Hush
Eight
Note: Sorry about the long time between updates. I went home and saw my family for the first time in almost a year! And then I got sick near immediately. And then I got sick again somehow? I'm pretty sure it had something to do with all the gross airport-ness during layovers and the recirculating air on 12 hour flights. Maybe.
At any rate, I'm going to switch from my ideal three updates a week system to a more sensible two updates a week system for the time being. So expect new material on Tuesday-ish and Friday-ish instead.
As a warning, this chapter is basically the length of two chapters. I couldn't find a good place in the middle to split it up, so things got pretty lengthy. The next chapter should be shorter and hopefully clock in at around 2,500 words. I make no promises though.
My Saturday was off to a bad start.
First of all, not telling Jesse I was pregnant was going to go down as one of my worse decisions. Or at least, that was what I was thinking as I hugged the toilet downstairs in the bathroom that used to belong to Mom and Andy. In the year and a half since we'd moved back in, we'd turned the space into a guest suite. Whenever Mom and Andy visited and didn't want to stay at Snail's Crossing, they stayed with us in the room they used to inhabit.
Right now, the only person inhabiting it was me though. And that was only because if I started puking in the bathroom upstairs, Jesse was going to get suspicious. And if Jesse got suspicious, he'd probably realize that I'd been lying about how I wasn't lying to him anymore. We would most certainly fight, and he would do his best to get in my way of punching our ghost robber, Alexa, right in the face.
Second of all, I wasn't going to be able to stay at home and lounge around and be nauseous at my own leisure. That just wasn't how a mediator's life operated. Because after Jesse and I had finished making up for what Father Dominic's phone call had interrupted yesterday, I did a little more snooping on our ghost.
More specifically, I went on Alexa Vanguard's Facebook page. I hadn't been on Facebook in ages, which meant I had to wade past a sea of notifications, friend requests, messages, and invites to play Candy Crush in order to make it to the search bar. We could've started our research on Alexa with someone in her obituary, her parents or her younger sister, but I had a hunch that they weren't going to have the answer we were looking for.
Because if Alexa's parents had the money to send her to Robert Louis Stevenson School, then they wouldn't need the funds from Alexa's jewelry heists. And since Alexa was dead and couldn't be using the money herself, she must have been taking it for someone else. Despite what horror movies might have people believe, most ghosts didn't get it into their heads to wreak havoc just for fun. There was typically a method to their madness.
So I took a stroll through her Facebook friends to see if I could identity anyone who looked like they might have come into wealth recently. And that was when I found Patrick Harrison.
I'd looked at his profile because he was wearing a shiny new watch on one of his wrists, something that was at odds with the fact that he'd gone to California State at Monterey Bay and Carmel Valley High School before that. People in Carmel who had money did not send their children to CVHS, on account of the fact that it was full of gangs, or at least it was full of gangs according to my mother. Personally, I doubted the prevalence of street gangs in Carmel, but parents, particularly conservative ones, were always on the lookout for the next moral panic.
After Patrick's stint at California State, he went on to become a web designer in downtown Monterey. Careers in the computer science industry probably made pretty good money, but, judging by the watch he was wearing, he would've needed engineering money before he could've afforded it.
And once I actually clicked on Patrick's profile, whose privacy settings were just as bad as Alexa's, I found out what ruined any possibility of relaxing.
There was picture after picture of the two of them together, and they dated back over a decade. There was a photo of him at his high school graduation with Alexa standing beside him while he wore his CVHS cap and gown. There was a photo of the two of them from his college years, when he'd grown an unfortunate mustache, and she apparently still didn't leave him because of it. There were photos of the two of them, more recent ones, where Alexa had lost her hair from chemo and Patrick had shaved his own head in solidarity. There was another photo, with only Alexa in the picture, dated back a little over a year ago and captioned with "She said yes."
But despite how deeply entwined Patrick and Alexa's Facebook profiles were, there hadn't been a single mention of Patrick, Alexa's apparent fiance, anywhere in her obituary.
Between that and the wrist watch, I felt like paying Patrick a visit up in Monterey was the most sensible mediator option I had. Even if the thought of working did nothing to curb my nausea.
Once my desire to vomit lulled, I flushed and turned to face the third reason my Saturday was off to a bad start: I was no longer the only person inhabiting the bathroom.
"Suze?"
It wasn't Jesse. First of all, Jesse never called me Suze. Second of all, Jesse wasn't a ghost anymore. It wasn't Francesca Powell either though because, third of all, neither Jesse nor Francesca Powell had ever had an ombre bob, to my knowledge.
The ghost standing in front of me was none other than the ghost I'd talked to a few days ago with the triplets, the likely victim of some sort of accident.
"Sorry to tell you this, but I still haven't been able to find anything else out about you," I said.
This was only sort of true. I hadn't found anything else about her, but that was mostly because I hadn't bothered looking since I'd seen her last. It was sometimes necessary to prioritize ghosts, and the homicidal ones always got my attention first. It wasn't fair to the lost soul standing in front of me, but it was a logical system that I didn't plan on ditching anytime soon.
Instead of getting frustrated with me or dematerializing, the ghost said, "That's OK. I came to you because I found out something about myself."
"What'd you find out?" I asked as I made my way over to the sink to wash my hands.
"Just about everything," she said proudly.
It was that answer that wound me up in the passenger side of the Land Rover a couple of hours later, with Jesse driving and the triplets in the backseat, ready for another lesson in our How to Mediate a Car Crash Victim series.
The triplets hadn't been too excited about the prospect of lessons on Saturday, even if it was a field trip, and so I had given them candy to placate them. This was a mistake. I could tell that it was most definitely a mistake by the way that they'd decided that, instead of listening to the radio, they wanted to become the radio themselves, and were currently belting every song from Frozen at the top of their seven year old lungs.
Halfway through another reprise of "For the First Time in Forever," Mopsy stopped singing and started speaking instead.
"Aunt Suze, Uncle Jesse," she said. "Where are we going on a field trip to anyway?"
"State Route 1," I said.
"What's that?" Cottontail asked.
"The highway. You guys remember that ghost we talked to last lesson?" I asked. "I was talking to her this morning, and it turns out that she did die in a car accident. It just hasn't been reported yet."
"How come?" Flopsy asked.
"Because no one's seen the car. And the ghost doesn't know exactly where she crashed. So we're going to find the crash site ourselves."
"Is there going to be a dead body in the car?" Mopsy asked.
I didn't answer right away. A decomposing corpse was definitely going to get in the way of what my idea of a kid friendly mediator lesson entailed. I'd seen enough crime shows to know that a lot of maggots were going to be involved. And probably vultures.
Thankfully, Jesse stepped in to answer Mopsy's question for me. "If the ghost remembered waking up underwater, Emily, then her body is probably somewhere in the ocean."
Mopsy did not seem satisfied with this answer, and neither did Flopsy or Cottontail. Apparently, seeing a dead body would have been "really, really, really cool." They didn't spend more than a few minutes pouting, however, because they returned to singing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" with a level of zeal only achievable by children on a sugar high.
There was no further conversation in the car until we were cruising along State Route 1. That was when I decided that, if the triplets were going to learn anything from this "field trip," I'd better start explaining in more detail.
After I'd gotten their attention and they'd stopped singing, I said, "Sometimes being a mediator means having to go out and do fieldwork in order to make sure a ghost gets to wherever they're supposed to be going. That's what we're going to do today. Our ghost came by to tell me a lot more about herself this morning. For starters, her name is Elena."
"Elena," the triplets repeated experimentally, as though they were trying to taste the name on their tongues.
"Elena," I confirmed. "And she was going on a road trip by herself when she fell asleep at the wheel and lost control of her car. Why do you think she hasn't been reported missing yet?"
There was nothing but silence radiating from the backseat of the car. I took a look in the rearview mirror to see the girls, looking interested but also confused.
"I'll give you a hint," I said. "Road trip by herself."
When there was still no answer from any of the triplets, Jesse spoke up. "If Elena was traveling by herself, and no one expected to hear from her, would someone know that she was missing?"
"No," said Mopsy. "Everyone would just think she was having fun away from home."
"Exactly," Jesse said.
"Do I get more candy 'cause I knew the answer?"
A fight broke out briefly in the backseat over the possibility that Mopsy would get more candy without having to share any of it.
"No one is getting more candy," I said loudly, which caused Cottontail and Flopsy to quiet down and Mopsy to frown and slump slightly in her seat.
"Back to Elena," I continued. "No one thinks she's missing yet, so no one's looking. And no one's going to find her because she and her car are both somewhere underwater right now. But Elena does remember some stuff about where she crashed. She'd passed a gas station a few miles back. She'd just seen one of those memorial spots where people put flowers on the highway for someone who's died in an accident there. And the place where she crashed overlooked water. So what do you think we're doing out here now?"
The silence from the backseat this time was pointed instead of confused.
"No answers unless there's candy for answers," Mopsy said.
Flopsy and Cottontail quickly agreed.
I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes. "No more candy," I said. "But if you get this question right, we'll stop at a park on the way back for a little while."
I watched as the triplets silently tried to figure out if time at the park was worth giving up on the pursuit of more candy.
Eventually, Flopsy said, "Deal."
And then Cottontail said, "We're looking for a place on the highway with all that stuff you just said. Flowers and a gas station and water and stuff."
"Bingo," I said.
Instead of launching into celebration about the trip to the park they earned, they resumed their choral activities with a rousing rendition of "Bingo Was His Name-O."
By the time we were several miles deep into the highway, "Bingo Was His Name-O" became "Shake It Off," and the triplets were in a contest with each other to see who could shout "this sick beat" the most emphatically.
In my opinion, Flopsy was winning, but I wouldn't have dared to tell them that. Instead, I followed the progress of the car on Google Maps on my phone. State route 1, better known as the Pacific Coast Highway at parts, was notable for the fact that there were plenty of points along it where gas stations were far and few between, and, fittingly, it would be a couple more miles before we hit the first one.
It took us another hour to hit three more gas stations, and none of them fit all of the criteria Elena had described to me earlier. Furthermore, the triplets had become bored, restless, and were demanding obscene amounts of candy to compensate them for the fact that they couldn't think of any more Disney songs to sing. It hadn't been more than an hour and a half since we'd all pulled out of Brad and Debbie's driveway, but Jesse and I could both tell that any chances the day had at continuing to be a fruitful mediator lesson were long gone. So I stopped using my phone to look up gas stations, and I started using it to look up nearby parks instead.
Not only would a trip to the park be in line with what I promised, but it would also help burn out whatever sugar remained in their systems before I took them back to their house.
Once we'd stopped the car and unlocked the doors, they took off out of the backseat like a shot, screaming and making a beeline for the jungle gym.
Jesse and I got out of the car, much more calmly, and headed off for one of the park benches that was effectively designated for parents (and babysitting step-aunts and uncles).
I leaned my head on Jesse's shoulder to savor the lack of Frozen songs and the feeling of the warm California sunshine on my face. I wish he would've brought a book with him, so he could've read to me. Before the clinic opened, he'd sort of been reading A Hundred Years of Solitude, or Cien años de soledad, to me. I say "sort of" because he was reading it in Spanish, and I had to stop him every now and again because I had no idea what was going on. I also say "sort of" because Jesse reading aloud in Spanish might as well have been foreplay. There was only so much reading that was going to get done before other, more fervent activities took place.
With my eyes half closed, faintly watching the girls as they left the jungle gym and tried to swing hard enough to, presumably, wrap themselves over the bar of the swing set, I was surprised to hear Jesse's voice.
"When do you want to start?" he asked.
"When do I want to start what?"
"Filling up all of those bedrooms back home," Jesse said. "We should start our own family."
I hesitated before I answered. This was the part where I was supposed to tell Jesse that the process of starting our own family was already underway. This was the part where I was supposed to reveal to him my actual diagnosis of my trip to the doctor a few days ago.
But when have I, Susannah de Silva née Simon, ever felt compelled to stick to the script?
"We already have our own family," I said. "You, me, and your baby."
"My baby?"
"Spike. How could you forget about him?"
"Right. Spike. How could I have forgotten? But I was thinking more along the lines of human children, querida."
He was smiling at me, in that lopsided manner, and I felt gripped by the urge to tell him everything.
I opened my mouth to speak, to tell him what I'd found out a couple of days ago, but as soon as I did, I heard very pronounced screams from the triplets as Mopsy released her grip on the chains of the swing and began to fly through the air.
Jesse and I swore with the same word simultaneously, me in English and him in Spanish, and rushed over.
As it turned out, twenty minutes later with us all piled back in the car and the energy level considerably lower, flying off the swing from as high as your seven year old body would take you resulted in skinned knees. Jesse gave her a stick of gum to blow bubbles with while he bandaged her up, and then we were headed back to Brad and Debbie's.
"What did we learn today?" I asked, as we pulled into the driveway to the triplet's house nearly a half hour later.
"Being a mediator is stupid," Mopsy said.
Instead of agreeing with her, like I wanted to, I said, "Sometimes there are boring parts to being a mediator. But you still have to do them."
None of the triplets agreed with me on this before they opened the car door and took off for the backyard. They passed by both Brad and Debbie on their way. Debbie was wearing her attire for hot yoga, a pair of leggings, a sports bra, and a towel around her neck.
"Thanks for looking after the girls for a little while," Brad said after he and Debbie made their way over to the Land Rover.
"It's nothing," Jesse said. "But Emily jumped off of the swing set today at the park, and she has a few bandages on her leg. It's not serious, but you'll want to change them tonight and apply some more Neosporin to prevent infection."
Brad nodded at that, but Debbie frowned.
"What about garlic?" she asked.
"What about garlic?" Jesse asked confusedly.
I tried not to facepalm as I realized that Debbie was opposed to Neosporin. Of course she was. It wasn't natural enough for her if she couldn't have gone to the farmer's market and picked all the ingredients herself.
"Can't you use garlic instead of Neosporin?"
Jesse said, in a very patient tone I knew was part of his bedside manner for his patients' more stubborn parents, "As a doctor, I would highly recommend Neosporin."
Debbie didn't look convinced though, and I was betting that Mopsy was going to smell like vampire repellant at our next meditation lesson.
"You guys want to stick around for lunch?" Brad asked.
Debbie glared at Brad without so much as bothering to be subtle about the fact that she loathed spending any more time with me than was absolutely necessary.
"We've actually got some plans of our own already," I said. "But thanks for the offer."
Likewise, Debbie didn't bother to mask her look of relief, and, as we peeled out of the driveway, I saw her swat Brad on the arm in a manner that clearly said, "What the hell were you thinking?"
Although I was just as repulsed as Debbie was by the idea of spending additional time together, Jesse and I did actually have plans-plans in Monterey with Patrick Harrison's name all over them.
Or at least, his last name all over them.
Harrison Designs was located in a business park in Monterey. Its space in comparison to the other businesses listed on the sign overlooking the road was tiny, and Patrick's office itself followed suit in size.
We hadn't had the time to call in first, but Patrick wasn't seeing any other clients. The only thing he was seeing was a full screen projection of an episode of Mr. Robot.
Jesse knocked on the frame of his office door, and Patrick scrambled quickly to exit the stream he was watching.
Patrick got out of his chair and walked the seven or eight steps between his desk and his door.
"Hi," Patrick said. "Is there something I can help you with maybe?"
"There is," Jesse said. "I run a clinic with my wife, and we're trying to find someone to create a website for us."
"You've come to the right place, Dr…"
"Jason Seaver."
Patrick shook Jesse's hand in earnest. Apparently, he had never seen an episode of Growing Pains.
The lack of recognition continued when I stook out my hand and said, "Maggie."
There was a glimmer of light as he moved forward slightly to shake my hand, and I couldn't help but notice the watch on Patrick's other wrist. It was the same watch he'd been wearing in his profile picture on Facebook.
"Nice watch," I said.
"Oh, this?" Patrick asked, glancing at his watch. "It was a gift."
I refrained myself from asking who, or where, it was from. If I was going to start asking questions like that, this visit was going to turn from a consultation to a full on mediator shakedown. And that didn't seem like a good idea in a business park where there would be plenty of witnesses to our brand of questioning.
Patrick indicated a couple of chairs crammed into his office space as a place for us to sit. The wall that had just been playing Mr. Robot was positioned next to me. The chair was so close to it I wondered how the wall didn't have scuff marks.
"So what kind of medicine do you practice?" Patrick asked while he made several clicks on his computer and disabled its connection to the projector.
"Psychiatric," Jesse replied, just as Dr. Jason Seaver would have.
"Oh, that's… That's nice," Patrick said after an awkward pause.
A lot of things about Patrick looked a bit awkward. He'd tucked his button up into his chinos, but his shirt was still wrinkled. And he'd gone through the trouble of having tidy looking eyebrows, but the hair on his head was in a brown disarray. His handshake had been firm enough, but just a little too long. I wasn't entirely sure what a girl like Alexa, a young and rich fashion photographer with a penchant for theft and murder, saw in him.
"Never done a site for a psychiatric clinic before," Patrick said. "Uh… Not that I can't. It's just, I've only worked on other medical disciplines for websites before. Please don't worry. You're in good hands, I promise."
I was inclined to worry more whenever someone said "Please don't worry" in a tone like Patrick's, but, thankfully, we didn't actually want the website we were asking for. CeeCee had already done a stellar job on ours. And for free, might I add.
"So these are some of the other medical websites I've created," Patrick said. Instead of turning the projector on, which would've resulted in the computer screen imprinting itself all over me and Jesse instead of the wall, he turned his monitor around.
He went over a few websites with us, and it looked like he'd been telling the truth earlier. I was hardly a good judge of what a well designed website looked like, but everything he pulled up looked impressive enough. The second he started talking about his work, as opposed to making small talk, the number of filler words he used went down to zero, and he seemed more confident than he did awkward.
Maybe that was what Alexa had seen in him.
And then I saw Alexa.
She didn't enter the room as a ghost though. She showed up in a much less supernatural manner, as the background on Patrick's desktop.
"Oh," I said quickly, and Patrick paused to look at me, leaving his desktop up instead of switching windows to show us something else. "You're Alexa's Patrick."
Patrick looked confused momentarily before he said, "Oh. Alexa's. Yeah."
"I went to RLS with her. She was a few years ahead of me, but I knew her. My condolences. She was such a kind person."
I had no idea if Alexa had been kind or not while she was alive. The fact that she'd straight up murdered Francesca Powell with a piece of glass through her skull wasn't exactly supporting evidence for that idea.
"She was," Patrick agreed quietly. "But she'd been sick for a while. So it was only a matter of time until… I mean, even if we didn't want to say it out loud, we knew it was inevitable that she..."
Patrick trailed off and looked at me blankly, and for the first time in awhile, I felt guilty over something other than hiding information from Jesse. The vaguely out of place look Patrick had had for the duration of our consultation, aside from when he was showing us his work, was replaced with a look of sadness. If Alexa had been giving him cash or his current watch, then he certainly didn't know she had anything to do with it.
The watch, if it had come from one of the jewelry stores, must have been nothing more than pennies from heaven.
Patrick was silent for several long moments before he said, "So the consultation is free, but I charge $45 for every hour of work. The type of website you're looking at is fairly simple, so it shouldn't be more than six or so hours of work. You'd be looking at something just under the $300 range then, if that's alright with the two of you."
"That sounds reasonable," Jesse said. "Though we do intend to do a few more consultations before we settle on a creator for the website."
Patrick nodded but said, "You should know though, that it's on the lower end of the price spectrum. Sometimes you'll get designers who are asking for twice that, you know? I try to be as fair as I can. Um… While still being able to eat and everything."
"Of course, of course," Jesse said. "We're just shopping around."
A few moments later, we'd all stood, shook hands again, and then Jesse and I were on our way out of his office. I couldn't help but turn back and see Patrick, sitting at his desk again and staring at his computer wistfully.