“It’s not fucking all right,” he says, rubbing his eyes angrily. “It’ll never be all right.”
He falls silent, playing with his glass.
I lean closer, my voice low. “I spoke with Paul earlier. He admitted he’d elaborated some of what he’d told you about Alice—and you know what I found in that dresser drawer? Overdue bills. Lots of them. The phone’s been cut off. The gas will be next. Things like this don’t go away if you ignore them, they just get worse and worse. How long till they lose the house? Three children to feed, only one parent working? It must be a struggle.”
“Why are you telling me this?” His voice is weary and sad. It’s heartbreaking.
“Because it’s money they’re after.” I think of Tamsin saying “My dad says when we get our new house we can have a bedroom each”and add, “Maybe even getting rehoused. All this stuff about Alice, it’s just to get their story in the paper. You were right, Sam. You were right all along.”
I’m not sure what I’m expecting. Satisfaction, perhaps. A nod, an indication of understanding. Sam doesn’t even raise his eyes to me, simply stubs his cigarette out before lighting another.
“Sam?”
“I don’t care.” He shrugs. “This isn’t about the story anymore. I need to ask Alice to talk to Maggie and tell her that I was afraid. I need Maggie to understand, Mina. I need her to forgive me.”
I don’t know how to respond.
He looks at me, eyes hooded in the dark. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I mean, put your skepticism aside for a moment, Mina. You were at the séance today. You heard those sounds at the door and the way Alice’s voice changed. That wasn’t pretend.”
“We don’t know that. Hauntings are faked all the time, it’s not impossible.”
A silence spins out as fragile as an eggshell. Sam leans across the table until our heads are nearly touching. His voice is rough, dry.
“Why are you here, Mina? Why are you really here? Can you answer me that?”
I open my mouth to tell him about my degree, the long hours of study, the weight of it on me. How I need experience, a foothold. But Sam is shaking his head as if already anticipating my excuses, swirling the brandy around in his glass.
“No, be honest. Tell me the truth, Mina.”
“Eddie,” I say abruptly, so sudden and honest I’m shocked at myself. I instinctively want to clamp a hand over my mouth but I resist. “I want to find Eddie.”
“Why?”
“To tell him I’m sorry.” My voice has started to shake. The air shimmers as tears prick my eyes.
“Sorry for what?”
Sam’s voice is soft but it still feels like hands are squeezing my lungs into knots. I inhale shakily.
“Mina,” he says, “tell me what happened to Eddie.”
So, I tell him. I tell him how the air smelled like metal, so cold it burned my nostrils. It snowed in the night and the next morning the schools were closed. We ran, Eddie and I, through the lanes and down toward Brewer’s Pond, skidding and laughing, our cheeks flushed red. I tell Sam how I saw the lake with its thick layer of glittering ice, how I ran out onto the middle of it with my heart and laughter soaring in the frosty air and how the cracking beneath my feet was suddenly too loud, the world tilting, the snap of Eddie’s voice, “Mina! Don’t move!”
I stood very still, not even daring to breathe as the ice began to split beneath my feet, cold water seeping up through thecracks, numbing my toes through the flimsy canvas sneakers I was wearing.
“Eddie, I can’t swim.”
“I know, Mina, just stay still, stay cool. Like a cucumber. I won’t let anything happen to you.”He inched out onto the ice on his stomach, cheeks glowing red, that long lick of hair he hated so much hanging in his eyes. He reached out his hand and his little voice was shaking, he must have been so cold.
“He knew exactly what to do,” I tell Sam, wiping at my eyes with the tips of my fingers. “Eddie saved my life.”
Something aches inside me, deep in the hollows. Bones and rubble. I was alone with Eddie the day he died. By that time my father had become heavily involved with the church. My mother was out walking the dog. When she came home and I told her he was gone, she said, very quietly,“Well, that’s that, then.”
When I finish the story, Sam is looking at me with a tenderness which almost takes my breath away.