Believing (13 page)

But did I stop him?

I don’t even know who he is. What if the police don’t find him?

“Huh.”

Startled by Dad’s voice, she looks up to see that they’ve made it halfway down the block, and he’s gazing at a nearby cottage.

More like, at the shingle hanging from a porch post on the cottage.

P
ATSY
M
ETCALF
, R
EGISTERED
M
EDIUM
& S
PIRITUAL
C
ON-SULTANT
“I feel like I’m in California all over again,” Dad comments with a laugh.

Uh-oh. To distract him, Calla points at the patch of water visible between the houses and trees. “Look, Dad . . . isn’t it pretty?”

“Beautiful.”

“Let’s head down that way. There’s a nice little dock and benches by the water.” And it’s away from all the houses—and signs.

As they head closer to the lake, Calla can see that today, for a change, it actually looks more blue than gray. She can hear the distant hum of a fishing boat.

“Have you been swimming a lot here, Cal?”

“Not at all.”

“Why not? You always love the water.”

“Yeah, but it’s too cold for me here,” she says, not about to tell him the real reason she hasn’t gone in.

“It’s pretty cold in California, too . . . the Pacific, I mean.”

“Have you been in it?” she asks in surprise. Her father never went to the beach back in Florida. Mom, either. That wasn’t their thing.

Calla often went out to Pass-a-Grille Beach with Lisa, though. And later, with Kevin. She shoves aside the memory of him, tanned and bare chested in board shorts, diving into the warm, salty Gulf of Mexico surf with his boogie board.

“I’ve gone up to Malibu once or twice,” her father tells her. “Dan surfs, so he goes up all the time.” Dan is the friend Dad’s staying with out there. “He talked me into it.”

“Did you try surfing?” She’s wide-eyed at the thought of her father in a bathing suit, let alone on a surfboard.

“Yeah . . . tried and failed.” He laughs. “But it was actually fun. I might try it again.”

Wow. Maybe she doesn’t know him as well as she thought she did.

That’s a strange feeling. Just as it was when she figured out that there might have been more to her mother than Calla ever knew when she was alive.

Is this what it’s like when you grow up and drift apart from your family? Do you start seeing your parents less as
parents,
more as just . . .
people
?

People with quirks and faults and secrets.

A fresh sense of loss sweeps through Calla. It isn’t fair. She’ll never have the chance to be an adult alongside her mother—to be women together. She was cheated out of that.

Nobody ever said life was supposed to be fair.

Anyway, Dad’s going to be around. And she’s going to grow up, and they’re going to have to build some kind of relationship, some kind of life. In California or Florida or . . . wherever. Just the two of them.

They walk along and Calla kicks a pebble a few times, thinking the silence is awkward. She has to say something, anything, to break it.

“So, Dad . . . does Lily Dale look like you pictured it?”

“I never really tried to picture it, I don’t think. Not until you came to stay here, anyway.”

“Really?”

He shakes his head. “All I knew was that it was a small town by a lake, with long, stormy winters. And that Mom left when she graduated from high school.”

“And never looked back,” Calla murmurs. “Right?”

“Right. Calla . . .” Dad pauses as though he’s weighing his words carefully before going on. “Your mother didn’t have the happiest childhood here. Her father left when she was young, and your grandmother . . . well, I’m sure she did her best, but she’s not the most stable person I’ve ever known.”

“I know, but she’s—”

“Look, Odelia’s been great through all of this. To you and to me, too, even. That’s why this feels so . . . strange.”

“What does?”

“Being here.” He looks around, waves a hand at the row of cottages, and at the lake visible beyond. “Because I never got the feeling your mother had any intention of coming back. Even to visit.”

“Did she say that?”

“No. We didn’t talk about it.”

“Ever?”

He shrugs. “She didn’t want to and I didn’t push her. So even though I can understand your wanting to know more about her life here, I don’t think it’s something she carried with her after she left.”

Calla could tell him that he might be wrong about that, but that would only open the door to something neither of them is prepared to handle right now.

Dad clears his throat, but his voice still sounds ragged when he goes on. “I think Mom would just want you to remember her how—and where—she was when she was a part of your life.
Our
lives.”

Calla’s eyes fill with tears, and she looks down, trying hard not to cry.

“Cal, I’m sorry.” Dad stops walking and puts a gentle hand on her arm.

“For what?” She wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt and looks up. He’s blurry. She is crying, dammit.

“For upsetting you about Mom. I know it’s hard for you. It’s hard for me, too. Look, maybe . . . maybe when I go back to California, you should come with me. Forget about staying here another month or two and just—”

“No!” she cuts in. “I can’t do that, Dad! I mean, where would I even stay?”

“I’m sure we could work something out with Dan and—”

“But I can’t!” she says again, trying not to sound frantic. “I mean, I’ve got my babysitting job here now, and Paula’s counting on me, and anyway . . . I shouldn’t leave when I’m having all this trouble in math,” she adds without thinking, grasping at straws.

“What trouble in math?” he asks sharply.

Oops. She wasn’t going to tell him about that.

She quickly explains the situation, trying to make the issue sound important enough that she should stay here and get caught up on the curriculum, but not so urgent that her father will be concerned about her academics and pull her out of Lily Dale High.

“I’m already getting back on the right track,” she assures him, “so you don’t have to worry.”

“Too late. I’m worried. You’re about to start applying to colleges. You need to keep your grades up.”

College? That’s the last thing on her mind with all that’s gone on.

Back before Mom died, they used to talk about where she would apply, and the trips they would take together to visit various campuses. Mom—who put herself through a state university, then got an Ivy League MBA—wanted Calla to get into a good school. When Kevin was accepted into Cornell, Mom was probably even more thrilled than Mrs. Wilson was.

Calla used to think, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she might follow him there someday. Not because of any burning academic ambition, though. More because she was crazy about Kevin and wanted to be near him.

Well, that’s clearly not an option now. She doesn’t know what she wants to do next year.

And there’s not a whole lot of time to figure it out.

“Dad, I’ve got a great study partner for math,” she says, “and the teacher is on top of it, too. And anyway, you know it wouldn’t be good for me to start yet another new school right away. That won’t look great on my college applications either.”

“You’re right.” He flashes a sad smile. “I guess I just wish I hadn’t agreed to this plan in the first place.”

“It was a good plan. And I’m in good hands here between school and Gammy.”

“I know. I just wish they were my hands. And Mom’s.”

She swallows hard, aching, closing her eyes.

After a moment, she feels his arms settling around her shoulders, holding her close. The hug is so comforting that she just sinks into it, glad he’s here.

Then she hears him speak and is startled to realize his voice isn’t as close by as it should be.

The arms release her just as she opens her eyes to see that her father is still a few feet away, and his hands are shoved into the pockets of his khakis.

TEN

“What . . . what did you say, Dad?” Calla asks, shaken, looking around, seeing no one.

Someone hugged her. Someone invisible. Because it couldn’t have been her father.

“I said, I’m selfish. I miss you.”

Calla nods vaguely, unable to speak, sensing the presence just beside her. A comforting presence. Not like Kaitlyn’s. Or even Aiyana’s.

Mom? Is that you?

She reaches out, half expecting to encounter something— someone—solid and finding only thin air.

Are you here? Oh, Mom . . . I need you so much.

Oblivious, her father sighs. “Listen, Cal, if you came back to California with me now, we could make it work.”

That jars her enough to find her voice, and she manages to say, “I really want to stay awhile longer. Like we said. Please?”

“I’ll think about it,” he says, and the subject is dropped.

Or so it seems.

They walk a few more steps, and her father suddenly says, “That’s bizarre.”

Calla looks up to see him frowning at the shingle on the next house down.

R
EV
. D
ORIS
H
ENDERSON
,C
LAIRVOYANT
.

Here we go,
she thinks, the lingering warmth of the phantom hug evaporating.

“What’s bizarre?” she asks her father, and holds her breath, waiting for a reply.

“Two New Age freaks living right next to each other in the middle of nowhere.”

She should have known the local trade couldn’t stay hidden for very long.

“New Age freaks? Geez, Dad.” She’s so irritated at his phrasing that she forgets, for a moment, about trying to distract him.

Then, remembering that her future here could very well be hanging in the balance, she looks around and points at a bird flying overhead. “Hey, wow, is that a bald eagle? Look! They’re not on the endangered list anymore, you know.”

Her father glances up. “That’s a sparrow.”

Then he says, reading off a shingle on the next house down, “
Andy Brighton, Psychic Medium,
” and Calla realizes it’s all over.

“Andy’s a friend of Gammy’s, Dad.”

“Really.” His tone says,
that just figures.

“Yeah, and his cat just had kittens and we’re getting one— I mean, she’s getting one—in a few days. Isn’t that cool? I’ve always wanted a pet.”

“Mmm-hmm. So he’s a medium? What does that mean, exactly?”

“Oh, you know.”

“No,” her father says evenly, “I don’t.”

“He . . . helps people.”

“By doing what?”

“I don’t know.” That’s sort of the truth. “I mean, I’ve never seen him do it.”

Her father looks around, rubbing his chin.

Then he says, slowly, “Is it just me, or are an awful lot of people around here . . .”

“New Age freaks?” she can’t help but say when he trails off. She’s feeling prickly—and defensive—so she clamps her mouth shut before she really shoves her foot in and ruins everything.

“You said it, not me,” he tells her with a shrug, then admits, “this time, anyway.” He smiles faintly to show her he didn’t mean anything by it.

Deciding to forgive him, Calla says, “Yeah, there are a few mediums around here.”
Okay, dozens, but who’s counting?

“That’s interesting.”

He really does seem intrigued. So much so that Calla suddenly decides to take the opposite tack, thinking maybe it’s better to enlighten than obscure the facts.

“Well, over a hundred years ago, Lily Dale was actually the birthplace of the spiritualist religion, you know, so . . .”

“So these mediums have been hanging around here for, what, a hundred years?” he asks with a grin.

She can’t help but smile back. “I guess so.”

“What do they do? Have seances and read crystal balls?”

Calla can’t help but notice that he sounds pretty ignorant . . . and exactly like she did on her first day here.

Again, she realizes how far she’s come in such a short time. How Lily Dale’s extraordinariness now feels incredibly ordinary.

To her father, aloud, she says only, “I haven’t had readings with any of them, so I don’t really know what they do.”

Which is the truth.

And he seems satisfied, because he changes the subject to what kind of fish are found in Cassadaga Lake.

“I don’t know how long it’s been since I last went to a movie,” Odelia comments from the front seat beside Calla’s father as he drives along Cottage Row late Saturday night. “That was so good. Thanks for asking me to join you two, Jeff.”

“You’re welcome. And maybe next time, I won’t have to practically drag you along.”

“Well, you know, it’s past my bedtime.”

Yeah, right. In the backseat, Calla smiles. She knows why her grandmother was so resistant to the invitation—she wanted Calla and her father to spend time alone together.

But that’s the last thing Calla wanted tonight. By the end of the day spent walking around Lily Dale, eating lunch and doing some shopping together down in Dunkirk, she had run out of things to say to her father. He did think to ask if she needed any clothes when they passed a T.J. Maxx store, and she admitted she could use a couple of sweaters and a warm coat.

But shopping with her father isn’t the same as shopping with her mother. Mom used to come into the dressing room with her and check out everything she tried on. Dad milled around looking bored while trying to be patient.

In the end, Calla chose only one sweater and an inexpensive down coat, feeling guilty about making him spend any money on her though he kept asking if she was sure that was all she needed. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him she desperately needs more clothes and a haircut. Not that she thinks he’s so broke he can’t afford a haircut, but she dreads the thought of dragging him to a salon on the heels of shopping.

She still isn’t used to being a twosome with him. It’s not that it’s awkward, necessarily. More just . . . depressing. And a little tense, at times.

Maybe Dad feels the same way, because he was pretty insistent about bringing Odelia along tonight.

First they saw a hilarious movie, then they went to dinner at Rocco’s, a cozy, crowded Italian restaurant in nearby Fredonia. The conversation flowed easily over calamari and fettucine. Odelia had them laughing as she told stories of her daily adventures—somehow managing to leave out any hint of what she does for a living. She was great company, as always.