried to find hope in something.

“When I was kid,” Ethan said instead, “my dad wanted us all to go on vacation in North Carolina. His grandfather was from there. He spent summers there. So he wanted to take us.”

“Uh-huh.” Aurora continued to fuss in her plants but paid attention.

“I went swimming. The ocean seemed so big but also so welcoming. And it was, for the first few times I went swimming, but I went too far out one afternoon. It wasn’t long before the waves caught me and pulled me under. I drowned. Stopped breathing and everything. Leslie, my sister, pulled me onto the shore, and my dad broke my ribs giving me CPR.”

“He saved your life,” she said. “Even if he had to break something to get there.”

“Yeah.” Ethan touched the place on the back of his neck, again and again, so he wouldn’t touch the one on his chest. “I think my father hated me after though. I ruined the family vacation. My parents fought more. My dad didn’t want to be around us. We never went on vacation there again, and really, we never went on vacation again. The rest of the story from here is obvious. Divorce, moving away, every other weekend and holidays with Dad as I spent time with Mom.”

“I’m familiar.”

Ethan nodded along. He didn’t know why he was bringing all of this up. There was no point to it; the memories were already there, hanging and trapped in amber. Did his dad hate him, or was there something else under his skin? Something inconsequential yet still made their world fall apart? Ethan would never know. He could try to reconcile the images before Ethan had drowned with the images he had of his father afterward, during the car ride back, chain-smoking outside the emergency room, but they would never match up. To even think of asking these questions now was already too late. The time was done. He’d be talking to ghosts.

“I think…” Ethan stopped and started several times. “I think I’m asking about ghosts for both reasons. I’m selfish and I want to know if I was the thing that broke the family. Like every kid in a divorce thinks. So I want ghosts to be real so I can ask my dad if I’m at fault.”

“You weren’t, even if it feels that way. But I think you’re smart enough to know that. So what else is there to ghosts?”

“I think I’m also curious. Is there something more than what we see?”

“Of course. There has to be.”

“I don’t mean heaven. Or the afterlife. I mean something…” Ethan shook his head. The words weren’t right. He wasn’t asking about something ethereal he couldn’t see, but he wanted something concrete. Something in the waking world but hidden under the surface. He hadn’t been able to tell anyone about Gilda the dragon shifter den mother, Thad the vampire and his elk, the juju amulet from the military barracks, or any of the other shipments. But they were real. He’d touched them and helped them. Talking only to Jacob about all things magical was intoxicating at first, but now the isolation was taking its toll. “I suppose I just want to know if the stories I’m creating behind physical objects or events are silly. Or if there really is something more.”

“Stories are never silly. Isn’t that what we’re doing with the flowers? We’re finding the right one for grief since there was a time where the language of flowers was all we had. And so, when you don’t attend the service, you send in the flower to become you and bloom while you’re not there. Ah, yes. Actually. I think I know what you need.”

Aurora puttered around on the balcony in desperate search for something. The sun was setting faster than Ethan wanted to believe, the time running out. His phone was buzzing, but it was either going to be Leslie telling him more details he didn’t need or Jacob confirming the next shipment time and asking Ethan if he wanted to get something to eat before or after it was done. Aurora’s place was a time trap, allowing him to stay and not make a decision for a while longer.

When she couldn’t find what she wanted, and the wind came and knocked a bunch of dirt off her flip-flops, she ushered everyone, Trina the cat included, back inside her apartment and toward the chairs.

“For tea,” she said. “I want to try the fortune again. And maybe I can find what else I need.”

Ethan didn’t argue. Her apartment was much darker than before, the low lights of her ancient lamps giving the room a sepia tone. He thought about the photos on the wall of his childhood home again, but now focused on the images of his dad he’d kept in his mind. It hurt, knowing the death inside these images was real and not metaphorical for his older self. His father was dead, and there was no looking back.

The kettle boiled. Aurora placed mugs down, along with tea balls. She disappeared inside a cupboard, stepping into it entirely, before she emerged again while the tea was steeping.

“Here.” She placed down several bulbs. “These are for white roses.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Plant them. And they will grow. White is good for grief, meant to represent spiritual purity. And all that other stuff. Your Anglican family will appreciate it, even if you don’t practice anymore.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll wrap them for you.” Aurora tore off some crape paper and folded them up nice and tight. “I know it’s rather unorthodox, but this is for the better. Flowers at funerals only die and it seems like a double wound. So send these instead.”

“Even if I don’t go?”

“Even so.” She set the new package in front of Ethan and settled on her seat. She sipped her tea in silence for some time before she spoke in hushed tones, as if the flowers could hear. “I never answered your question about ghosts.”

Ethan sat up straighter. “Do you believe in them?”

“I do. But I think spirits are a manifestation of what I was talking about before. We create ghosts out of the people whom we have not reconciled. Before I gave my seven eulogies, I had this persistent dream about a caravan of people following me into an enchanted forest. I thought it was a sign to grow a garden, hence my little balcony.”

“Did the dream go away when you grew the garden? Or when you attended the funeral and gave the eulogies?”

“Neither. It went away on its own. But I spent the time feeling haunted, which made me think of my friends more. I think, at the time, I needed to keep their memories alive. I haunted myself with their ghosts until I was done grieving.”

Ethan worried his lip. The tea was made from hickory root and tasted like the root beer floats his father used to make him. He wondered if the taste of salt and sea would ever leave his mind. When Aurora had drained her mug, she shook it to scatter the fortunes at the bottom.

“I also did my leaves before the funeral. I got a microphone at the bottom—destined to perform. And the same for right now.” Aurora laughed before she extended her hand for his mug. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Ethan glimpsed the bottom. The same two strands from before emerged, forming a bridge. “Ah, yes. I am a conduit.”

“No, no, wait.” Aurora took her book down from the shelf, skimming over the pages. “I was wrong before. That symbol there isn’t a bridge, but a ladder. Here. Look.”

She flipped the book around, pointing at the symbol and the subsequent description for the ladder in tasseography. Marked ascension, possibly an inherited wealth, or better standing in a job position. Could also represent the gap between the mundane and physical world and the more heavenly and spiritual. The start of a journey. At the bottom of the description was a reference to the Biblical story of Jacob’s Ladder, the line between heaven and earth. Ethan smiled as he thought of Jacob at the top of the stairs at the party, cloaked and surrounded by light.

Ethan’s phone buzzed again, the person calling beyond persistent. Surely Jacob, calling him home.

“I think I may have to take this,” Ethan said. “Do you mind if I step out?”

“Not at all.” Aurora pulled back her book, marking the page with her thumb. “You know I care about you, right?”

Ethan nodded.

“Good, good. I want to help you out with this and before you go and talk to your friend, I feel the need to tell you several things. Can he wait?”

“I’m sure. Go ahead.”

“All right. One, there are no ghosts in this building. I made sure. There’s nothing supernatural whatsoever, or I would not have moved here. And two, I was too kind before. I actually despise flowers at funerals. You should send a cactus.”

Ethan chuckled. “Because death’s a prick?”

“Exactly. And it grows without too much water. Keeps memory alive. But alas, I understand the culture—so you’ll give flowers, which will grow long after you leave, as long as there’s a sun. Everything dies without the sun.”

Ethan had to repeat what she’d said to realize she’d said sun, not son. He nodded as the buzz from a text message became the hard persistence of a phone call. He could wait no longer. Ethan patted the front of his shirt for his cigarettes.

“You mind if I smoke on your balcony?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Just don’t use my plants as an ashtray,” Aurora said. “And I promise this is the last thing before you get your phone: no matter what you end up believing in, Ethan, some ghosts will find you. The best thing to do is to let them haunt. Everyone always moves on. Including you.”

“Always time to go,” Ethan repeated in a shaky voice. He stepped outside as the sun sank behind the horizon. He answered the phone with a flick of a button. “Hello?”

“Hey. You okay? Been trying to reach you all day.”

“I’m… fine. Just had some stuff to figure out.”

“Good. You available tomorrow? I have another run to go on, and you’re perfect for it.”

“A natural.” Ethan inhaled smoke, considering for a while. The funeral was two days from now. If he did this job, it still gave him enough time to drive out if he was so inclined to go. Which he wasn’t. Not when he had these bulbs, bursting from his pocket. “Yeah, sounds good. We could get dinner afterward too.”

“Excellent. I’m so glad.” Jacob chatted a bit more, jovial and insistent. He wanted to hang out tonight as well, but Ethan didn’t take the bait. They’d have tomorrow, and as long as they’d need, at that. By the time he hung up, he was sure he smelled like cigarettes and the bitter stench of peat moss from outside. He thanked Aurora for all she’d done, keeping his distance so they didn’t have to hug.

“You don’t have to answer this,” she said when he was at her front door, “but you never told me how your dad died.”

“Lung cancer. He always chained-smoked when he was nervous.” Ethan gave a sharp grin as he ran his fingers along the pack of cigarettes in his front pocket. “See you soon, Rory. And thanks again.”

*

At night, Ethan dreamt of the road to North Carolina. They’d driven through Delaware, going over the longest bridge in the US, in order to make good time. Each turn of the car over a corner, at the speed his father was going, felt as if they were all going to get flung into the ocean. The movement of the car—a swaying back and forth, back and forth—reminded Ethan of the waves. Each time he went swimming on the shore, the water embraced him like a hug. He fought against them, swimming and crawling along the sand like a crab. Leslie did it too; together, they swam all afternoon and slept like dead weights at night. When Ethan got up to pee at midnight the first sleep there, he felt his way around the house in the dark, still feeling like he was underwater, straining against the currents he couldn’t see.

Other nights, his dad would watch TV until three a.m., while his mother slept in the large master bedroom. Each living space in the rented house had a nautical theme. Anchors, fishing lines, and buoys were strung up on the wall for decoration. A million paintings of lighthouses were framed on the wall. When his father sank into the ocean-blue chair, the TV the only light source, it looked like one of those paintings. Ethan was nine years old and still curious about life at night; when he caught a glimpse of his father in the horizon of the house, he moved toward him, still feeling like he was swimming.

His father startled when he noticed Ethan. “It’s late. What are you doing, sweetheart?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Had to pee.”

A drink was in his father’s hand. He placed the whiskey down on the red-and-blue nautical coaster and patted the space on the couch. Ethan climbed next to him. When his dad touched his shoulder, it smarted with sunburn.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. He reached into a drawer and produced aloe vera. He wiped it around Ethan’s neck, still vacant of a triangle-shaped mark, and Ethan’s nose. The pain subsided as he grew closer to his dad. They both watched whatever made-for-TV movie was on. Ethan would later realize it was The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The fish-mouth monster with sunken eyes terrified him, but he didn’t want to go to bed. Staying up late with Dad meant he was like Dad. It meant he was safe.

The next day, when the waves were superstrong and turned gray by the overcast day, Ethan swore the black lagoon monster was underneath the surface. Gaping eyes and mouth, ready to swallow him whole. He fought against the waves. He crashed into them. Pinwheeled his arms to stay afloat. He got away, but the undertow surrounded him without warning and pulled him under. The crash-boom, crash-boom of the waves echoed all around. The lagoon monster had him. The lagoon monster would destroy him. But he’d been with his dad the night before, and it almost seemed worth it.

For once, Ethan didn’t wake up after he gasped for breath in the dream memory. He and his family stood in front of the beach house, staring up at it like a giant on stilts. Three days had passed since his near-death experience. He still felt waterlogged and groggy.

“Say goodbye,” his dad said. “We should say goodbye to the house.”

“Goodbye!” Leslie’s voice was a singsong chorus.

Ethan’s mother refused. “It’s a house. Why should I say goodbye?”

“We’ve had good memories here.”

“Yeah. If that’s the case, we should we say goodbye to the ER too.”

His father looked deflated. Though Ethan’s ribs still hurt when he spoke, he whispered, “goodbye” from between his teeth.

His father placed a hand on the back of his neck, rubbing back and forth. “Thanks.”

His dad said goodbye next, mumbling a few other words no one could hear until the end. “Now it’s time to go, always time to go.”

In the back seat, Ethan craned his neck and watched as the house receded along the horizon. Soon it was nothing but yellow highway lines for thirteen hours, his parents fighting between shifts of driving.

When Ethan awoke from the dream, he thought he was underwater again. He cried out in his sleep, still thinking he was inside the ocean. So he gasped and gasped. It took him five minutes to realize the water surrounding him were tears. He was crying—sobbing, wondering where his father was.