M.L.N. HANOVER - Unclean Spirits

Karen put a hand on my arm. I nodded, and we walked out of the shed into the darkness of the yard. The house squatted before us, light blazing from the windows. The bareness of the kitchen was like a particularly depressing movie. Bare bulb, no furnishings, old paint. I half expected a film student in a black turtleneck to come out with a handheld camera and tell us to start improvising dialogue. Chogyi Jake followed us, and the shed door closed behind him.

“I’ll stay with them,” Chogyi Jake said. “You should go back to the hotel. There’s no food here. No beds.”

“We could sleep on the floor,” Karen said.

“It wouldn’t help,” he said.

“Ex can do this,” I said. “He’s done worse before. And he’s really good.”

Chogyi Jake didn’t answer one way or the other.

I could have stood some reassurance. In the shed, something popped and I heard Ex’s voice in a rising chant. Aubrey screamed. I wanted to go in. I wanted to stop it or help or something. Anything.

“This will take hours,” Chogyi Jake said. “Go. Rest. Only . . . be careful.”

“It’s going to be all right,” I said. I didn’t sound convincing, even to myself.

I crawled back into the car and aimed us south again, for the French Quarter. Karen, in the passenger’s seat, had grown quiet. I went through my leather pack with one hand while I drove, found a Pink Martini mix disk I’d burned, and popped it in the CD player. Their soft, eerie version of “Qué Será Será” started up. What will be, will be, I thought, whether I like it or not. I skipped ahead to “Cante E Dance.”

When Karen sighed, I knew it was a preface. I expected her to apologize. This was her fault, she’d led us into danger, and so on. It was what I’d have been saying in her place, and I had my response all planned out. We were big boys and girls, we knew the risks, and we’d come of our own free will. All the things I’d have wanted to hear.

She surprised me.

“They care about you,” she said. “Those three. You call them your staff, but they care about you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean. Sure. I guess so.”

“Must be nice,” she said, and that was all.

EIGHT

The hotel room was soaked in class and a little light starch. Crisp, white linen on the bed, a glass French press to make my morning coffee, a gold foil fleur-de-lis chocolate on the pillow. The building was old enough that I could open the window and look out on the street. A couple dozen people walked and shouted and laughed. There was music playing, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It was barely midnight in New Orleans. In Athens, I would have been finishing breakfast. In London, I would still have been asleep.

And so would Aubrey.

I had offered to drop Karen at her place or to have her stay there with us, but she’d turned me down. I wasn’t sure whether I was sorry or relieved that she wasn’t there. I stepped away from the window and turned on the television. I turned off the television and booted up my laptop. I left the laptop on standby and pulled my backpack onto the bed. Sitting cross-legged, I took out the wide manila envelope I’d been carrying since Denver. I drew out the note.

Jayné:

I suppose it’s a failure of nerve leaving like this. I hope you can forgive me. I’ve struggled with this more than you know.

I had dreamed of the day when I could come back to the life I left behind. Now that the obstacles that held me apart from Aubrey and Denver are gone, I find that there are more reasons to stay away than I had realized.

I care for Aubrey very deeply, but as I look back at the manner in which he and I fell away from each other, I can’t in all honesty say I’m sure it would be different now. I know that if I stayed, if I saw him, I would be tempted to try. The rational part of my mind says that would be a mistake. And so I’m taking the coward’s way out.

Tell him that I wish him well. Tell him that I

blame him for nothing, and that I forgive him as I hope he will forgive me.

Take care of yourself.

Kim hadn’t signed the note, but she had signed the divorce papers that went with it. She’d left them in my care, to do with as I saw fit. At first it had seemed like a gesture of trust and intimacy, and for weeks I’d put off telling Aubrey about them because I needed to decide what I thought and felt and wanted. Then after that, I hadn’t told him because I would have had to explain why I hadn’t told him earlier. Now, a thick Gulf breeze stirring the sheer curtains, my laptop fan whirring quietly to itself, the Vieux Carré outside leading its subversive, rich, wild tourist honey trap, her decision seemed monstrous. Why was this my business? Why did I have to be the one to decide whether Aubrey and Kim could learn to love each other again? It wasn’t fair to pull me in this way. It wasn’t right.

And anyway, if I did give him the papers, what would he do?

Kim had known all that. She’d apologized. And, honest to God, she wasn’t the one I was angry with. I promised myself that if Aubrey came back, I would tell him everything. I caught myself.

When. When Aubrey came back.

I took a shower, watched the talking heads on Fox News yell at each other, and waited for time to

pass. Every five minutes, I reached for the phone to call Chogyi Jake and ask for a report. Every time, I restrained myself and tried to pull my attention back to something small and innocuous. Aubrey would be fine. It wasn’t my fault he’d been taken. Just because he would never have been there except for me . . .

I picked up the phone and called Chogyi Jake.

He answered on the third ring.

“Jayné. I hoped you’d be asleep.”

“Short on Ambien,” I said. “What’s the word?”

“I’m on my way back to the hotel now,” he said. “It went . . . well enough.”

“Okay,” I said. “You need to explain that comment.”

I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke.

“Aubrey is himself again. But Marinette was very strong, and there was some violence. Ex doesn’t need stitches, but he will need at least a day or two of rest. I suspect Aubrey will too. They’re both asleep now. The house isn’t fully warded.”

“And we don’t know where the kid is,” I said. “And the bad guys have the little girl who sees through time or whatever. We’re not in the best position. Check. But Aubrey’s back?”

There was a hesitation, but it might only have been Chogyi Jake changing lanes.

“Yes,” he said. “Aubrey’s back.”

“Okay,” I said and the knot in my chest loosened. “Okay. I might be able to sleep after all.”

“Try,” Chogyi Jake said. “I’ll stop by your room in the morning.”

I looked at the bedside clock: 3:41.

“Not early,” I said.

“Not early,” he agreed. I dropped the connection and fell back into bed. I felt like shouting. By any rational, objective standard, we’d gotten our asses handed to us. Right then, it still felt like victory.

I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them, there was sunlight shining through the window and a Vietnamese maid apologizing in a voice that suggested it was my own fault for not putting up the

DO NOT DISTURB sign. The lady had a point. I made some apologies of my own, which were much more sincere, hung the appropriate sign on the door, and made coffee. Until I saw the manila envelope where it had slipped to the floor in the night, I’d forgotten my little vow to the universe.

Aubrey was back. It was time.

Instantly, I came up with several excellent reasons not to. He’d just been through an ordeal; adding to it would upset him. There wasn’t anything pressing about the divorce; I’d had the papers for months now, so what difference would a few more days make? Chogyi Jake was going to come and meet me, and it made more sense to wait until I had the straight skinny on the night’s events.