"Patrick," Ginny supplied. "Yes, there's a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Boyle with Patrick on your nightstand."
"Oh my God," Sara whispered, peering up the stairs. "That's... it... fell out of a book I found in the house. The Turn of the Screw ."
Ginny chuckled, turning and stepping out onto the porch. "Mrs. Boyle must have left it accidentally athat was Pat's favorite." She waved at Sara before moving across the walk and out to her car. She drove some tiny, red car he'd seen once or twice before , driving down the street.
Sara closed the door and sagged against it, sighing deeply and closing her eyes as her head thumped on the wood. "Patrick," she said slowly, each syllable distinct.
He brushed his fingers against her shoulder. She shivered, and Patrick's eyes widened in shock.
CHAPTER FIVE.
"Down the shore? What does that even mean?" Sara asked with a laugh before shoving a forkful of lettuce into her mouth.
"It's just what the locals call going to the beach," Megan answered, a dribble of dressing clinging to her lip. "It took me forever to figure out what people were saying."
Patrick thought about the sand under his toes, and he could almost smell the sea air. He'd give almost anything to have the scent of salt in his nose, that faint odor of fish in the background. It was such a big part of his life each summer, and he missed swimming in the ocean. He and his friends used to hang out on the beach, play Frisbee.
"Well, I suppose that's good to know. I wrote a scene that's set at the beach. I guess maybe I should actually visit one this summer since the coast is pretty close. It is, right?"
"Oh, yeah. Roger and I go to Long Beach Island a it's maybe a two hour drive if the traffic isn't too bad ."
Megan had been over once or twice since Sara moved in, but in the couple of weeks since the writers' group meeting, Sara seemed to make more of an effort to get out of the house.
Patrick was bothered by it on some level; he wanted to spend as much time with her as he could. He continued to hope one day he'd just wake up and be... well, if not in Heaven , then in some form of the afterlife, so he wanted to enjoy her company while it was possible .
He liked the idea of reincarnation. He'd reread that chapter of his religion book a million times. Maybe he wasn't a believer in Hinduism or Buddhism, but the idea of creating his own religion was attractive in his darker hours. It wasn't as though it mattered. Not really. Even though he'd been stuck exactly in the same plane of existence aanother idea he'd picked up from the book afor a long time and constantly wished God would appear and explain to him what the Hell the purpose of all this was, he wasn't entirely sure the Catholic God his parents had worshipped really existed any more than he thought Jews or those who followed Shintoism or Sikhism had it right. He felt free to make up his own rules. The only thing he was sure of was that something really did exist... otherwise, wouldn't he just be... dead? In the back of his head, he still vaguely believed in the God he'd grown up with, but he wasn't entirely sure why. He just couldn't shake it.
Sara made a noise through her nose, a cross between a snort and a sigh. "Well, I just got my first alimony payment, so I suppose I can take a vacation."
He didn't have a clue what that meant, but the idea of Sara leaving him for a significant period of time didn't sit well. What if she didn't come back? He knew more than anyone that things could change in an instant.
"Oh, I didn't know you were divorced." Okay, so alimony must have something to do with divorce. Patrick filed that away for later and carefully leaned against the wall , so he wouldn't fall into it.
"Yeah, well..." Sara smiled, although her face was carefully calm, and ate another forkful of salad.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Megan sounded sincere, and he kind of hoped Sara would take her up on the offer ahe still didn't really know much about it, and he'd been dying to know. Everything about Sara was of interest, but it was the divorce that piqued his curiosity.
"Uh, there's really not much to say. Well, that's not entirely true, I suppose." Sara threw down her fork in disgust, a metallic clunk resounding throughout the kitchen.
"You don't h a "
Sara sighed. "All right, here's the truth: I had a really shitty divorce. My husband basically dumped me after we found out I couldn't get pregnant."
Megan gasped, and Patrick moved closer to Sara, touching her shoulder. She shivered and leaned back in her chair. He hadn't gotten any closer to figuring why she could now sense him... or feel him... or whatever it was.
"Oh, geez. I'm so sorry."
"Me too," Patrick said, moving back but wishing he could hug her. He'd never really given much thought to kids before he died since he hadn't dated anyone seriously except Ginny. The idea of divorcing his wife over something like that didn't sit right with him, though. He would have never admitted it when he was alive, but he was a bit of a romantic. He had liked doing it with Ginny, but he also really liked just lying around with her on the couch and giving her flowers he'd picked out of his mom's yard. It might have made him seem kind of girly, but he did. Ginny had always seemed to appreciate it.
"That's not the worst of it."
"What is?"
"I sort of went a little nuts over it. I mean, you know, screaming Mimi, a month in a mental institution crazy."
She'd mentioned the breakdown when Jules had been here, so that was no surprise, but he still couldn't believe her own husband would act like such an asshole.
"Well, I can understand that," Megan said. "Infertility is a big deal."
"It was partly that, but it was mostly what he did."
"This sounds bad."
"Man, what else could the guy do," Patrick snarled. "He sounds like a dick." Too bad he couldn't snap his fingers and be somewhere else. Not that he could do much other than shout names at her ex that he'd never hear, but that might have been satisfying... well, maybe not. He really wanted to kick the guy's ass.
"It is. I, uh, well... we had a really good marriage, I thought. Things were going well. We found out about my infertility , and a few weeks later for our anniversary he took me out to dinner , and we stayed at a hotel."
"Yeah?"
"I woke up in the hospital." Sara sipped at her lemonade, making it sound like casual conversation.
"What? What happened? Did he... hit you?"
Patrick clenched his fists, hovering protectively over Sara. His presence couldn't stop anything from happening to her anow or then abut the very idea that anyone would ever harm her made him sick to his stomach.
"Oh, no. Nothing like that. Well, he might as well have, I suppose. I think he drugged me, but he told the police I was an addict and had overdosed, which I didn't know until later."
"What?" Patrick yelled, pacing back and forth. "Sara, how could you marry someone like that?"
Megan's eyes went wide, and she slapped her palm on the table. "You have got to be kidding me."
"I wish. The blood tests came back, and it was clear to the doctors I hadn't abused anything long-term. Scott didn't come to the hospital at all, or at least not to see me. I was making excuses, of course, thinking he had been called away on business."
"And then what?"
"Well... my mom flew down from Oregon, and they released me. When we got back to the house, everything was gone. Well, not everything. My clothes were there, but all the furniture and stuff was missing. I thought we'd been robbed or something, but there was a note from him to let me know he was divorcing me."
"Jesus Christ," Patrick muttered. "I'll kill that jerk." If there was ever any way he could figure out how to physically touch a person, he hoped he'd be able to punch that guy in the face.
"Holy cow!"
"Yeah. I mean, it was bad."
"Uh, I'd say so. You had a good lawyer, I take it?"
"Yep. I may not have known anything was wrong, but I had enough sense to have a separate savings account. I used almost every dime, but... it's not like I ruined him or anything... as much as I wanted to."
"Girl, I would have Roger's, uh, feet on a platter if he did that to me."
Patrick found himself liking Megan quite a bit more in that moment. He hoped that if she ever had the opportunity to meet this Scott, she'd do his dirty work for him.
Sara snorted. "My parents wanted to rip him apart."
"I bet. That's, uh... that's quite a betrayal."
"Yeah, but it's over. I moved here to get away from all of that, and I'm doing... fine."
"Really? How long ago did all of this happen?"
"Well, I've been here, what, almost two months?"
Megan nodded and leaned forward.
"The divorce was finalized about three months ago."
"I still can't believe how... amazing you're doing for all that. I would have never known."
"Sorry about dumping that on you. I had no intention of rehashing it like that."
"Really, it's all good. Anytime you need to talk... or if you need professional help, Roger's always available to you."
Sara changed the subject, talking about tomato plants and asking Megan if she gardened, while Patrick stalked off, finding refuge in her office. The anger coursed through him as he paced back and forth, muttering under his breath. He wanted to touch her, hug her... tell her how sorry he was, express to her that she was so much better than all of that. She seemed okay with what she'd been through. Sad but not devastated. Maybe she really had made her peace with the whole, sordid story, although Patrick couldn't understand how she wasn't as pissed off as he was.
A creak sounded on the stairs, ripping his attention away from Sara's story. It was her a she walked into the room barefoot, toes painted bright red; he'd sat with her the night before while she did it, the smell of the polish reminding him of his mother.
She dug around in a desk drawer, pulling out a small stack of paper. Patrick moved closer, realizing they were photos. The one on top showed a laughing Sara with a man's arm around her waist. He was blond, tall and stocky.
"Scott, you suck," she said, tossing the whole pile in the garbage can. Resting her palms against the desk, she seemed to sag, a single tear rolling down her cheek. "Shit."
Patrick walked behind her as she shuffled to the bathroom, and he leaned against the door frame, watching her eyes in the mirror while she washed her face.
He liked the two of them together a his reflection shone next to hers. They would have made a good-looking couple. Her hair was lighter than his and only slightly longer, and her delicate features made a good contrast to his squared jaw. And, of course, she was shorter , although not by a huge margin . He moved closer and stared at the image in the mirror. Her head would just bump him in the nose if he was solid. The curve of her waist would feel soft in his hands.
His feelings for her changed every day. They grew and deepened, and now... well, he knew he shouldn't, but he felt like he was falling in love with her .
Sara dabbed at her face with a hand towel and closed her eyes, the movement behind her eyelids making Patrick wonder what she was thinking. His hand coasted down the plane of her arm, tracing the contour of her hip, wishing he could feel it.
"Shit," she repeated, shivering again and slowly opening her eyes. For a moment a just a fraction of a second ashe froze, her entire body tensing before she gasped and whirled around.
Patrick took a step back in surprise, shocked at how quick she'd moved.
She threw back the shower curtain with more force than he thought she possessed, the metal chain sliding noisily over the bar across the top of the bathtub. Her head jerked back and forth into the space.
"Holy fu..." she trailed off. "I'm losing my shit. I did not just see what I thought... no."
What did she think she saw? He knew it wasn't him; he'd stood behind her in that mirror a hundred times, and she'd never even caught a glimpse of his shadow there. No one could see him ait was one of the fundamental things he knew about being dead.
She threw down the towel and sprinted from the room, nearly tripping on the stairs a Patrick's heart was in his throat when she stumbled aas she ran into the living room to fumble with her telephone. Patrick raced after her , not quite sure what was happening.
"Mom!" she shouted into it. "Thank God you're there... uh, I don't know. I think I may be hallucinating." She grabbed a handful of her hair and tugged fiercely, face panicked. "Okay, okay. I was in the bathroom and saw someone behind me in the mirror."
"No shittin' way," Patrick muttered, lowering himself onto the bottom step. What the Hell was this?
"No, I checked. There was no one in the bathroom with me, and there was no way anyone could have run fast enough to get away without me seeing him... yeah, it was a him . No, yeah... no, Mom , I'm trying to tell you."
Sara took a deep breath and threw herself backward onto the couch, the springs groaning at the force. "I think it was the guy who died in this house."
Patrick jumped to his feet. "What? That's not possible!"
"Yeah, I know what I said. And yeah, I don't believe in that... how?" She groaned. "You remember that woman, Ginny, from my writer's group that I mentioned? Yeah, her. Look, I didn't tell you this before , but a boy died on the stairs... I have a photo... yeah, found it in a... just... believe me, I know. No, Jules doesn't know... she would have insisted on an exorcism or something."
He paced the room, never taking his eyes off Sara's face. She was agitated but probably no more than Patrick. This was seriously screwed up ahow had she seen him? It was impossible.
"Do you... do you think I need to call someone? No, Mom, I don't think Jules... I'm talking about a doctor . I mean, this is crazy, right?"
"Damn right, it's crazy," Patrick muttered. "This whole situation is crazy."
"My neighbor is a shrink. Maybe I should call... really? Do you think so? Well, maybe I was just seeing things."
Sara's breathing calmed, but Patrick was still freaked out. There was no question now she had seen him; he just didn't know how or why or if this was some screwed up evolution in his life as a dead guy. Maybe he was becoming an angel. Maybe this was just the way it worked a it was entirely possible that Sara needed help of some sort, and this was all part of the plan. As soon as he fixed her problem, he'd sprout some wings and fly off to Heaven . It could happen. Maybe.
"Yeah... yeah, okay. I'm just... I'll take a nap or something. Maybe I'm just tired. No, don't tell Jules ashe'll just say something stupid ... yeah, fine. Okay, thanks, Mom . Bye."
She closed her phone and tossed it onto the coffee table, craning her neck to look toward the stairs and then taking in every inch of the living room. Patrick still paced, unable to make any sense of what had happened.
"Shit, I have to go to the bathroom," Sara muttered, saying something else Patrick didn't quite catch. He did hear the end of it, which sounded like, "pee my pants."
She lay back on the couch, feet curling just below the cushion as she bunched a pillow under her head and pulled a black throw over her hips. Her jaw tense d, eyes screwed shut, but he wasn't sure if it was because she'd seen him amaybe aor because she was too scared to go back in the bathroom. Maybe both. Patrick stopped moving and stared.