The Ghost and the Goth

me while it happened. I coached myself across the threshold of the front door into the foyer … and stopped. Something was different.

I turned in a circle, looking into the living room, down the hall to the kitchen, into the now-empty and dusty room that had once been my dad’s study. It took me a second to realize what was wrong. All the blinds were up, the curtains drawn back. The last blaze of light at sunset poured in through naked windows, landing on the polished floor in long rectangles. Never in the last few years had she even allowed me to open the blinds, let alone opened them herself. All-day hangovers were a bitch, one that she usually medicated against. Keeping the house dim was a required precautionary measure. At times, it had been like living with a vodka-saturated vampire.

But now … I turned again in a slow circle, an uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty in the pit of my stomach. It was almost like walking into the wrong house.

Then, from the kitchen in back, I heard the familiar clank of bottles, and relaxed.

“I know it’s difficult, but you’re doing the right thing,” said a soothing female voice that drifted out from the kitchen.

That was not my mother. I frowned and walked to the kitchen.

At the table, my mother sat with her back to the doorway, and across from her was a black woman I’d never seen before. Her hair was cropped close to her head, emphasizing the lines of her face and her beautiful dangly hammered-silver earrings. They were too big for my tastes, but she pulled them off. Her skin was gorgeous, though lines by her eyes suggested she was older than she looked, maybe even my mother’s age.

As I watched, she reached over to squeeze my mom’s hand. Balled-up tissues were strewn across the tabletop, scattered between two coffee cups. My mother’s ever-present tumbler was nowhere to be seen. What was this?

I stepped farther in the room and caught the sharp scent of alcohol. Empty vodka bottles, probably the very ones I’d manipulated yesterday, now stood lined up on the counter, like good little soldiers. In the sink, my mother’s emergency backup supplies — gin, tequila, and rum — gurgled out of their tipped-upside-down bottles and down the drain, forming a potent brew. The cabinet under the sink, where she’d hidden her extra stash of bottles, stood open, and I could see nothing in there now but cleaning supplies.

A horrible suspicion formed in the back of my mind, and I turned to face my mother. She looked twenty years older with no makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes. When she picked up her coffee cup, her hand shook so much, the coffee, still steaming, sloshed over the edge. Neither she nor her visitor seemed to notice, or they were ignoring it.

My mother cleared her throat. “I want to thank you for coming over. I wasn’t sure I could …” She gestured weakly in the general direction of the sink.

The other woman smiled, revealing bright white teeth with a tiny gap in the front. “Cherie, that’s what sponsors are for, to help you through.”

No drink in her hand, alcohol bottles emptying into the sink, and … a sponsor?

“Holy shit,” I said. “I die and now you quit drinking?”

A burst of fury, white and pure, exploded soundlessly behind my eyes. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, hatred boiling up into my lungs. “Now you decide to be a grown-up?”

My mother shook her head. “It’s my fault, Angela. The …accident.” Her voice broke and she grabbed for a discarded tissue.

“You’re damn right!” I shouted.

“How?” Angela asked. “Were you driving the bus? Did you force your daughter out into the road?”

“No, but …” She hesitated.

“Might as well have.” I spun away from them and raked my arm through the bottles on the counter, intending to smash them all to the floor. Just one tipped over … and it didn’t even crack. My mother and Angela looked up, but neither of them seemed alarmed or even very startled.

Dammit. I reached out to try again and realized my arm was gone from the elbow down. Not flickering, not faded, but gone. No, no, no.

I stormed to my mother’s side. “What is the matter with you?” I demanded, a fine tremor of rage running through my body. “I was coming here to forgive you. And what, you’ve decided that you wasted enough time, wasted MY LIFE, and now it’s time to pull things back together? Fuck you.”

After that, my disappearing began in earnest. I could feel all that negative energy Killian had gone on about building inside me, dying to be released. In seconds, both arms and legs were gone, and I could feel that cold line, the one that divided “not here” and “here,” creeping up my body.

“I feel like she must hate me,” my mother whispered.

“You’re right!” I yelled, before my mouth could disappear.

“No.” Angela shook her head. “I’m sure, wherever she is, she knows you loved her and she forgives you for the mistakes you made.”

“Shut up, Angela. You don’t know me.” At least, that’s what I would have said, if I could’ve. The room had grown misty and vague. I could no longer see much beyond my mother and Angela, and even they were beginning to blur around the edges. So, this was it. I wouldn’t make it back to Will, then. My eyes burned with tears.

My mother gave a tight smile. “You don’t know Alona.” Her smile faded. “The worst part is, even if she did forgive me, I don’t deserve it.”

I froze, what little was left of me.

“Cherie—” Angela began.

“No, listen. That morning, Monday morning, I was supposed to meet Russ at the lawyer’s office. But I waited, I deliberately did not get up, did not get dressed, because I thought Russ would come. I just wanted to talk …” She broke off into a sob. “I never dreamed he would pull her out of school.”

“Did you tell her you’re sorry?” Angela asked quietly. She shook her head. “It’s too late. She’s—” “It’s never too late.”

She hesitated, then looked down at her hands folded on the table with the tissue clutched in between them. “Alona, my baby …” Her throat worked but no sound emerged. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just wanted everything to be the way it used to be, and I … I messed up. Now, it can’t even be the way it was with just you and me.” Her gaze traveled around the room, and for a second, it landed on me. Her eyes are the same shade of green as mine. It was like staring into some twisted mirror and seeing what I would have looked like in twenty years … under the weight of grief and guilt. “I am so sorry.”

I wanted to keep fighting, keep shouting, but looking at her, something tight inside me eased. My anger just slipped away, like a heavy weight I couldn’t be bothered to hold on to. Through a hazy glow, I saw Angela reach over and give my mother a tight one-armed hug.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said.

Delicious warmth spread across my skin. Huh, maybe Angela was right. It felt like I was floating in the most perfect pool on the most perfect summer day. Something about that … I frowned. It seemed familiar, as if I’d experienced it before or heard someone talking about it….

I looked up slowly, feeling almost drugged with this sudden sense of peace, and noticed the golden hue of the light surrounding me. My happily sluggish brain put the pieces together. This was it, finally! The light had come for me, and it was just as Will had described it. Will!

“Wait.” I forced myself to focus long enough to push the words out. “Wait, I can’t just leave him. He needs …”

The light intensified, absorbing everything, including whatever thought I’d been trying to convey, into a big, white, happy glow of nothingness.

18 Will

“Joonie, what are you doing?” I fought to keep my voice steady.

“You know, it took me a while to figure this out.” She pushed Lily’s chair farther in and then turned and closed the door. “I always knew you were different. I just figured it was plain old crazy, like your dad and everything.” She