I leapt to my feet, stared at the message as if it might disappear if I took my eyes off it. “Oh my God.”
Mick turned. “What?”
“Lorena. My wife. I think she’s—”
I punched the number, pressed the phone to my ear and jammed my finger in the other. The ring sounded so far away. Two rings. Three, and then to voice mail. A woman’s voice—a low, throaty timbre.
I left a frantic message for Summer to call me back as soon as possible. With Mick standing beside me I Googled Summer Turnbull, hoping to find her address. My heart was drumming. Every moment it took to find this woman was going to be excruciating. Was it possible? Was Lorena back, or at least her voice?
My phone rang.
In my eagerness I lost my grip on it, sent it clattering across the floor. By the time I retrieved it, it was on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
Mick sidled up to me and pressed his ear near the phone.
“Hi. You just called me?”
“Hi,” I said. “This is Finn Darby.” I didn’t know what to say. “I—. You—.”
All of the strength drained from my legs and I slid to the floor. It was her. I remembered the exact moment she uttered those words. “Lorena?” I whispered into the phone. “Can you hear me?” I knew she could. Just as Grandpa could hear all of this, because now I knew with perfect certainty that this was no delusion, that my grandfather was really and truly possessing me.
Mick stood over me, his face questioning.
“It’s Finn,” I whispered to Lorena. I almost expected her to answer, to storm her way out and blurt my name.
“Who are you talking to? Who’s Lorena?” Summer demanded, her voice shaking.
“She was my wife. She died two years ago, on the Chattahoochee River.”
Summer’s breath hitched. “I don’t understand. What are you saying? Are you trying to say I’m
Mick handed me a glass filled to the brim with scotch. I nodded my thanks and took a lavish gulp. Nothing would ever be the same. I felt like I’d been pulled inside-out. “I’m sorry. That’s what I’m saying. The same thing is happening to me, and to all those people on the news. I’m pretty sure we’re all possessed.”
She tried to speak, but couldn’t. I waited patiently while she got hold of herself. “Well, can you please tell your wife to
It was hard to think of Lorena terrifying someone, even when she sounded like she was speaking from the bottom of a swamp. But I knew what it was like to have the voice. It had scared the hell out of me, too.
“I’m sorry. I know what you’re going through.” I felt guilty, because I wasn’t sorry—I was elated. I’d found Lorena. Maybe I’d be able to speak to her eventually. There were so many things I wanted to say. “Look, can we meet? I know how hard this is for you, but…” I left it hanging there.
“What was that?” Summer asked.
“A fellow sufferer. Friend of mine,” I said.
“Oh.”
I waited, hoping Lorena would say something else. Summer was probably a week or two behind us, like most of the afflicted, so Lorena probably didn’t speak often. Yet.
“Look, can we meet?” I repeated.
She seemed hesitant. “Will you help me? Will you try to get her to leave me alone?”
“I’ll try. But she’s just echoing things she said when she was alive. I can’t have a conversation with her.” Not yet, at least.
“But if I meet with you, you’ll try? That’s all I’m asking.”
I said I would. What else could I say? I’d been focused on the possibility of talking to Lorena; I hadn’t considered how the person she was haunting would feel.
Mick wanted to come along, but I told him I needed to do this myself.
“How do you know it’s her? What was that she said? ‘All that for a kiss?’”
“I’ll explain when I get back,” I said as I swept up my keys.
I was in my car, MapQuest directions to Summer’s apartment in hand, when I saw that Summer’s apartment was up near the Chattahoochee River where Lorena had died. It might be coincidence, but maybe the dead ended up inside people who were near the spot where they died. If it was all about location, though, how did I end up with my grandfather haunting me? There was more to it, but maybe proximity was one piece.
It was dark, and raining, and I drove too fast. I pounded the steering wheel at red lights, which stayed red for eternities. I thought about what I wanted to say to Lorena. I’m sorry? I’ve never stopped loving you? I took your advice on
I jerked along Paces Ferry, watching for the turn into Summer’s apartment complex. When I spotted the faded, pockmarked sign for Park Place Apartments I flew into the parking lot, bouncing through potholes. It was an immense complex, all concrete and blacktop. The unit two doors down from Summer’s was boarded up, the steps to the front door missing. I parked next to a dumpster that had a warped mattress and box springs leaning up against it.
Summer opened the door before I knocked.
We stared at each other for a long, frozen moment, each of us trying to make sense of what couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.
It was the waitress from the Blue Boy. My pounding heart found a higher gear.
“You,” she whispered. “You’re the cartoonist?” The circles under her eyes were so dark it looked like she had smeared her mascara. Fear and exhaustion looked as if they had taken up permanent residence on her face since we’d last met. “What the hell is going on? You—” she closed her eyes, squeezed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, trying to pull herself together. “The last time I saw you, you told me it wasn’t contagious, but now I have it. Whatever it is.”
I waved my hands. “Hold on. I didn’t give it to you.”
Summer laughed, a little hysterically. “But it’s your wife who’s inside me. Isn’t that what you said?”
“I know. I can’t explain that, but this isn’t like a virus where you can sneeze and pass it on.”
Summer studied me for a minute, then turned, drawing the door open to let me in. There were tattoos behind her ears—Chinese characters.
The living room was scattered with kids’ toys—a stuffed dog, big Tinkertoys, a plastic train big enough for a toddler to ride. In the corner two sagging particleboard book shelves were crammed with books of every shape and size. It was mostly New Age stuff—
I gestured at the room. “You have children?”
Summer nodded. “A daughter.” She lifted a scruffy brown teddy bear from the couch, set it aside, and sat down. She seemed to be all knees and elbows. “When the voices started I sent her off to stay with her father in Savannah. She’s only four; I don’t want to scare her.”
“I understand.”
