She laid a hand on his shoulder. “You gotta let me in,” she said.
But JimDaddy, he didn’t say anything. Not one word at all.
107
“She’s here,” I said. “She’s been here since my birthday.”
Momma and JimDaddy stood silent. Had they heard?
“Tommie’s here. Right this second.”
JimDaddy shifted.
Momma took a step. Then another.
“It’s my Gift. I see dead people. And talk to them. At least this one.” I remembered the woman at Paulie’s. “And one more. So at least two.”
Now JimDaddy looked at me. Then at Momma. Then at me again.
“I thought your Gift hadn’t manifested itself,” Momma said. She wore this expression like she wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry.
“Oh, it’s here,” I said.
“What’s here?” JimDaddy.
“The Gift,” me and Momma said at the same time.
“Dead people,” I said.
“Huh?” he said.
“When?” Momma asked.
“I told you.” My voice was a sigh.
“That’s right,” Tommie said, but of course, no one heard her. Except Baby Lucy, who crowed with pleasure.
“Are you kidding?” Momma raised her eyebrows.
“I wish I was.”
“I am so proud of you, honey. I get planning things. Aunt Odie gets cooking. Carol gets hair. And you . . .” She kissed my face. “Your kind are few and far between.”
I gave Momma a death glare. “What? You think I wanted this?”
Everyone was quiet except Tommie. “So this is what you get to experience when you tell people about me.”
Baby Lucy clapped and let out a bubble of laughter.
This wasn’t funny at all.
JimDaddy ran his hand over his face. “You Messengers are something else,” he said.
“You believe me?”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Momma said.
I tilted my head at her. “Are you really asking me that?”
“He’s used to us,” she said.
The doorbell sounded, but no one moved except Tommie, who said, “It’s Justin. And your aunt.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” JimDaddy said.
I shrugged. “I didn’t know at first. I sorta just figured it out myself. Plus, it’s been less than a week.”
“Want me to get the door?” Tommie asked.
I looked to where Tommie stood. She glowed. Like something from a movie.
“Stop that,” I said. “And no. Aunt Odie will let herself in.” But what about Buddy? I gulped, wanting to choke on nerves.
“Are you . . .” JimDaddy didn’t stand up all the way. He was a hunchback version of himself. “Are you talking to her now? Is she here now?”
Tommie stood right next to her daddy.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
The doorbell sounded again.
“What’s she doing?” JimDaddy said.
“Acting up.”
JimDaddy’s voice caught in his throat. He took a deep breath. “She always did joke around.”
Momma hadn’t moved. Baby Lucy crawled over to Tommie’s feet, and Tommie sat so my sister could get closer to her.
“I shoulda died too. That day,” JimDaddy said.
“Jimmy,” Momma said. My stomach tightened.
But JimDaddy didn’t look at Momma. I could see how she wanted him to. How she needed him to . . . I don’t know what. Include her in his grief? I wasn’t sure. It was awful watching the two of them.
“She wanted to go to the show. Tommie wanted to see some movie about true love. She went with her momma.”
“Daddy?” Tommie said, but of course he didn’t hear her.
JimDaddy stared off at nothing, it seemed. Off over my head. Maybe through the wall, maybe to Daytona half an hour away, maybe all the way to New York City, where he and Momma took their honeymoon right after getting married till death do us part.
“Daddy?”
“So they went. And I stayed. Drove off to work, and on the way back home I passed the fire trucks and the police and the ambulances.”
“Jim,” Momma said.
I tried to clear my throat. Tried not to hear his sorrow. Not to see it. But it was all over his face. It dripped off him and splashed onto the floor.
“I pushed past everyone. Shoved an EMT to the ground. Ran to the car window.”
“I’m here,” Tommie said.
“Tried to open the door, get my baby out. Slammed my hands on the glass. But they were gone.”
“Honey,” Momma said. “Listen.”
“A father should protect his family.” He ran his hands over his face. “When they let me touch her, hold her close, when I told her good-bye . . .” He stopped speaking. “I was covered with her blood and I had no idea. Not for hours.”
It felt like the room was a terrible scene in a movie. Only worse. Way worse.
“You know what’s strange?” JimDaddy asked, and Momma shook her head. “That I knew soon as I saw the fire engine. I knew. As if one of them whispered the whole accident in my ear.”
“Wait,” Tommie said. “I did that.” I could tell she was remembering the experience all the sudden. “I—I told him so he would know.” She looked at me wide-eyed. Touched her fingers to her lips. Baby Lucy let out an ear-piercing wail, like she’d been stung by a bee. “I wanted him to know we were gone. Wanted him to know I didn’t blame him. And that I loved him.”
“You told me, Jim,” Momma said. But he didn’t seem to hear her. “Jim, I’m right here for you. Right here.”
I looked at Momma weeping.
At Tommie and Baby Lucy, crying too.
At JimDaddy, whose eyes had filled with tears.
“Jimmy,” Momma said.
And when JimDaddy didn’t even look at her, she said, “If there is anything the Messengers know, it’s that you cannot compete with the dead. I have tried and tried to help with your healing, Jim. But I’m done.” And she left the room, called for Aunt Odie to come on in, then ran off, light-footed, down the hall.
108
“All hell’s broke loose,” Aunt Odie said.
“Evie,” Buddy said, “I didn’t mean I was worried about us going fast. I’ve thought it over. I like things fast.”
“Ain’t no one who can compete with the dead,” Momma said.
“Why, why, why?” JimDaddy said. Tommie hovered near him.
Baby Lucy sounded like a tornado siren.
I was in a blender of people, alive and dead, heartbroken and happy, good-looking and rich.
No wonder Paulie had closing hours! No wonder.
I wiped my eyes and followed the most important problem down the hall.
109
“Where are you going?”
Momma still cried, but she didn’t answer. She stumbled into Baby Lucy’s room and pulled out an unopened package of Huggies and a few sleepers, onesies, and other clothes for my sister.
My stomach fell to the balls of my feet.
“What are you doing?” My voice took a swipe at the light dangling all pretty and sweet with pink crystal baubles.
Momma swung around, fast. Her eyes were huge. Her face matched the color of the chandelier, like she’d been turned into a porcelain doll.
“What does it look like?” she said between the crying hiccups. Her hair trembled.
“Umm,” I said, and took a step back.
“Go get packed.”
“What?”
“Now.” Then she pushed past and into the hall and headed toward the master bedroom. That would slow her down for sure. I mean if Momma was gonna look through all her things, jeezo peezo, she had a week’s worth of work, at
least.
I followed on tiptoe, panting from nerves. Why, I might be the first girl who sees ghosts to die of a heart attack—or deoxygenation—at the age of fifteen.
That didn’t seem right either. Nothing did.
“Momma? Momma? Momma?” I whispered after her the whole way. My hands flapped like I hoped to take off in flight and land in front of her. I was getting ready to say, You got your work cut out for you, and that’s good, Momma, ’cause then you’ll have some time to think over what you are about to do, when she threw open her closet door, walked in, and stepped out with a roll-y suitcase. Bulging. Packed.
There was a huge commotion going on at the front of the house. I could hear Buddy, Aunt Odie, and Tommie arguing. I gaped at my mother.
“What’s that?” I pointed at the suitcase.
“For someone who can see ghosts and talk to dead people and who has a sixth sense, you aren’t catching on to things all that quick.”
Momma had stopped crying. In fact, she now appeared angry.
I drew my head back like a turtle trying to hide in its shell.
“That was not nice,” I said, my feelings hurt. “I can see what it is. I’m not dumb.” Though I felt that way. “And you know what I mean, anyway.”
“Be on my side,” she said.
“I’m always on your side.” I looked at her. And the suitcase. And the things she threw on her bed while I flitted around in the room.
“Why are you doing this?” I had a hard time getting the words out. They didn’t want to, ’cause anyone or anything with a sixth sense or not could see where this disaster was headed.
“I’m leaving.” She opened the suitcase, the zipper singing.
“But why?”
Momma crammed Baby Lucy’s things on top of her own stuff. Including, I saw, the picture Momma and JimDaddy had made when they got engaged.
“You love each other.”
“I know that. I love him more than my own life.” Momma’s hands trembled. “But love isn’t everything.”
What? Really? Wasn’t there a million famous songs saying love was all you needed? Didn’t JimDaddy sing a lot of them? To my mother? With his guitar?
Standing there in that fancy bedroom, I realized JimDaddy hadn’t sung once in the few days since my party. Not once. Not to Momma. Or Baby Lucy. And he used to all the time.
JimDaddy had asked her to marry him with a song.
Was this why Momma was done?
The suitcase looked like it was ready to bust wide open when Momma closed it. Well, she sorta closed it. The diapers were never going in there. And a onesie had stopped the zipper. Plus a sleeper foot hung out the opening, too.
“I thought—”
“Don’t you say a word.” Momma swiped at her tears. “I have lived with this since long before me and Jim got married.” She stopped, and I wondered if Momma was thinking about the county courthouse and how afterward Aunt Odie had served Better than Sex Cake and said to all the guests, “Good marriages are death do you part, but the lucky ones stay together longer than that. The good ones,” Aunt Odie had said, “stay together forever. Long past death.”
What would Aunt Odie think of this?
“We’re off to Aunt Odie’s,” Momma said. “The three of us. You included.”
Wait. Wait!
“I don’t think—”
“She knows we’re coming.”
“That’s obvious.” I said the words under my breath but where I knew Momma could hear me. Then I stopped her from leaving her room, hands gripping her elbows, leaning in to keep her from moving.
I said, “Momma. This doesn’t feel right,” just as there was another knock at the front door.
110
“Anyone gonna get that?” I hollered when the knock sounded again.
Momma sat on the bed, defeated.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Let’s wait and see what we can talk out.”
Momma’s eyes were shiny. I could see that sadness all over her.
Like with JimDaddy.
I ran down the hall, ran past everyone. Aunt Odie was in the kitchen, tinkering with something and holding Baby Lucy in one arm. “The door,” I said to her, and she looked at me like someone from a dream.
Tommie floated around her father, who sat on his recliner. Not all relaxed, but head in hands. “I can do it,” he was saying. “I can do it.”
“The door,” I said, but no one answered.
There in the foyer was Buddy.
“Evie,” he said. “Lookit. I wanna talk to you.”
I tilted my head at him. “Why didn’t you open the door?”
He shrugged. “It’s not my house.”
The knock sounded again.
I unlocked the door and threw it open wide.
“Paulie!” I said.
111
“Oh, hey,” Buddy said, and reached to shake Paulie’s hand, but Paulie raised them and said, “Not ready. Not ready.” And to me, “May I?”
I think I’d swallowed my tongue. When I found it, I said, “What are you doing here?”
“Come to help,” he said. “If you’ll allow it.”
Aunt Odie hurried into the foyer. “My favorite man, Paulie,” she said. Joy was written all over her face. Baby Lucy clapped.
They smiled pretty at each other. What was this? Another love story?
“Come on in,” I said.
Paulie was so tall I wondered if he could touch the two-story ceiling in here. His dark skin was beautiful.
“Come sit down,” I said.
Me and Paulie and Buddy and Aunt Odie and Baby Lucy, bunched like we were all joined at the hip, moved to the living room.
JimDaddy looked up.
Momma was in here now, sitting across the room from her husband. When had she sneaked in?
Tommie sat next to her father. She leaned against him, head on his arm.
“Oh my,” Tommie said as Paulie staggered and fell to his knees.
112
“Paulie,” Aunt Odie said, setting Baby Lucy on the sofa. “Paulie!”
“What’s going on?” Momma said.
“Call 9-1-1,” Buddy said, and he pulled his phone out, nearly dropping it.
“Do you need help?” JimDaddy asked. In four giant steps he stood next to Paulie.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Paulie said. “I wasn’t expecting . . .”
Tommie was next to me and Paulie now.
“I know you,” Tommie said.
“Why are you here?” Paulie gulped. “I thought . . . I thought I helped you pass over?”
“Huh?” I said. “You what?”
“I was there with her,” Paulie said, and then to Tommie, “With you.”
“I remember,” Tommie said. She came closer to Paulie. Put her arms around his neck. He didn’t protest.
“What’s going on?” JimDaddy said.
“Paulie’s talking to Tommie,” I said.
“What went wrong?” Paulie said. “She shouldn’t be here.” He asked like I might know the answer.
My eyes went wide. “I have no idea.”
“Where’s my girl?” JimDaddy said.
“Tommie?” Buddy said. “Tommie’s here? Are you kidding? What the hell is going on?”
“I want to tell her good-bye,” JimDaddy said. “Properly.”
The room felt hot as an oven.
Aunt Odie moved around, smells of cookies and gingerbread and vanilla pudding floating around her. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, oh, oh. This has never happened with the Messengers.”
Paulie gave her a dirty look.
Baby Lucy smiled at everyone, everything, cooing.
“What is going on?” Buddy said. “How can Tommie be here?” There wasn’t a second to spare to tell him anything. r />
“Let me tell her good-bye,” JimDaddy said.
“I did,” Paulie said. “I let her say good-bye that day.”
Then he looked at me.
“That was it,” I said, knowing. “When she said her farewells.”
For a moment I saw Tommie move toward her father as he ran up on the car crash. That terrible accident. All the sirens. The wailing. People standing nearby. Some crying. Others filming. There was Paulie, leaning in the window of the crushed car. And Tommie easing over to her father and whispering in his ear as the sun disappeared in a flash of light as tiny and bright as a firefly.
I could see Buddy in the backseat. Opening the car door. Climbing out. Not a scratch on him.
“Tommie slipped away then,” I said.
113
There wasn’t a lot of mumbo jumbo when me and Paulie held Tommie’s hands and walked her outside to where her mother waited on the lawn. I might have been able to do that all along. If I had known how.
“Good-bye, Evie,” she said. “Tell my daddy I love him. He doesn’t need me anymore. I can go on.” She smiled. “Thank you.”
I swallowed at a hedgehog lodged in my throat. “I’ll miss you.”
“Don’t you worry,” she said. “I’ll be waiting for you when you come on over.”
Uh.
Then she was gone.
“For good?” I asked Paulie.
He nodded. “Just needed someone this side of the veil,” he said, “who loved her to show the way. That’s all. Pointing them to the light.”
And from the porch Aunt Odie said, “Makes sense.”
I stood in the yard, the sky so clear I could see every star.
“Helping her go will ease up some of this grief,” Paulie said. “It stayed so heavy ’cause she got caught.”
“What about those people at your place?” I asked Paulie.