The mood inside the house on Chestnut Street was considerably more cheerful than it had been moments earlier. Moments earlier, two of the people inside it had been locked in a deadly duel with household items and couch cushions.
Now, Eric Green triumphantly searched through the ring of keys he had been handed, attempting to figure out the first door he should try in the search for his loved ones.
Sunday Hendrickson, sister of his currently dead former wife and also his recent deadly opponent, sat expectantly waiting, ignoring the rubber snake binding her hands behind her back as she anticipated hearing the story of her origins and filling in the long missing pieces of her past.
T, belated party guest from New Bern and recently discovered sibling of the party crashing Sunday, stood nearby, looking towards Gail Green.
Gail Green took a breath and began to tell the story.
The facts were these:
Long before our story began, in the small town of Heartsease, Pennsylvania, through a white picket fence, a friendship had begun to grow.
On either side of the picket fence, two children were growing. The dark haired Annaliese Callahan was the daughter of an esteemed judge. The judge and his wife were well respected throughout town and their only daughter was often noted for her charming laugh and infectious smile.
Stuart Colburn only heard his given name a few times a year when his grandmother visited from Indiana. Everyone else called him Rusty, due to his shockingly red hair. His father ran the used car dealership in town, and older women on his street often remarked that Rusty had an entrepreneurial spirit of his own, as from the age of seven, he hired himself out to rake lawns and shovel snow from walkways. Most of the time he was paid partly in cookies and hot cocoa, and he didn't seem to mind, sitting down at kitchen tables to sip the hot drink and compliment the lady of the house on her decorating skills.
Annaliese had a reputation for being well behaved, but she also held a secret longing, some nights, to throw aside her parents' rules and run down hallways, climb trees in her neat school clothes, or rip the tags off of mattresses. In a fit of such rebellious angst, at the age of nine years, seven months, twenty days, six hours and thirteen minutes, she wandered away from her parents' backyard party, down the path that extended beyond the property and into the small alcove in the woods. Hiking up her party dress and splashing around in the stream, she revelled in her small but significant strike for independence.
A sound of a branch snapping startled her, and she turned, wondering suddenly about wolves and ghosts and whatever else lurked in the woods and came out on moonlit nights to pounce on disobedient little girls.
The figure who stepped out of the shadows was neither beastly nor ghostly, but awkwardly smiling as he gave her a small nod. His jeans were rolled up, and one pant leg was rolled slightly higher than the other. There was a small dot of mud on the end of his nose. Clutched in his hands was a large frog. The frog croaked.
Annaliese smiled and nodded back at Rusty. She held out her hands, her eyebrows raised.
Rusty had never before met a girl who'd wanted to hold a frog, but he'd never seen a girl splashing around a creek, muddy creek water streaking up her bare legs, with quite the same enthusiasm the girl standing in front of him seemed to have. “Be careful of his legs,” he cautioned as he passed his slippery friend to her.
That moonlit night was followed by other nights and days of catching frogs, watching clouds, conquering kingdoms and riding bicycles. Their friendship grew as they grew, and their parents, though somewhat puzzled by it, shrugged it off as a phase that would end when she started buying magazines and hairspray and he started fixing cars and lifting weights.
It did not end, but it changed as they did. In their teenage years, they committed their acts of teenage rebellion together, partners in crime. At their spot by the creek, they shared first cigarettes, a first kiss, and first plans for the future. Both dreamed about leaving their small town some day, going out into the world beyond the edge of the fence, discovering new people and places and things.
As is always the way, some day came sooner than they expected. As is also always the way, it wasn't what they expected at all.
They sat side by side on the fallen tree trunk, the letter between them, saying nothing for an eternity.
“When do you have to leave?” Annaliese finally found herself asking.
“Basic training starts in two weeks,” said Rusty quietly.
She tightened her grip on his hand, letting the letter flutter to the forest floor. He held his hand in hers, looking for once, not up at the clouds, but straight ahead.
The night before he was due to ship out, they sat together on a blanket, looking up at the stars through the trees. Rusty tried to keep his eyes from tearing up as they tried not to whisper about tomorrow. He wanted her to see him being brave. It was hard enough as it was.
Annaliese tried not to let her voice waver as she recounted the time they'd taken his father's rowboat out on the little pond at the edge of town. She wanted to leave him with funny memories of how they'd attempted to get back in after the boat had capsized and how they'd had to paddle back with their arms and legs. She didn't want him to remember having to comfort her.
In the end, they comforted each other, with as few words as possible.
“The old 'I'm shipping out tomorrow, better make this night count' thing?” asked Emily, striding into the room with a rather red faced Eric behind her. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Sunday.
“So you're the one who locked me in the bathroom. I thought it was one of these guys getting me back for telling everyone about the year of the Ninja Turtles.” Emily put a hand on her hip and continued to stare at the red head.
Sunday stared back at her, unabashed. Gail turned to give Emily a faint smile. “Glad you're alright, Emily. I'm sorry I didn't get you the shirt I promised.”
Emily shrugged. “My shirt dried in there while I tried to figure out how to break out. Well, almost. And I almost escaped. I just wish your bathroom window didn't have a straight drop down.”
“I wish your shirt had dried before I unlocked the door,” grumbled Eric.
Everyone glanced at him and he glanced down, a grimace on his face. Sunday giggled. “So come on, before the blond interrupted...”
Eric went back to examining the remaining keys as Gail resumed her story. “I was telling you how Rusty got drafted -”
“How do you know all this, anyway?” asked Sunday.
“Because,” smiled Gail, giving Eric a nod as he held one key up and took off in the direction of the hall. “Rusty ended up serving in a unit with someone I knew really well.”
Rusty and his sergeant got to be good friends quickly. They bonded because they were both small town sons hoping to make proud their fathers, both had small town girls waiting for them, and both enjoyed telling stories. The Sarge told Rusty about the pranks he and his friends played and the pranks his old man used to play before he got a respectable job as mayor and had to be more careful. Rusty told Sarge about his schemes and dreams that had often gone haywire as he tested out his various entrepreneurial projects on his small town neighbours, and how his childhood best friend had always been there, had always laughed along with him anyway.
It was Sarge whom Rusty confided in when he got the letter. He could tell Annaliese was trying to sound brave, trying not to worry him too much, but he imagined she had to be as nervous as he was at the news that he was going to be a father. Even more, because she was the one having to make the choices that would come up. Her letter just contained the news, there was no plan or decision, and he wished he could be there to help her figure it out. Sarge was sympathetic as Rusty talked about his feelings of helplessness, trying to console him that as soon as their tour was done, he could go home and be there for her.
“He always wanted to be there for you,” said Gail, looking from the uninvited guest who'd terrorized her family and friends all evening to the invited guest who'd helped her escape the locked bedroom. “All of you, though he didn't know you weren't just one baby.”
T looked moved as he nodded silently. Sunday sniffed, unimpressed at his display. “No prenatal care, huh?”
“Annaliese tried to hide it as long as she could. She knew how her father would react to a scandal like that, during an election year. I think she was probably waiting as long as she could, hoping Rusty would come back and they'd be able to face it together.” Gail paused in her story as Eric and Heather came into the room, supporting Jake between them. “Jake, honey...” she began.
“I'm fine, Mom,” he said groggily as Heather and Eric helped him into a folding chair.
Gail looked accusingly over at Sunday, but Jake continued. “Just had a bit of a fall.”
“After we realized we were locked in the basement, I thought I could come up with a creative solution, but Jake thought he could climb out that window in the corner of the room, and well, the tower of boxes he made to climb on didn't really have a strong foundation...” Heather trailed off as she caught sight of T standing in the Greens' living room. “T!” she exclaimed, bounding over to him.
T caught her in a tight hug, lifting her off the ground, and then mussing up her hair when she let go. “Chickadee! You're okay?”
She chuckled, and shrugged. “Yeah, I've been through worse. The basement's a little...”
“Heather tried to invent an escape device,” supplied Jake, who had been watching this exchange through suspicious eyes.
T grinned. “How did I know you'd be doing something like that? So what'd you come up with?”
Heather smiled sheepishly. “Well, nothing that actually worked. But I did figure out a good way to put out a fire with only a french horn and a vacuum hose!”
T chuckled, and Gail smiled over at them. “Heather, your brother climbed up the trellis and rescued me.”
Jake shook his head. “A regular knight in shining armour,” he grumbled. Eric momentarily glanced up from his next frantic search through the keys to smirk at his brother. Jake looked ready to make another quip, but he paused suddenly. “Did you say brother?”
“Oh, sorry, Jake, this is my brother T.” Heather patted T on the arm.
“You're T?” asked Jake, his face a picture of incredulity.
“Hey, if your name was Twenty-Third, you'd go by T too,” he protested.
“How did he get a name like Twenty-Third?” piped in Sunday. “And when are you going to quit gawking at non McGuyver and non Gallahad and get back to the story?”
Gail flashed her a look of reproach, but pulled up a folding chair for herself. T and Heather busied themselves brushing pieces of broken china off the couch and Emily brushed off the armchair as Eric dashed out of the room to try another key.
“Where was I?” asked Gail, more to herself than the others, but Sunday quickly jumped in.
“You were going to say why our dad was there for us, and then wasn't,” she said.
“Well, something happened,” said Gail. Everyone else was silent, anticipating what she would say next. “Rusty was killed in action.”
T, Heather, Jake, and Emily looked down, observing a moment for the sad, if belated, news of the death of Heather's brother's father. Sunday, however, cocked her head to the side. “And then what?”
“Well, I'm not sure exactly what happened next, since the letters weren't coming anymore,” said Gail slowly. “I don't know what happened to your mother next.”
Gail knew, of course, the sadness with which Johnston had told her of the passing of his friend. She could imagine fairly accurately the feeling of agony the young mother-to-be must have felt at the news, as she'd dreaded hearing news like that, in the past, and experienced it herself recently. She did not know, however, that Annaliese had crept out that night to the spot in the woods, and only in the seclusion of the trees, on their fallen log, under the stars, did she finally give in to the tears she'd held back all day.
By the time the story was recounted to the living room full of Halloween guests, there was no one left alive who had witnessed the day Annaliese told her parents, two weeks later, that she had been hiding something. There was no one left to remember how she'd stood with one hand over her slightly protruding abdomen, the other clutching Rusty's favourite baseball cap, telling her news in a voice that only wavered slightly. No one to recount the hasty gathering of belongings as the judge ranted and raved, or the teary hug his daughter exchanged with a loving but diminutive mother who offered no words of comfort, but pressed a locket into her daughter's hand in a wordless goodbye.
As for Annaliese's comings and goings over the next months, they left very little record. So little that a long lost son, searching before the bombs, was unable to dig up a scrap of evidence as to his late mother's whereabouts from the time she left her parents' house in Pennsylvania and that fateful stormy night she arrived at the hospital in Colorado. After the bombs, any evidence there had ever been was gone completely. The details of a life are seldom noticed or remarked upon by those who stumble across them anyway, so it is debatable whether anyone would have made note of a discarded bus ticket, stamped, that told of a one way trip to New York City. Perhaps one might be able to question someone living in the New York area now and find a former resident of the squat in the city's Greenwich village neighbourhood. But would such a survivor recall the face of one girl who had lived among them? There was at one point news footage of the anti-war protests that went on that year, but only one person in the world recognized Annaliese's face, in the split second it flashed across the screen, and that person said nothing at the time. Her breath caught and she blinked back a tear, not saying anything out loud at her husband's questioning look, but she turned back to the screen and her daughter had vanished in the crowd. There were, later, police logs of the night of the Eleventh Street squat's eviction, but they focused on the more troublesome tenants, and there was little mention of the pregnant girl with wistful eyes, who went quietly down the stairs and out of the building.
It is not to say she was not remembered or noticed by any. A nun in charge of the charitable donations at St. Andrew's church in Chicago held forever in her heart the reminder she'd been given, when she'd been grumbling distractedly to herself, struggling with a box, and she'd come across the girl with the sad eyes, lighting a candle in the dark corner of the sanctuary. A truck driver remembered wistfully the experience of almost feeling some small closure after fifteen years of imagining the whereabouts of his missing daughter when he stopped one evening, along the I-80 to give a ride to a girl who reminded him of her. There was also the harried mother of three, balancing her purse as her son and daughter reached around her to pull each other's hair, who remembered gratefully the joke told by a strange girl on the bus that had given her a peaceful reprieve for a moment, and the understanding smile that the girl, who was obviously on her way to motherhood herself, shared with her. Annaliese did not pass through those months without an effect on those around her, but like her life, it was an effect that was quiet, invisible by any means of record keeping or measurement.
Her last appearance in recorded history was so incomplete, it omitted her name. It was only through extensive detective work that her only son discovered a few clues to his identity.
“The hospital records didn't include a name, or much history,” said T, who had taken over the story, since Gail knew nothing of her husband's fallen army buddy's sweetheart after the letters had stopped coming for the dead soldier. “Had our birth date, weight, names of course. Though, seems there was some confusion over that.”
“Didn't include an explanation of what kind of joke she was playing on us, huh?” asked Sunday.
“There's a note about wanting to honour her wishes, but I'm not sure they understood them,” said T, trailing off confusedly. “Something about naming us after the day we were born.” He glanced over at Gail.
“I think I might have some idea of what that's about. Your mother was Catholic,” said Gail. “Rusty told Johnston, her parents were Catholic and there'd be hell to pay when they found out about...well, you know. Annaliese was a Catholic too, always talking about lighting a candle for Rusty at church, in her letters. Johnston didn't quite understand, why she'd hold onto the religion her parents held onto, when they were so angry with her, but I knew how it goes.” Gail chuckled, refraining from a joke about Catholic guilt as she glanced around the room. “But what I'm trying to say is, in that tradition, you can name a baby after a saint who's celebrated on their birthday. So, maybe she actually meant you to be named after whatever saint's day falls on April twenty-third.”
“Lucky us,” said Sunday, ignoring the reproachful looks she was now getting from most occupants of the room. “So how is it that you all managed to know all about this, but April and I didn't?”
“See, I told you!” came a triumphant voice in the doorway.
Mimi strode into the room, pointing her finger towards the seated captive and staring her down. “Look, a redhead not invited to the party! Who looks just like Eric's ghost!”
“And who isn't a ghost!” said Stanley, coming in closely behind her and motioning at the snakes holding Sunday's arms behind her back.
“So we're both right!” exclaimed Mimi, holding up her hand while keeping her eyes locked on Sunday. Stanley lightly high-fived her. “And you! You...” Mimi continued, seething in Sunday's direction. “Locking us in the closet! You are so-”
“The upstairs closet? I don't think there is a key for that one,” said Gail, glancing at Eric who had come into the room behind them, a distinctly embarrassed look on his face.
“There, uh, isn't,” he said, scratching the side of his face distractedly. “I just opened the door.”
“So, how'd you know to look in there?” asked Jake.
“I, uh, I heard them,” said Eric. Stanley chuckled and Mimi grinned, though her cheeks had gone slightly pinker. “Eric to the rescue,” she quickly said.
Sunday was surveying her former captives with amusement. “Not sure it was the rescue moment any of you wanted,” she said wryly.
Mimi cleared her throat and glared at the redhead again. “Not sure you should be saying anything. Unless you're going to tell us where our other...” she glanced around the room, making a quick mental tally. “Our other two friends are!”
“Oh, believe me, asking her gets you nowhere,” muttered Eric, giving Mimi a reassuring half smile, half grimace. He held up the key ring. “But I'm going to find them.”
As he made his exit again, Mimi looked back over at the ghost-impersonator. “And I'm going to keep my eye on you,” she warned, taking Stanley's arm and leading him to the couch, where Emily and Heather were now seated.
Stanley wrapped his arm around her shoulder and tried to fix Sunday with a stern look too. “For the record, I'm as pissed as she is,” he began. “Halloween sabotage and kidnapping our friends...not cool. But, I really want to know what happened, and Eric said you guys are telling the story.”
“We are, if you all would stop interrupting,” Sunday said with a groan. “You were just going to tell us how the hell Twenty here -”
“Twenty-third,” interrupted Heather.
“Twenty-third -”
“Actually, I go by T,” he said with a grin.
“How you somehow got to know all this stuff and me and April didn't. Unless April...”
“April didn't know,” began Gail. “Not beyond what she knew when she first visited you, anyway.”
“But, she was married to your son. How...?”
“When Eric first brought April home to meet us,” began Gail in a slow voice. “Johnston thought she looked familiar. Reminded him of Rusty, he told me later. I hadn't heard him talk about Rusty in years. Of course, we found out she was adopted, had never known her parents, and didn't know anything about where she'd come from. We had no way of knowing anything, and it would be a huge coincidence. So we let it rest, though Johnston told me he always had a funny feeling about her. So familiar.”
Gail paused to sigh, a small smile on her face. “It didn't really matter, we loved her and knew, eventually, she'd be one of our own anyway. But I think Johnston always felt that looking out for her, it was a way to do right by Rusty. Even if she wasn't really his daughter, she was somebody's daughter, without a father, and it'd be a way to give something to him, still.”
Sunday was frowning as she turned over this information. “So that only applied to one daughter, huh?” she asked.
“Well, you were a surprise to us,” admitted Gail. “April'd never mentioned you before. By the time we met you, she was more than Rusty's daughter, she was ours. And the circumstances under which we met you...you can't really blame us for reacting the way we did.”
At the look on Sunday's face, Gail continued. “Not that Johnston didn't worry about you too. He drove up to South Dakota a week later...I'm pretty sure he punched out that father that raised you.” Gail chuckled to herself. “But by then, he figured...we figured, it would be better for the two of you to stay separated. Given your track record.”
“He came out to see me,” Sunday said, for the first time showing emotion on her face. “He told me to stay away from April. That it was for the best.”
Gail for once did not have a reply as the captive curiously seemed close to tears. “You picked her,” choked out Sunday. “And now you even act like you care about the bartender, and you invite all these -” she motioned around her, “All these freaks over to your party.”
“Hey, who are you -” Emily began, but Jake interrupted with a “How come I never found out about any of this?”
“Apparently he's the only brother who did,” grumbled Sunday, looking over at T.
“How did you find out?” asked Jake, fixing him with a curious, though admittedly, less hostile look than he had earlier.
“Well, I didn't find out 'til I was older,” said T. “'Til I was out in the real world, and could use my contacts and pull some strings.”
“Just what we need, another high muckety muck,” grumbled Jake.
“He's a social worker, actually,” said Heather, flashing Jake a look before smiling over at her brother.
T nodded. “I did everything I could to put the pieces together. See, we went to three different states, through three different agencies that apparently didn't keep records in common. Took me a long time to just track down the hospital where I was born, and even longer to even realize there were more than one of us. Hospital had filed us separately. I figured it out when I came across your file, and thought it would be weird if two babies born on the same day were given such...unusual names. Then I looked through all the records from that day, and saw there were three of us born to the same Jane Doe.” He smiled suddenly, looking down at his hands, and then back up at the room. “Annaliese, I mean. I didn't know about that, 'til tonight. 'Til I started comparing notes with Mrs. Green.”
“So what did you know?” asked Mimi, who was looking curious now in spite of herself.
“Knew I had two sisters,” he said. “I mean, besides the one I already had.” He grinned at Heather, who grinned back. Sunday rolled her eyes at this display of sibling affection.
“But the records were such a mess, as I said, that I knew your first names, and not much else,” he continued. He grew serious again. “I can't believe April was just one town over the past few years and I never got a chance to know her.”
“Yeah, well, she was quite a treat,” shrugged Sunday.
“When they say trick or treat, they really mean it, don't they?” came the voice of Kenchy. It was somewhat muffled by the fact that he was standing behind Eric, seemed to, in fact, be attempting to keep the deputy mayor between himself and the rest of the room. He seemed to be trying to give off an air of bravado while at the same time, leaning on Eric and peering carefully around his shoulder to look at the 'ghost' seated in the living room.
“Look, she's real, not a ghost,” Eric was saying. Kenchy seemed to be fighting some kind of internal battle as he stepped out from behind Eric and faced the woman who had been haunting him for months.
Sunday, for her part, didn't help matters as she smiled at him and whispered “Boo!”
Kenchy took a slight jump backwards, gripping Eric's sleeve and then letting go, an embarrassed look on his face. Emily flashed him a sympathetic smile and patted the couch. Kenchy made his way across the room, not making eye contact with anyone. Mimi sent Sunday a withering look, though Stanley distracted her by kissing her temple and grinning mischievously when she turned to look at him. Kenchy slumped down beside them, as Heather and T got up to give him space.
“So where were you, Kenchy?” asked Jake, trying to show concern for his friend as he pulled back his own injured ankle to let Heather and her brother pass.
Kenchy, who was now clutching a drink Gail had passed him, glanced at Eric, who was feverishly looking through the keys in his hands. “Oh, he was in the coat closet,” said Eric, looking up.
“I didn't know we had a key for the coat closet,” said Jake in bemusement.
Gail waved a hand. “Your father installed it after the year you found all the Christmas presents in there.”
Eric chuckled at the look on Jake's face. Kenchy did not look amused. Jake shrugged. “I don't remember it being locked. But I don't remember finding the presents again the next year.”
The Greens all chuckled, and Mimi eyed them in dismay. “Eric! You still have to find -”
“I know, I'm going to find her!” he said, separating one key from the others and holding it up triumphantly. “This the last one! I'm going to find her. I'm going to find you, Mary!”
“Uh, if she could hear you, you'd probably already have found her by now,” suggested Emily.
Ignoring her, Eric ran from the room with a new sense of purpose.
Sunday smirked as he went. She suddenly hesitated as she felt eight pairs of eyes on her. “What? Don't get your panties in a knot,” she shrugged. “He'll find her and she's fine. Maybe a little worse for wear, but if the rest of you survived...”
Noticing the angry looks on several faces, T stepped forward, standing right in front of his new-found sister. “Sunday, you don't have to treat people like this.”
Sunday looked at him for a few moments, and chuckled humorlessly. “Yes, I do.” He raised his eyebrows, and she narrowed her eyes, glancing around the room. “You all think you know me, as soon as you meet me. My whole life, people would try to compare me to her. And what could I ever be, up against Saint April, the good daughter, good sister, good doctor? I tried, and I could never be that. I did everything I could, and people would still say 'You're Sunday and you don't belong.' 'You're not the one.' I wasn't allowed to be anything else. I was the bad one, the evil twin, as soon as I met her.”
Everyone was silent, but T bent down so that he was eye level with Sunday. “You don't have to be,” he said. “Not anymore.”
“I am,” she said. “Look around. Who here doesn't know that's what I am?”
“Look, Sunday,” continued T, in what Heather recognized as his social worker voice. “That's not the way things have to be from now on. You can make choices. April's gone. There's no good twin, and no evil twin. There's just you, and the choice you make, from here on out.”
Sunday stared at him for a long time, her expression frozen in something that seemed to fall between horror and rage. Many of the room's occupants were in fact holding their breath as they waited to see how she would respond. Finally, Sunday spoke in a surprisingly quiet voice. “I don't know how.”
T just nodded for her to continue. “I don't know how to start again,” she said.
“Well,” he said slowly, carefully placing his hand on her arm. “I do. I'll help you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. A general furor of questioning had rustled across the room as well, and from the look on Jake's face, it was obvious his plans for Sunday hadn't involved beginning with therapy.
“That's what I used to do, for a living. Help people put their lives back together,” said T. “And that's what I can do for you. We can go, out there, and start again. Somewhere no one knows us. And I'll help you.”
“Why?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Because you're my sister,” he said simply. Over by the fireplace, his other sister made a squeak of protest. T flashed Heather a quick look, and she remained silent, though she watched the scene with a look of worry. “What do you say, Sunday?” he asked.
Sunday was silent, and seemed to be wrestling with something in her mind.
“There's nothing left for you here,” continued T. “Let go of it. Let go of April, let go of everything you've done here. Make a choice for yourself.”
Everyone else was glancing back and forth at each other, mouthing things and exchanging raised eyebrows, but Sunday stared back at the earnest man crouching in front of her. “Okay,” she said finally. “I'll try.”
“Okay,” he echoed, smiling as he nodded.
“But you're actually going to keep your word, right?” she asked quickly. “You're not going to say you want to be my brother and then dump me somewhere out there?”
“I promise I won't do that. I'll keep my word,” he said.
The brother and sister smiled, a look passed between them, and the other occupants of the room let out a collective breath.
One occupant of the room, however, was watching the scene with teary eyes. T turned from his new found sister, and stepped over to the fireplace where the little sister he'd watched grow up stood, her arms folded, trying to appear undisturbed.
“Heather, I -”
“You're really going to go, aren't you?” whispered Heather, avoiding his eyes and looking past him at the fireplace ledge.
“She needs me,” he said simply, touching Heather's arm lightly. She looked up at him, her eyes a brilliant blue.
“And I don't?” she asked.
He gave her a small smile, but shook his head. “You don't. You're one of the most capable people I know, Heather. You're brave and strong, and -”
“And you're all I have left,” she said, fixing him with a look he remembered from when he'd first taught her to ride her bicycle.
“Look,” he whispered, motioning over his shoulder at the roomful of people who were pretending they were not listening to or watching this second private sibling moment. “That's not true. You have all these people. Friends. If they care about you as much as you care about them, I'd definitely say you've got people to be close to. You're not alone.”
Heather quickly glanced around the room, and though most were still pretending to not be listening in on her goodbye with her last living family member, Gail gave her a quick smile.
“I'll miss you,” she finally whispered, giving him the slightest of smiles.
“I'll miss you back,” he answered, pulling her into a hug.
They stood in silence for a few moments, as the living room filled with activity around them, Emily and Stanley moving to release Sunday but keep a hold on her in case she tried anything, Gail locating the broom and dustpan for the various debris on the floor, and Mimi straightening the afghan and puzzling over her sweater, found in a heap behind the couch. As Heather finally pulled away from her brother and wiped her eyes on her sleeve, T brushed a tear from his own face. “I'll try to stay in contact with you, however I can,” he said. “And I'm sure we'll meet again, some day.”
“Stranger things have happened, right?” asked Heather with a breathless chuckle, glancing at Sunday, who was stepping forward, Emily and Stanley on either side of her.
T just nodded. “Bye Chickadee,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
A few moments later, Heather stood, waving goodbye, on the front porch as T climbed into the driver's seat of his truck. Stanley and Emily had escorted Sunday to the passenger's side, and now she was seated, staring out the window and avoiding the scene on the porch. The rain was still pouring down, so Stanley and Emily dashed back to the porch, where everyone (except Kenchy who was now lounging peacefully on the couch) had crowded in. Mimi had passed them the blankets she'd brought down from the closet, and they stood with her, Gail, Heather and Jake, watching the dark haired brother and red headed sister backing out of the driveway, the strangest pair of travelling companions anyone had seen.
“What are you guys looking at?” came Eric's voice suddenly from behind them. The already squished group turned to look at him as he stood in the doorway. Mimi, who was standing closest to the door, noticed he seemed to be trying to catch his breath. “Sunday and T,” answered Emily, who was clinging to Stanley's arm in efforts to keep from slipping off the side of the porch.
“Why are you looking at -” Eric began, trying to make his way into the crowd of family and friends on the porch.
“They're going off to start a new life,” supplied Stanley. “T went to help Sunday. And if Sunday's going out in the world, I guess he's gotta protect the world too.”
“They left?” croaked Eric, trying to elbow his way to the front of the porch. “No! She needs to tell me -”
“Ouch! What does she need to tell you?” asked Jake, pressing himself against the wall.
“This last key was for Mom's room!” shouted Eric frantically, waving the key ring in the midst of his family and friends. “Mary wasn't in there, Mom and T were, and they picked the lock. I couldn't find Mary anywhere, and now Sunday's getting away!”
Before anyone could respond, Eric pushed his way through the crowd, off the porch and onto the soaking lawn. “Come back!” he shouted, running down the driveway.
“Eric, you won't catch them that -” Jake began, but Eric continued to shout “Tell me where she is! Come back!”
The rest of his family and friends began to shout to him to come back, that they would figure this out, but he ran in a fury, towards the edge of the driveway, until one voice suddenly made him stop.
“Eric!”
He turned and looked, blinking, across the lawn. From their vantage point on the porch, the others couldn't see what he was looking at, only the expression on his face as his eyes widened.
He stared at the figure emerging from behind the house, shivering in the rain and coming towards him, and then he ran towards her.
“Mary!” He was dimly aware he was shouting her name even as she was in arm's reach and he was pulling her towards him. He was nearly shaking as he held her, kissed her, and pulled her closer.
She was shaking violently, her teeth chattering, but she was beaming at him. “Eric! I'm so sorry I didn't believe you!”
“But you were right!” he said with a strange sounding laugh. “It wasn't her, you were right – and you're soaked. Let's get inside.” He kept his arms around her, trying to guide her to the porch, from which their family and friends were now shouting, some coming towards them on the lawn.
“But – but I saw her,” said Mary, gripping his arm as they crossed the walkway. “I saw her - oh it was amazing! She said she was okay, she said I'd be okay, and you would be okay....are you okay?” She reached a hand to the side of his face. He paused for a moment, looking into her eyes, thinking he could look into them forever, and they were suddenly surrounded by the others, Stanley and Emily offering their blankets, Mimi anxiously throwing out questions no one answered, Gail trying to hurry everyone onto the porch. Mary continued to look at Eric, her teeth chattering, waiting for his answer.
“I'm – I'm fine. How about you? You look like you're freezing.”
Mary shrugged. “I haven't been out in the rain that long, but it's a little cold I guess. I was in the shed for a while, and April showed me where the key was. I wanted to get out as soon as I untied the jump rope, but April said I should wait 'til the coast was clear, and we both thought it was important you get to face your demons yourself.”
“April?” asked Eric, glancing quickly to see if anyone else had caught this reference, but the others were busy hurrying them inside. “Honey, it wasn't April. It was...well, a long story, but it was her sister.”
“I know,” said Mary, in a far too cheery voice. “She hit me in the head and tied me to the lawn tractor. Part of me really wanted to get out here and kick some ass, but you know, after April came, when someone comes to visit like that, you kind of get a different perspective. Thanks,” she smiled at Mimi, who had draped another blanket around her shoulders, and stepped up on the porch, holding Eric's arm as he followed. “And, God, Eric...Tracy...she's so beautiful. And Eric, she has your eyes.”
Eric was still reeling over the first thing she'd said. “She hit you in the head?” he asked, exchanging a worried glance with his mother, who had paused, in her instructions for Stanley to go heat water for tea, long enough to hear the last exchange.
“With a pumpkin,” said Mary, nodding matter-of-factly. “But April said I'm fine. It's okay, really.”
“April?!” Eric mouthed to his mother, worrying suddenly about what could possibly have gone on in the shed that would have led to Mary convincing herself she'd instead been conversing with a ghost of her own.
“Oh, sweetheart,” said Gail, taking Mary's other arm as they finally made their way through the front door. “April wouldn't hurt you. And it wasn't her, it wasn't a ghost at all.”
“I know,” repeated Mary, as though her assertion was perfectly reasonable and she didn't understand why anyone was making a fuss. “Sunday, evil twin. Angry, likes to break things with a shovel. I know the difference between her and April. And that's who was with me, in the shed. With Tracy.”
Eric shook his head slowly, following her into the living room, trying not to wish Sunday hadn't left yet so he could toss the last pumpkin at her, when he suddenly stopped mid thought. He stared at his wife, who was now neither shivering nor laughing as she sat down on the couch, Emily and Heather having hurriedly cleared a space.
“You don't believe me, huh?” she asked in a more subdued voice.
Eric continued to stare at her, pondering what she'd said.
“Of course we do, sweetheart,” said Gail, hoping Stanley would hurry with the tea.
“We're just glad you're okay!” enthused Mimi, relieved that Mary had finally said something that made sense.
Eric sat down beside Mary. “Did you say Tracy?” he whispered.
No one else paid him any attention, as their focus seemed to have shifted to the corner of the room where Emily and Heather were hurriedly trying to get Kenchy to eat a candy apple, to mixed results. Mary, however, looked at him, and nodded, leaning closer to whisper to him, “She wanted me to tell you something.”
Before Mary could tell Eric anything more about the message from the unborn child whose name he had never spoken out loud before that evening, they were interrupted by Kenchy, being prompted, it seemed, by Gail and Emily, crouching in front of them. “How many fingers?” he asked groggily, holding up his hand.
Mary sighed, and with an expression of someone who was playing along, answered, “Two.” She answered his next questions, followed his finger with her eyes, and answered the questions Gail asked when he began mixing up his dates and place names, with polite resignation, but Eric continued to stare at her.
“And that's really all you remember?” Gail was asking.
Mary nodded. “Well, that's when she went into the house, and locked the shed. And I sort of...I don't know, I got dizzy, and then April...” she trailed off, noticing Gail's look of concern. “I know I sound crazy.”
“We know you're not crazy, dear,” said Gail quickly, patting Mary's arm and glancing from her to Eric. Looking away from them for a second, she allowed herself a moment to let out a sigh. It was, truthfully, very difficult, all this talk of her dearly departed daughter-in-law, and then she was worried about the one she still had in front of her. She told herself it was just a strange combination of head trauma and hypothermia that had got her seeing and talking about these things. That wouldn't be long lasting, hopefully. And anyway, she'd stay close by until the baby came, and after. Gail breathed another sigh, this one slightly more relieved, as she watched Mary take the mug of tea from Stanley, watched her say something to Eric, watched him nod solemnly. She wasn't sure they knew yet, but she'd known, from the beginning of the evening, and she was certain they would figure it out sooner or later.
“Eric,” said Gail quietly a few moments later, grabbing him gently by the sleeve as he passed by. He'd stood to let Heather take his seat, as she'd promised to recount the background of the triplets that Mary had missed, and was on his way to help Jake start another fire in the fireplace. Gail decided sooner would be better. “I think you should bring Mary by the clinic tomorrow...” she glanced over at the corner of the room, where Kenchy was now arguing with Jake over, it seemed, a bottle of whiskey. “Come by on the second,” she amended.
“The clinic? Oh, for God's sake,” groaned Eric. “She's not actually crazy!”
His mother only smiled mysteriously. “Just bring her by the clinic, on the second,” she repeated, stepping back over to the couch where Mimi, Heather and Mary were now putting together all the instances of sabotage from the past few months that could now be attributed to Sunday.
“She's not crazy,” Eric repeated under his breath. “How did she know Tracy's name?”
He watched bemusedly as his mother pulled up a chair and joined the conversation at the couch. He shook his head, thinking about how a half hour earlier, he and Sunday had been engaged in a high stakes battle right up against the couch, and he had despaired that he would never see his loved ones again. Now, they were talking, smiling, even chuckling quietly as they recapped the strange events. He let out a deep breath, and picked up some of the empty mugs, offering tea refills and heading into the kitchen.
Mary, from her seat on the couch, gave him a small smile as he went, but was distracted as Mimi, seated beside her, pulled a pumpkin seed from her hair.
Chuckling at Mimi's horrified expression, Mary took the seed from her. “So she just locked you in the closet, just like that?” she asked.
Mimi smiled sheepishly. “I guess she didn't have that much trouble with me, I was already inside. I was looking for candles.”
“And we were already in the basement,” said Heather. “She just locked the door on us.”
“And none of you heard Eric looking for you?” asked Mary.
“Well, I was trying to escape,” piped up Emily from her seat by the fire.
“I was trying to invent something,” nodded Heather.
“I was trying to flag someone down outside,” nodded Gail.
“I was...distracted,” shrugged Mimi as all eyes were suddenly on her. Stanley, who had come into the room with a bowl of popcorn, smirked, and Mimi grinned but didn't make eye contact.
Gail hid a smirk too. In a few weeks, she thought to herself, she might be suggesting a trip to the clinic for Stanley and Mimi.
“Well, I'm just glad all the weirdness is over,” said Mimi, taking a handful of popcorn.
“Mimi, haven't you figured out by now? The weirdness is never over around here,” smirked Jake, to a round of chuckles.
Mimi sent him a look of mock annoyance. “You know what I mean.” She flashed Mary a significant look. “No more haunting.”
“Well, there never was any haunting,” said Gail, also glancing carefully at Mary, who it seemed, was thinking about this quietly.
“But there was something, going on, all these months,” continued Mimi. “And we all thought Eric was making it up. Not making it up,” she amended, “But you know.”
“Yeah,” Mary answered quietly. She was silent for a moment, moving over on the couch so that Stanley could join them. Soon everyone was comparing their encounters with the 'ghost', realizing who had been interfering with their daily life for the past few months, and even making nervous jokes.
Eric could hear the faint laughter as he stood in the kitchen, looking out the window, and he was glad of it. Finally, the stand-off between him and the ghost was over, and he could breathe again. The rain had died down and he stood, peering out the window at the moonlit night, amazed at how much that sky seemed to have changed in the past few hours.
“It's okay to let go.”
He turned around. Mary was standing in the kitchen doorway. She offered him a small smile. “That's the message.”
“The message, huh?” he asked, as she came towards him. She nodded, coming to stand beside him. He wrapped an arm around her.
“She said she knows you loved her, and it's okay to let go,” Mary continued, looking out at the night as she talked, but then turning to look at him. “Believe it or not, but that's what I promised to tell you.”
Eric was silent for a moment, and then he let out a small, hoarse sounding laugh. Mary looked back out the window.
“I believe you,” he said quietly. She turned quickly to look at him again.
“I just never thought – but I believe you,” he repeated, hearing an emotional hitch in his voice. “She really said...?”
Mary nodded slowly. “Just remember, and remember the promise, she said.”
“What promise?” he asked.
“I don't know,” Mary answered. “I guess she thought you would know. Or maybe you will know.” She raised her eyebrows.
“I...yeah,” said Eric, smiling and kissing her forehead, deciding to just accept it for now. “I just...I can't believe...all of this happening...”
“Mind blowing,” nodded Mary. She smiled. “I know how you must have felt now. I'm sorry I didn't -”
“We were both right,” he said. “It wasn't a ghost but it was someone...and who would ever have guessed what was really going on?”
“It's a pretty crazy story,” added Mary. She let out a chuckle, pulled Eric's arm closer across her, and glanced out the window. “This night...” she sighed. “Reminds me of the stories my dad used to tell me.”
“Your dad ever tell you a story as weird as our lives?” asked Eric incredulously.
Mary smirked, but her eyes were serious. “You know, he used to say Halloween was a night to remember our dead. The power they have in our lives. And how they still walk among us.”
Eric didn't say anything, but leaned against her as they continued to look out the window. Mary was watching the last drops of water hit the glass with a solemn expression, but she laughed again. “And you know, this is all reminding me of a story your dad told me once.”
“My dad?” he asked, his lips forming a small smile.
“Yeah, he ever tell you about his cousin Bertha?”
“Cousin Bertha, no.”
“Come on, I'll tell you,” she said, shivering suddenly and taking his hand. “Somewhere warmer.”
“Okay, let's bring the tea into the living room,” he nodded with a smile. She nodded, and let go of his hand to gather several of the mugs. He made a move to follow her, but found himself looking up at the moonlit sky, out the window, once more. Wondering, again, at all those things they could never explain, but he would have to accept. Wondering just what promise he was supposed to remember.
“You coming?” she asked, pausing in the doorway, balancing the mugs of tea.
He nodded, deciding he would figure it out soon enough, and followed her out of the kitchen.
“Tracy!”
The red haired woman in the white dress was smiling as she called the name.
The little girl grinned up at her as she came to stand behind her. “She told him!”
“Well, she said she would, didn't she?” asked her mother with a laugh. She brushed a hand through her daughter's crimson curls. “You ready to go now?”
The little girl glanced towards the clouds again, but looked back at her mother.
“You know we've got to hurry, we've got that big night tonight. Dinner with all the parents.”
“All of yours?” repeated the little girl with a giggle.
The woman glanced up to where, a little distance away, a young man with hair the same colour as her own stood holding the hand of a dark haired young woman, both watching them with soft smiles. “All of mine,” she answered with a chuckle. “And his. Remember, it's a practice for the wedding.” She paused, watching her daughter. “You know, you can look down whenever you want, but we don't want to keep all the parents waiting.”
“Okay!” said the little girl, after observing the scene a moment longer. She reached up for her mother's hand, prancing along beside her. The young couple had began walking away, and the mother and daughter followed them, passing by two older men who were seated on either side of a folding table, which was strewn with playing cards. One of them put down his cards and grinned at her. “Have a good time, April.”
“I'll see you later, Dad,” said the woman with a smile, bending over to give him a hug.
“See you later, honey,” he said.
The little girl was by his side the next moment, reaching to grab the sides of his face with her chubby little hands as he leaned towards her. “Good night, Grandpa!” she chirped, planting a kiss on his cheek.
“Good night, darling,” he whispered, giving her an affectionate pat on the back and chuckling as, on her way towards where her mother was already walking, she stopped to chase a butterfly that had made its way into the clouds.
“Come on, Tracy!” called the woman, with an affectionate grin of mock exasperation. The little girl dashed towards her, and then skipped alongside her as they made their way along the misty path.
“Grow up fast, don't they Johnston?” asked the other man with a chuckle.
Johnston gave a nod. “You'll know, soon enough.”
“Not too fast, I hope,” said the other man.
Johnston shook his head. “The kids'll have their hands full for a long time.” He smiled to himself. “Though, after surviving tonight, I'm sure whatever else comes up won't seem too daunting.”
“Ah, I knew they'd make it out just fine,” said the other man, waving a dismissive hand.
“You were pretty nervous for a while there,” smirked Johnston, flashing his friend an accusatory look.
“Well, she is still my little girl,” said the other man, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender, a wry smile on his face.
“Always are, no matter how old they get, right?” asked Johnston with a chuckle.
His friend nodded. “But I knew she'd make it. And your boy. Quite the dramatic last stand, huh?”
Johnston shook his head. “Like something out of one of your stories, Patrick.”
Patrick chuckled. “Don't know if either of us ever had one as good as this one. But think of the story we have to tell now!”
Johnston laughed and nodded. “What do you say we get a drink? Toast to the kids?”
“I say I know where there's a great bottle of single cask whiskey,” replied Patrick, quickly rising from his seat.
“And you can tell the one about the llama,” said Johnston, clapping his friend on the back. “Been forever since I heard that one.”
“Long as you tell one of yours,” answered Patrick.
“But start with the llama,” said Johnston with a nod.
“Alright. Well, it was back in, I don't know, that year we had the big ice storm that broke a window in Gracie's Market. This guy comes into the bar one night, says he wants a drink, only first, do I know what he can do with the llama he's got sitting in the parking lot...”
The friends laughed as they walked along the same pathway where the couple and the mother and daughter had trod earlier. As the mists surrounded them, their laughs echoed in the night.