Page 58 of Mourner for Hire

After a long goodbye that involved undressing and redressing yet again, I watch Dominic drive down the gravel driveway, his truck disappearing into a cloud of sand, and turn back inside to assess the absolute mess that is the only thing I can work on for the next few days until the eclipse.

There’s brown paper covering the floors. The wall paint needs a touch up. I need to install the bathroom vanity and the kitchen faucet and paint the cabinets. I also need to finish going through the closet.

The closet.

I stare at the shoeboxes of pictures stacked on the floor, absorbing the state of chaos this renovation has taken.

I can feel my blood pressure rise in three seconds.

Knowing exactly what I need to do to get back on track and complete this project, I put in my earbuds, throw on a romance audiobook, and get to work.

By the time I’ve filled the first garbage bag, the first longing glance occurs, and their knuckles brush soon after, making me want to call Dominic. The urge is aggressive and burns in the pit of my chest. I immediately turn off the audiobook and turn on a thriller.

Much better. Way less longing.

I laugh to myself. Dominic is flipping my world upside down—it is both amazing and jarring. I let out a hopeless sigh as I toss the crusted drywall mud into a garbage bag when there’s a knock at the screen door.

I whip around and see Annabelle offering a timid smile.

“Miss me?”

My throat tightens. “Yeah, I think so.”

Her quirky expression switches to concern, and she drifts through the doorway and approaches me.

“Oh, honey, what’s wrong? I thought you needed space, and I’m trying not to be a completely psychotic ghost, you know?

But turns out trying to say goodbye to everyone in this form is not working out well for my reputation. ”

I offer a helpless laugh, but something in my expression must give me away because she says, “What did he do?”

“Who?”

“Dominic.”

I shake my head. “Nothing. Or at least nothing like that. He just…”

She sighs. “He’s a good boy, Vada.”

“You’re his mother. You have to say that.”

“Correction: I am his dead mother, and I do not have to say that.”

I stare at her, my eyes focusing on the edges of her silhouette. She looks so real. The only ethereal thing about her is her expression. It’s a wistful look of hoping for tomorrow and reminiscing about yesterday, as if she has one foot on Earth and one in Heaven.

“You know what’s not fair?” I ask her, and she raises her eyebrows.

“That you aren’t hanging out with him the way you’re hanging out with me.

I just feel like he needs a better goodbye or a different goodbye.

Like, maybe if he could see you or talk to you and you can tell him everything is going to be okay and the bar will make it?—”

She lets out a melodic laugh. “That is the last thing I will tell him.”

“Why? The bar is great! I mean, I went… once.” Heat hits my cheeks as I realize I haven’t returned since I’ve been in town, mostly because I’ve been very unwelcome, but now…

“Vada, honey, I’m going to hold your hand when I tell you this: not everything has to be a success. Not everything has to go according to plan. Not everything can be written on a list and checked off when you finish it. Not everything gets finished. Not everything is completed.”

“Don’t talk shit about my whiteboard,” I warn, my voice low.

She almost smiles. “Life allows you to do many great things, but it doesn’t allow you to do everything.

Nobody ever has it all or does it all. The bar was never his dream.

He gave up his dream to have a last few moments with the last parent he had.

And he did that. He was there for me.” Her voice breaks like a wine glass held too tight, and she straightens it.

“Now it’s his turn to do what he wants.”

A tear drifts down my cheek, and she reaches out to swipe it away, leaving the feeling of ice on my face.

I clear my throat and make a dramatic spin in the room to collect myself, grabbing a random box of pictures and holding it to my chest. “I still have so much to do, and this place is a disaster?—”

“Don’t worry about the mess. Just find it.”

“Find what!?” I shout, unable to hide my complete irritation with her cryptic tendencies.

“Just find it. You’ll start remembering things and find it.”

I blink and shake my head as a tear drifts down my face. “It’s a common trauma response. My memory won’t come back. My mother died a long time ago.”

“I know,” she confesses. “I also know that is why you do this.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I read the article, remember? You said you were eight. And there wasn’t anyone at her funeral.

‘For someone as full of life and dreams, it killed my eight-year-old spirit to see only five people at her funeral.’ You said that.

It broke my heart because we were there, Vada. Everyone in this town was there.”

An angry strangle of emotion eclipses my throat. “No.” I shake my head, adamant. “No, if you were there, I would remember. I would remember!”

A gentle empathy casts over her expression. I can visibly see her restraining her response and also her sadness. “Vada… ”

“No, I remember her funeral. I sat on a black plastic chair, and my feet were dangling underneath, and the pastor went on and on about eternal life, and I was with my dad, and no one was there.”

“Sometimes our brains can construct other memories to protect itself?—”

“I know what our brains can do!” I shout, the anger I’ve suppressed finally rising to the surface.

Tears fall down Annabelle’s cheeks like broken crystals. “I don’t know what memory that is, but it isn’t your mother’s funeral. Your mother was so loved. You were so loved.”

I nod once, not because I understand but because I want this to be true despite my anger.

Hot, fresh tears rush down my face, while my heart wills my brain to believe it.

To make whatever is being told to me true.

I clench my jaw, barricading the angry sobs pounding in my chest. I absorb everything she just said, my heart breaking in muted fragments.

“I need…” I begin, trying to calm my sobs as I stand from my kneeling perch on the ground. “I need to go to bed.”

I wipe my cheeks in haste, and when I reach the bedroom, I turn to look at her one more time. She stares directly at me, icy blue eyes piercing my heart.

“It’s going to be okay, Vada,” she says softly.

I stare off into the room, unwilling to meet her gaze. I close my eyes and inhale. When I open my eyes, she’s gone.

I know I should sit with my emotions for a moment longer, but I’d much rather distract myself. Lingering on the past does nothing but make me angry for a life I lived but may never know.

Plopping down on the bed, I open the box.

I draw in a deep breath and hold it for three seconds, realizing this is all a ruse.

I came here to complete something, not get all worked up over childhood trauma I’ve made peace with.

And since we’re getting closer to the completion of the cottage, it’s time to get ready for the celebration she asked me for.

The eclipse is also getting closer, and I had the bright idea to have her celebration of life on the day of the eclipse.

I let the reality of my duties dry my tears and calm my emotions as I scour the contents of the box in hopes of finding a picture of Annabelle to use for the invite to the party.

There are a few random shots near the lighthouse.

One of Hope Rock. Some fuzzy Christmas morning pictures.

I smile at the five-year-old version of Dominic—my God, he was a cute kid.

I sort the pictures, as I’ve been doing, and then I see one that makes me stop in my tracks.

It’s of two women, their backs to the camera, running toward the ocean.

One is wearing a green two-piece bikini with her black hair in a messy, windblown top knot.

The other in a rust-colored one-piece and her blond hair flowing in the wind.

The brunette is Annabelle, I presume. And the blonde is… Well, I think the blonde is my mother.

Armed with a Diet Coke, I sniff, wipe my tears, and continue to sort through box after box of photos.

This becomes my hobby night after night until the labor is done.

Until the closet is cleared and the cottage is complete.

I dig through the boxes, finding all the things I’m looking for to fill the gallery.

It is going to be signature nineties and straight perfection.

A few days later, I bite my lip and smile as my phone buzzes with a text from Dominic.

Dominic

I think I miss you.

Me

Oh, do you?

Dominic

Yeah. So bad.

Me

I’m busy.

Dominic

Then why are you texting me ?

I laugh at the text and toss my phone on the couch without responding.

There are a few boxes left on the bottom of the closet, and after peeking inside, I can tell I’m about to be graced with some Dominic baby pictures. I already pulled the ones I’m framing for the gallery wall, but I wouldn’t mind a chubby-faced Dominic, as well.

When I open the last and final box, I expect to see Dominic wrapped in a hospital swaddle or maybe pictures of Annabelle with her late husband on their wedding.

I don’t.

Instead, I find pictures of me.

My entire childhood up until I was eight years old is captured in each four-by-six photo printed off at the local one-hour photo. My first day of school. A picture with Mrs. Nettles—her hair far less gray. Mom and me at the beach. At the apple orchard. Picture after picture.

As real as each smile is in each photograph, none of the pictures are met with memories.

I’m embarrassed to admit I’m painfully disappointed as the forefront of my mind frantically searches the recesses of my brain for anything that will make these pictures come to life.

I’ve been content with remembering nothing until this town stirred up a desire in me to remember and now, I’m looking at me, my life, my once-was, and I remember… nothing.

“Wow!” Lucy says, coming through the front door with a bag filled with my Hungry Hermit food, making me jump and shove the lid back on the box. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t,” I say then backtrack. “I mean, you did, but it’s fine. I was just lost in a…” I glance down at the box of pictures. “In a daydream.”

“Cool.” Her head bobs, and her gaze scans the almost completed cottage, her eyes climbing the ladder to the loft that reveals walls covered in bookshelves and twinkling lights.

“What do you think?” I say, standin g

“It looks so good in here and way less musty!”

I laugh at her use of words, though her description is not entirely wrong. “It’s almost done.”

“Has Dunner seen it yet?”

“No, not yet. I’m waiting until tomorrow after I put in all the final touches.”

“He’s gonna flip.”

“Yeah, you think he’ll like it?”

“Of course! It feels brand-new!” She spins around and runs her fingertips across the wallpaper. “Do you think you’ll stay here?”

“I’m sorry?” I’ve read the will, and there was nothing of the sort.

“At the beach cottage. I think you should keep it.”

A pang of longing sweeps through me. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Staying feels like a whimsical dream—a break from my reality. But the truth is, I have an apartment and a life to get back to.

Lucy smiles at the baby picture of me on the coffee table. “You were a cute kid.”

“Thanks,” I say, examining the photo as she sets the bag on the counter next to my spackle, hammer, and nails, then leaves, pedaling her heart out down the footpath.

I close the front door and look around the room. I preserved so much of this place the best I could and truly hoped Dominic would think I honored his mom. The old floors, the freshly painted walls, even the beaded curtain hanging in the bedroom doorway.

I take a seat at the bar and eat way too many prawns and crab legs, contemplating life and the near completion of this renovation.

Before my thoughts get too somber, I clear the remainder of the Hungry Hermit food into the refrigerator and wipe down the counters.

I return the spackle to the tool chest and take the hammer and nails with me to the dreaded hall closet.

With the faucets installed and the hardware fastened in the kitchen, there isn’t much left to do except clean and rid the cottage of any renovation evidence. But my mind feels too scattered to clean. It’s drawn to the pictures.

I hope you find it.

“Find what?” I ask aloud, hoping Annabelle will materialize, but she doesn’t. Apparently, ghosts only operate on their own schedule. So I text Dominic the picture I find of us.