Lisa Unger - Darkness My Old Friend

What Eloise did believe in was energy. Energy cannot be destroyed; it can only change its form. So life, as the ultimate form of energy, must find another shape, another dimension, when the body dies. She believed in a net that connected everyone in the universe to everyone else, living and dead. Something had happened to her during the accident, or in her coma, or maybe in the moments where she’d been closest to death, that altered her biochemically, turned her into a receiver of energies. She still did not necessarily believe in God or the afterlife. People often found that odd. Coming to her for solace, they didn’t get what they expected. They found her cold, left her disappointed. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t a regular talk-show guest.

“Eloise?”

Ray was standing over her. He was accustomed to finding her in odd places-once in the shower with her clothes on, once in the basement closet, often on the kitchen floor. You’re like a cell phone. Sometimes you have to move around to get the best signal , he’d said once. That probably made sense.

“I saw Marla Holt.”

Ray gave her a hand up from the floor. She was wobbly on her legs for a second, so he helped her over to the couch.

“She asked if I’d let this one go.”

“Maybe we should.” This was not like him, a complete reversal from their last conversation. Ray was not one to let things go.

“I’m at a dead end,” he said. “The next-door neighbor, Claudia Miller, was the last person I had to talk to, but she’s not talking.”

Eloise remembered what Marla had said about her “flirtations,” her “dalliances.” She recounted this for Ray.

“What does that mean? Did she have an affair or didn’t she?” He sounded irritated with Eloise’s apparition. Which was irritating to Eloise.

“How should I know?” she asked.

He released a long breath, leaned against the couch, and tilted his head back. “I had one last idea,” he said.

Oliver sauntered into the room and made a graceless leap onto the coffee table, nearly slipping off the other side and then catching himself with a last-minute shift of weight. The magazines on the table- Time, Newsweek, TV Guide -all fell softly to the floor. Eloise let them lie. Oliver regained his composure quickly, began glaring at Ray.

“That cat is fat,” said Ray. Ray was a powerfully built man, big in the shoulders and the middle. No one would accuse him of being svelte. Eloise suppressed a smile.

“Beauty comes in all sizes,” she said. Oliver started to purr, daintily licking his paw. The clock on the mantel chimed the quarter hour.

“Let’s go to the Chapel,” Ray said. He turned to look out the window.

She followed his gaze. “It’s raining.”

“Wear a raincoat,” he said. “When’s the last time you left the house?”

It had been a couple of days since she’d gone to see Jones Cooper. Sometimes this happened; she didn’t leave the house for a while. Then she didn’t want to leave. Then she was almost afraid to leave, couldn’t think of what to wear that would be acceptable to other eyes. Sometimes she was afraid she had forgotten how to talk to people, real people, not ghosts or holograms or whatever they were, or herself.

“Last-ditch effort,” he said. “If you don’t get anything out there, you’re off the hook. I’m going to tell Michael Holt he’s going to have to keep pushing the Hollows PD. I don’t have those files, so I don’t know what other leads they had back then. Your visions are vague at best. We move on, like you said. There are other people waiting who maybe we could help.”

It had been raining since the early afternoon. It was coming down harder now. On the news they’d said it wouldn’t let up for the next three days. She rose from the couch and went to the hall closet, with Ray and Oliver following behind. She put on her hideous yellow slicker and matching rain boots.

“Good,” said Ray.

The only thing that was motivating her to do this was the hope that it would be their last involvement in the case. Marla Holt had asked her to let it go, and she wanted to do that. She didn’t want to tell Ray what Marla had said about Michael. She didn’t know why. But if there was one thing she’d learned in her old age, it was to follow her instincts.

Jones walked into his house and closed the door. He felt a heaviness settle on him, a low-grade despair. The Hollows PD was probably reopening the Marla Holt case, on his advice, and that left him where? He didn’t know. Chuck hadn’t said, Okay, I’ll call you and let you know what we find . He’d said, Thanks for doing this, Cooper. Stop by and we’ll get you a paycheck . Jones knew that it was nothing personal. Budgets had been slashed. They could afford a few hours from him, but probably not much more. Still. He was itching to get up to that dig site, had half expected to be invited.

He hung his coat in the closet, heard Maggie making lunch in the kitchen. This had been their habit for many years, even when he was on the job. They met in the kitchen for lunch, if they could. Unless one of them was busy with work. Or unless Maggie was mad at him. He hadn’t expected her to be waiting for him today. But there she was.

He walked into the kitchen. When she didn’t look up at him from the soup she was stirring on the stove, he went to the pile of mail on the counter, starting sorting. Bills, catalogs, advertisement postcards. Was there ever anything good in the mail anymore? Seemed like everything important or timely came over the phone or by e-mail. No one wanted to wait days for letters to be delivered anymore. Everything was now, now, now.

He walked over to his wife and wrapped his arms around her, kissed her cheek. “Still mad at me?” he asked.

He felt her body soften against him. In the glass of the microwave oven door, he could see her reflection, the reluctant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” he said. “I’m struggling with this, Mags.” He held her tighter.

“I know you are,” she said. She still stirred the soup. “I’ll try to be more patient.”

He breathed onto her neck; she’d always loved that. “I rescheduled my appointment with the doctor.”

She put down the spoon in her hand and turned in to his embrace, wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I’m so glad,” she said. It sounded like she might cry. “Thank you.”

But when she pulled back to look at him, she was smiling. It was that smile, warm and proud, which had always motivated him to be a better man. It was the gold medal, the mark of highest personal achievement. When they were younger and first in love, he saw it every time she looked at him. She could see something in him then that he hadn’t seen in himself. And he strove every day to be that man. In the years they’d shared, he hadn’t always succeeded. Sometimes he’d failed miserably.

He made the salad while she finished the sandwiches and poured the soup into red stoneware bowls. Then they sat at the kitchen table as the rain tapped at the window beside them. Over lunch he told her about everything that had transpired that day, even how he was feeling about it.

“So go up there,” she said when he was done.

“They didn’t ask me,” he said.

“So? You’re the one Bill Grove trusts. He asked you to make sure they respect the land. It’s your responsibility to make sure they do. If you’re going to be doing this kind of work here in The Hollows, people need to trust your word.”

He loved his wife. “Good point,” he said. “You’re right.”

She gave a quick, self-satisfied nod and got up to clear the table.