28

Vic

“Who are you?” Vic asked.

Spider stopped winding between Vic’s feet and went to rub up against the ghost. Vic could see through him, but the cat rubbed up against him like he was solid.

“You know who I am,” the ghost of Vic’s father replied. He was still smiling, but he said it with some recrimination.

“But—how are you here?” Vic asked.

“This little guy,” Eduardo said, bending to scratch the cat on his chin. “He came to get me, so I followed him.”

“I don’t understand,” Vic said.

This wasn’t his father at the end, when pancreatic cancer had demolished the strong, broad-shouldered man Vic had grown up with. He looked like Jesse, or Jesse looked like him. Eduardo was big, with thick black hair that Vic had inherited.

“How?” Vic stuttered.

His heart swelled, but he couldn’t trust it. How did he trust something this impossible?

“Prove it,” Vic said.

Eduardo grinned.

“Yes, it’s ‘wondrous strange,’ ” he said. “ ‘But there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ”

And that was all he had to say for Vic to know it was really him.

His father had always liked to charm Maria with snippets of Shakespeare. She’d dragged them all to Boulder for the festival there, to see a play every year in the little outdoor amphitheater.

Maria would be cranky that her boys were rowdy and that her husband had indulged them, but Eduardo would quote lines on the way home, proving he’d been paying attention to something that only his wife cared about.

Those plays had their share of ghosts and spirits. Once, during King Lear, it had even rained right when the storm scene started. The audience had crowded inside the university building until it passed.

“It’s really you,” Vic said. “Somehow it’s really you.”

The dam broke a bit and Vic felt his eyes start to shine.

“It is,” Eduardo said. “I think you called me back, Vicente. I think I heard you call me. Then the cat showed up and I followed her.”

“Him,” Vic said absently. “His name is Spider.”

“That is a strange name for a cat,” Eduardo said affectionately, still scratching. “But I like it.”

Vic felt around inside himself. He hadn’t done this, had he? There was something there, like a pull on him, different than what he felt between him and Adam. It lived in his heart, close to the love he felt for his family and yes, for Adam. This then, might be magic.

“Thank you,” Vic said to Spider. “For helping. I don’t know how this happened, but thank you.”

He got a raspy meow in response.

Vic didn’t know what else to say. He leaped forward, tried to embrace his father, but Vic’s arms passed right through Eduardo.

Vic’s heart seized. He needed that embrace, hadn’t known how much until he couldn’t have it.

“Not tonight,” Eduardo said, reading his expression.

Sinking a bit, Vic nodded and stepped back. He didn’t know what was possible. He didn’t know any of the damn rules.

“Not that I believed in any of this stuff before,” Eduardo said, pondering his translucent hand and how the light from the window fell through it.

Vic laughed. His father had been irreligious at best, staying home when Maria took them to mass for tradition’s sake.

“What is it like?” Vic asked.

“I can’t tell you,” Eduardo said, dark eyes pinching in thought.

Vic opened his mouth to protest, but Eduardo interrupted.

“Literally. I don’t think it’s bad, where I am,” he said. “It’s not the hot place, but being here, I can’t remember it. I know you’re here, that your mother and brother are here. I think—I think that I feel loved.”

Vic choked on a sob.

“And you?” Eduardo asked. “Do you feel loved?”

“I do,” Vic said.

“So there’s a girl?” Eduardo asked.

Vic looked to the floor. He never thought he’d have this conversation. The chance of it was a miracle.

Eduardo had always told his sons to look people in the eye. Vic lifted his eyes to his father’s, even if his face wouldn’t quite follow them.

“There’s a boy, Papa,” Vic said. “A man.”

“Oh.” Eduardo’s eyes grew round. He didn’t look angry, just surprised. “That’s who Adam is?”

“Yes,” Vic said. “Is that okay?”

“Vicente,” Eduardo said gently. “How could you ask me that? Did you think I would love you any less?”

“I don’t know,” Vic said. “I don’t know what to think. Everything I know about being a man I learned from you.”

“That is not true,” Eduardo said. “And even if it was, you have to be your own man, your own kind of man.”

Vic had thought he was more comfortable with all of this. He’d told Adam he was bi without hesitation. Then the uncertainty had crept in, following Vic’s doubts about Adam and the trust between them.

Vic had needed his parents, both of them. Magic had let him talk to them, talk to his dad. A few hours ago he’d been in another world, ready to throw it all away, to restore some order.

But now this.

“I’ve been seeing things in black and white,” Vic admitted. “I thought you would disapprove.”

“I think you are loved, Vicente,” Eduardo said. “And while I cannot hold you, I would. You are my son. Boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife—just be happy. Do good.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Vic said.

“It is that easy. When you mess up, do better. Learn. Love will hold you together if he’s worth it. Is he worth it?”

“I think so,” Vic said.

Eduardo nodded.

He turned to the window and cocked his head as if he could hear something Vic could not.

“I think I have to go, Son.”

Vic swallowed. He could feel it, not the Other Side, but someplace. It was calling Eduardo back. There was a door that Vic had cracked open, even though he hadn’t meant to.

Now it was closing.

He could fight it, maybe, but he got the strong sense that he really shouldn’t try, that bad things would happen if it opened too wide.

“Why did you come?” Vic asked.

“I just followed the cat,” Eduardo said with a smile. “But I think maybe you needed me to.”

“I did,” Vic said.

Whatever else magic and Adam’s crazy world might bring, it had brought this, given Vic this chance, this impossible moment.

“I love you, Papa,” Vic said. “I miss you every day.”

“I love you too.”

And he was gone.

Vic woke with a start. The sun was high. He’d slept the day away.

He remembered falling into bed, shedding his clothes. Rising up on his elbows, Vic saw no sign of Spider or his father, no indication that the visit had been anything more than a dream.

Lying back down, Vic studied the smooth plaster of the untextured ceiling.

He’d seen too much these last few months to dismiss the visit.

He may never know if it had been a dream or a delusion, but a weight lifted when he thought of Eduardo’s smile.

“Thank you,” Vic said to who or whatever had let him see his father.

Maybe it had been Death. Maybe it was a perk of his second job.

Vic’s eyes shone. He’d been ready to walk away from magic, but now . . . now he needed to see Adam.