They woke late in the morning to the ringing of Chloe’s phone. Chloe cursed, untangled herself from the sheet and Mark’s limbs, then thumped barefoot and naked to her purse on the bureau, all angles and jutting bones. When she bent over the phone, the knobs of her spine cast shadows. “It’s probably school,” she said to him. “They’re disputing my leave. If they give me any shit today I swear I’m quitting.”
She squinted quizzically at the number, then answered.
“Wow, hi,” she said after a moment, standing straight. “Um. Yeah. Hang on.” She turned to stare at Mark. “It’s your dad.”
Lewis had done this. Mark had ignored him, and—as Lewis had promised—he’d called Sam to sound the alarm. And just like that, Mark’s and Chloe’s cocoon had been torn open to the world. He could have punched the wall.
Chloe held the phone to her chest. “I’m sorry—I didn’t recognize the number—”
“I’ll take it,” he said. He had to, now; he was caught. He sat at the edge of the bed, naked too, and took the phone. “Dad?”
“Marcus,” his father said—calmly, but Mark only ever heard his full name when Sam was deeply upset. “Good to hear your voice.”
“Did Lewis call you?”
“I’ve spoken to him. He’s very concerned about you. Honestly, so am I. I’ve been calling your phone for a day now.” His father was using the Voice: He was too aggressive, too loud, biting down too hard at the end of every sentence.
Chloe sat beside Mark, gathered one of the pillows to her chest, and stared over the top.
Mark said, “I’m sorry, Dad. I’ve maybe been off the grid a little, but I’m just fine.”
“Are you?”
“I am.”
A long, long moment. Mark reached out and took Chloe’s cold hand.
“Mark,” his father said, “I’ll be frank with you. I know a lot of—of what’s been happening. And I’m having a difficult time believing that you’re involved in… all this.”
So Sam knew it all. “Things have been… too crazy. I haven’t known what to tell you.”
“Maybe so,” his father said. “But I’m afraid I’ve reacted rashly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m at a gas station on I-70, in Springfield. I’ll be at your place in an hour or so. I’d like you to meet me there.”
Mark glanced at what must be six inches of new snow piled on the branches outside the kitchen window. “You drove in this?”
Chloe covered her mouth, then began to dress.
“As I said, I’ve been worried. Will you come meet me?”
“Dad. Today’s a bad time—”
Sam said, “I’m happy to come by Chloe’s, if you’d like. I have her address with me.”
They had trumped him. Mark couldn’t very well tell his father to turn around and drive home, could he?
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, sure. Let’s meet at my place. But it’ll take me awhile to get down there.”
“I’ll let myself in,” his father said. Which he could do; he had a key. He sounded calmer now, but—Mark was sure—saddened. His own worst suspicions confirmed.
When Mark had hung up and explained the call to Chloe, she was sanguine. “We’d have had to tell him sooner or later,” she said. “It’ll be okay. He’s your dad, not the bogeyman.”
“He’s going to think all of this is nuts,” Mark told her. “I didn’t want to have to argue with him. Not today of all days.”
Because today was the Bad Anniversary: seven years since Brendan’s accident. The day they were meeting the Weills at the old house, their memories in tow. The day they were sending Brendan to his rest.
Chloe put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him firmly. “We’ve got the truth,” she said. “It takes some time for people to believe.” She kissed him again. “But they will.”
They dressed quickly, then Chloe drove him to his car. Ice had fallen before the snow last night, and the roads were dangerously slick; they passed several police cars, keeping watch over vehicles nosed forward into ditches, taillights glaring. Tree branches and power lines drooped under sheaths of ice that in the dim light were as thick and gleaming as metal.
It was almost ten. Sam must have gotten on the road around five, just as the storm was tailing off. Lewis must have called him yesterday—Sam could well have been awake the entire night, calling Mark’s phone, before finally lighting out for Ohio when the snow tailed off.
But wouldn’t Sam have tried calling Allison first? He would have. That meant he and Allie had surely spoken.
And what would Allie have told him? Mark might, now, be facing a lot more than a stern lecture about the reality of ghosts.
He put his hand on Chloe’s thigh. She hummed.
When they were at last parked beside Mark’s buried Volvo, Chloe said, “I can come, too, if you want.”
This seemed dangerous to him—Sam having to face Chloe’s serene belief—but Mark didn’t say so.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “Then I’ll come right home.”
Home, he’d said—even as they both scraped the Volvo’s windshield, in sight of the old house, its chimney smoking happily. He’d meant Chloe’s apartment. No. Chloe’s arms.
The drive to German Village, normally a ten-minute jaunt, took Mark well over half an hour. He passed two more accidents, and—not far from the townhouse—slid sideways through a fortunately empty four-way stop before coming to a gentle rest against a curb. When he finally reached the townhouse, he was so shaken that, for a long minute, he couldn’t quite piece together why Allison’s Honda was parked in front of his father’s truck.
But it was. Allison was here, with Sam. More than that—his father’s truck was buried under the new snow.
Allison had called Sam, not Lew. His father hadn’t driven through the night—he’d been here longer. He’d lied, in order to make Mark come here. Maybe that was why Chloe hadn’t recognized his number—Sam could have called her from Allison’s phone.
Mark sat for a long time in his parked car, the motor still running. He didn’t want to go up to the door, but what else could he do? He’d made his choices, these last days; this confrontation would always have to be their outcome. A man who wasn’t sure of his responsibilities, his new happiness, would run away from a fate such as this. Mark would not. Not anymore.
Even so, before walking up to the door that in a few minutes would no longer be his, he tried to convince himself—somehow, anyhow—that Allison might not know, yet, where he had spent the night.
The front door was unlocked. Mark, not knowing what else to do, knocked softly while opening it. The air inside smelled of coffee and eggs; of himself and of Allison—what only a few days before had been the smell of home. Mark heard the happy chatter of a morning television show. He took off his wet shoes beside his father’s old duck boots. “Hello?” he called, just as the television clicked off.
His father appeared in jeans, a black sweater, and stockinged feet. His beard was longer, bushier, than it had been at Christmas; he looked something like a sea captain. “Mark,” he said, smiling tightly.
“Dad.”
“Allison’s here,” Sam said. “I know you didn’t expect her.”
“I sure didn’t.”
“Can your father give you a hug anyway?”
Mark nodded, and Sam embraced him, thumped his back. His grip was tight—so tight Mark wondered, nonsensically, if he was about to be wrestled to the ground. Sam said into Mark’s ear, “Allie’s in the kitchen. I’m going to go to your office, if that’s all right, and call Helen. I’ll be here when you need me.”
Sam released him—Mark staggered backward—then smiled his sad smile, before turning and slowly climbing the stairs. Mark wanted to call after him, Don’t go.
Instead he made himself walk through the living room, past the couch with the rumpled sheets on top of it (so his father had stayed the night); past the television; past the pictures on the mantel of Mark and Allie in Seattle, in her parents’ living room, laughing together in the Florida surf.
These were another Mark Fife’s pictures. That Mark might, in any number of ways, be better than the one who now stood in the kitchen doorway; who saw Allison Daniel sitting at the kitchen table, lifting her face—swollen, beautiful, hurt—to him; who drew back from her red, mourning eyes. Who had to tell her goodbye.
“Hi,” she said.
She wasn’t actively crying, but her voice was thick, clotted. Before he could speak she added, “You turned off your phone—I didn’t know what else to do. I called Sam, and he drove out last night.”
He’d expected anger from her—something like the venom with which she’d always spoken of herself and Bill. But instead she seemed drained, her fingers curled limply around a tissue on the tabletop.
He sat opposite her. “I’m the one who owes apologies. My phone’s been dead, or I would have called.”
“I know Sam called you at Chloe’s,” Allie said. “He didn’t want to tell me, but I got that out of him.”
With surprising calm, he said, “Yeah. I was there.”
“You’ve been staying with her.”
“Yes,” Mark said.
Allison bowed her head, closed her eyes. She waited a long time before speaking, as though sorting through possibilities. Or maybe he’d been lying to her long enough that she hadn’t expected a simple truthful answer.
“I want you to come back. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.” She lifted her eyes. “Is there any way that can happen? Is there anything I can do?”
Her red eyes searched his face, depthless.
“We’ve been happy,” she said. “Haven’t we? We’ve been good together.”
“We have been,” he said, and wished his voice didn’t sound so flat, so final.
“Are we done?” Her voice shook. “Is that what this is?”
He made himself say the words.
“Allie, I didn’t expect this. I really didn’t. But things have—have happened. Chloe still loves me, and I still love her. What’s happened with Brendan has made us realize—”
Before he’d finished this last sentence Allie had turned her face away from him, hands covering her mouth.
He couldn’t dare tell her that he loved her, still. But he could have; watching her sob, he knew he did. Maybe it was a different kind of love than what he felt for Chloe—a calmer love, a more considered love—but still he hurt for Allison, with her. Nothing that had happened was her fault. He wanted to reach for her, to hold her to him, to reassure her of this if he could.
But he had given up that right. He’d chosen his happiness at the cost of Allie’s pain.
He’d chosen this because he had to. Because a miracle, or something like it, had brought his lost family back to him. In a million years, how could either of them have predicted such a thing? This was new territory, to which very few people alive possessed a map.
If he had any courage left, he could tell her: I had no choice. I never did.
But then Allison’s cries, physical things, ripped apart the air, and he knew that if he said so he’d be lying.
“I’ll go,” he said, standing.
“No!” Allie shook her head, clenched her fists on her knees, took in deep drafts of air. “Sit down, Mark. We’re not done.”
But we are, he almost said.
Her eyes were sparkling with anger. He sat down. If she needed to be upset, he would take it. Taking it was the very least he could do.
Allie wiped her eyes and nose with a wad of tissue. “I wish I could just tell you to fuck off. You deserve it and I deserve to say it. But that would be too easy.”
“I do—”
“Quiet. I have to talk now. I have to tell you something.”
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “What do you think of that?”
All his thoughts snapped apart. He stared at her lovely face, her blinking eyes.
“How?” he asked, and immediately regretted the question.
“Christ, I don’t know,” she said. “I took all my pills. To quote my doctor, ‘This sort of thing happens sometimes.’ ” Her voice shook. “I’m at five weeks. So I guess the real answer is, five weeks ago you were telling me you loved me, and I believed you.”
He remembered rubbing her back while she threw up into the sink. The strange way her sister had spoken to him when he’d called from Lewis’s. The desperation in Allison’s eyes and voice, the night he’d stayed away without calling.
His head throbbed. “How long have you known?”
“Awhile,” Allie said. “The doctor called with definite results Friday. She said, ‘Congratulations.’ ”
“But you knew the night—”
Allie’s face darkened. “You’d just lied to my face! You acted like you were leaving me, and I chickened out! I went to Darly’s for some moral support, and then—”
Allie didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.
“I’m going back to Darlene’s now,” she said. “I guess I knew what you’d say about Chloe. I’ve known it for a while. But now I need an answer from you about something else.”
She didn’t wait for him to ask what it was. “I’m not getting any younger. And I’m not convinced there’s a sane man out there I might want to plan a baby with—you know, when it’s fucking convenient.” She shook her head and wiped at each eye. “I’m saying I might want to keep it.”
He tried to make himself speak, but couldn’t.
She was crying again. “I feel like some silly little teenager. If I have a baby, at least I’ll have someone who’ll love me no matter what.” She held up her hands, grimaced. “How’d you like that one?”
“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t want you to think like that.”
“I don’t want to ask this,” she said. “Right now I really don’t want to give a shit what you think. But I have to. That’s the cruelest part of this, you know? I have to. So here goes: Are you going to be a dad to this kid, if I have it?”
He stared at her for too long.
“So you can run away from me to hang out with—with a goddamned ghost, but—”
“Allie!”
“Does this make you mad?” she asked, leaning forward. Her fists were clenched. “Tell me it makes you mad.”
He clamped his mouth shut.
“You want to know the irony?” she asked. “I’m only talking to you because of Sam. I figured I’d just call you, tell you to go fuck yourself. But Sam talked me into this. Whatever I think of you, I’m glad your father’s in my life.” She wiped the corners of her burning eyes. “So I get it, now. I do. I know what it means to make a commitment. I’ll deal with looking at your face every week for the rest of our lives, if you tell me this kid’s going to have a father.”
He was crying, then. He couldn’t stop himself.
“It,” she said, her voice sinking. “Him or her.” She pressed at her flat stomach. “So tell me the truth. I mean it. The honest truth. Will you help me raise him or her?”
“I will,” he said. “Of course I will.”
The answer seemed to displease her, even though it had to have been the one she wanted.
“At least let me say I’m sorry,” Mark began to say—but Allie stood and stalked out of the kitchen before he could go on.
For a long few minutes he listened to Allie leaving: to the gathering of her bags, the jingle of her keys, the thump and squeak of her boots on the tile. Footsteps then sounded on the stairs, and he heard his father’s low, sonorant voice, speaking gently. Then the front door opened and shut. A car started on the street.
His father appeared in the kitchen doorway. “She’s gone,” he said.
Mark didn’t answer. Sam set a mug of coffee down on the table next to Mark’s elbow. He scooted Allie’s box of tissues closer. Mark took one and wiped his eyes. Sam sat where Allie had, holding his own mug next to his chest.
“You must be angry with me,” Sam said.
Mark shook his head.
“Allie called me yesterday morning,” Sam said. “She was… distraught. She said she couldn’t find you, that you wouldn’t answer your phone. She told me about—something about—what’s been going on here.” He pressed his lips tight. “She didn’t think you’d come if she asked you. And she wanted to tell you her news face-to-face.”
“I’m not angry. Not with anyone.”
Sam leaned over his hands. “Is she pregnant?”
“You didn’t know?”
Sam shook his head. “She kept saying she had news, that it couldn’t wait. I frankly didn’t know what else it could be, but I didn’t ask.”
“She’s been trying to tell me for a while. I haven’t been listening.”
Sam took a long sip of his coffee, watching Mark as though he held a gun in his hands. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. This is all new to me, Dad. Things—I was telling her I was leaving her.”
His father let out a long, measured breath, as though Mark had just spoken an obscenity. “So you and Chloe—”
“Yes.”
Sam rubbed his chin and looked at the ceiling.
“I wish you’d go ahead and say it,” Mark told him.
“Say what?”
“We haven’t talked about ‘what’s been going on here.’ About Brendan.”
“No, we haven’t. We’re talking about you and Allison. You and Chloe.”
“It’s all the same thing. I need to tell you about it, if this is going to make any sense at all.”
Sam said, “All right. I’ll listen.”
“Will you?”
“Do you think I wouldn’t? Why did I drive out here, do you suppose?”
“Because you think it’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t believe in—in ghosts, no. But I’ve failed as a parent if you can sit there thinking I wouldn’t give you a chance to explain yourself.”
“I would have told you.” Mark felt himself reddening. “Do I look like a guy who’s operating with some kind of plan?”
His father said, “To be honest, you look like you’re in quite a bit of pain.”
“All of a sudden Brendan and Chloe are in my life again. Brendan needs me, and Chloe—it turns out—never stopped loving me. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”
Sam reached a hand across the tabletop, almost to Mark’s forearm. “I don’t know. I don’t presume to know.”
“I knew this would hurt Allie,” Mark said. “I was prepared for that. But I didn’t know about this.”
“Would things be different if you had?”
No, Mark wanted to say. But if he’d known about Allie’s pregnancy a week ago the news might have frozen him. If he’d known, he might never have gone to the house, alone or with Chloe.
“Say something,” he said to his father. “Come on, yell at me. Now’s the time.”
Sam said, wearily: “Yell at you? Why?”
“For keeping this a secret. Being an asshole.”
Sam sighed. “All my life—from the moment you were born—I told myself to be ready for anything. If you came to me and said you’d tried heroin, I’d be ready. If you told me you were gay, I’d be ready. If you said you wanted to be a Catholic priest, or join the army, I’d be ready.
“But I wasn’t prepared for death. Or for ghosts.” Sam smiled, the tiniest bit. “I don’t know what advice I can give. And anyway, I haven’t heard the story from you. Only from Allison and Lewis.”
Mark glanced up. “Lew too?”
“I called him last night, and he told me a few things. Among them that he’s very worried about you, like the rest of us.”
Mark shook his head. “I doubt Allie’s worried.”
“Mark,” Sam said—with exasperation, as though Mark were ten again—“Allie is only angry because she loves you. Whatever else is happening, don’t deny the woman her feelings.”
Mark said, “It was because of her that I tried every way I could not to believe—in all of this.”
“But you do.”
“Not at first. But I went and—and saw for myself.”
Sam’s voice was soft, his eyes unblinking. “You’ve seen him?”
“Heard him. Felt him. Things have happened to me. Supernatural things.”
Sam leaned forward. “I have to ask you a difficult question. I only ask it because you are my son, and I love you.”
“Okay,” Mark said. “Okay, sure.”
“Are you drinking again?”
Mark thought of the flicker of Jacob Pelham’s eyes. Mark’s sudden certainty—a father’s certainty—that the boy was lying.
He said, “I can’t sleep. You don’t know how bad it’s been, thinking about him, in the house alone—”
“For how long?”
“A month. Maybe more.”
Sam, agitated now, said, “The last time you drank—”
“I shouldn’t be drinking. I know that.” Mark made himself look his father in the eyes. “But it doesn’t matter, now. Everything’s different. Tonight Chloe and I are going to help Brendan, if we can. That’s got to be the most important thing.”
His father rubbed his temples, thinking, thinking.
“If this is what you believe, it’s what you believe,” he said at last. “I can’t tell you what to do. But I’m disappointed in you, Mark. I still have the right to say that. Maybe even about this business with Brendan, even though I should leave it alone.”
Mark was about to argue, but Sam held up a hand.
“You’re a grown man. But I am here because your fiancée called me crying yesterday and told me she didn’t know where you were. I’m not here because of Brendan. I’m here because you vanished. You abandoned people who trust you. And the last time you pulled that stunt you nearly died.”
Mark couldn’t answer him. This was all too, too much.
“Mark,” Sam said. “I love Chloe like a daughter. There is a part of me that misses her in your life, and misses her in mine.
“But Allison’s pregnant with my grandchild. And I’ll tell you—I’m worried about that child’s life. I’m worried about its family.”
Mark said, as calmly as he could, “I’ll be there for the baby. I gave Allie my word.”
Sam pinned him with a long, watery gaze. “You’re sure?”
“Will you?”
“I can make this work,” Mark said. “I can do this.”
“Maybe so,” his father said. “Maybe so.”
“It’s true. You don’t—you just don’t get what I’ve been dealing with. What this is all like.”
Sam took a deep breath and pushed aside his pain. Mark watched him do it.
“All right. Tell me what’s happened,” he said. “Make me believe.”
Haltingly, Mark told him everything, from start to finish. And, compared with the last time he’d told the story—to Lewis—his omissions were different. This time he left out his talk with Jacob Pelham. His sudden doubt. The lie he’d left with Jacob to simmer.
The story took him nearly forty minutes. His father asked questions only for clarification; mostly he sat with his hand on his beard, gazing down into his coffee.
When he was finished Mark asked him exactly what Chloe had, and with the same querulous hope: “Do you believe me?”
His father gave the same answer Mark had:
“I believe you believe it,” he said. “But I don’t buy a word of it.”
He held up his hand against Mark’s objections. “And that is exactly why I should come with you, tonight.”