Silence (9 page)

“But this is my business.”

“No, Emma. It’s not. I’m trying to spare you—”

“Oh, please.”

His jaws snapped shut, and his eyes—if she hadn’t been so angry, so surprisingly, unexpectedly angry, she would have looked away. But realy? She had been so many things since Nathan had died. Self-absorbed. Even self-pitying. Desolate.

Lonely. But furious? No. And right this second, she wanted to reach across the table and slap him. Emma had never slapped anyone in her life.

She swalowed. She picked up her bowl. Held it, to steady She swalowed. She picked up her bowl. Held it, to steady her hands, to keep them from forming fists. He sat there and watched.

“I was at the graveyard,” she said, words clipped so sharply they had edges, “to visit Nathan’s grave.”

“A friend?”

She laughed. It was an eruption of sound, and it was al the wrong sound. “Yeah,” she said bitterly. “A friend.”

He put his own cup down and laid his hands flat against the table. “This…is not going wel. Can we start again from the beginning?”

She shrugged. She could carry any conversation; it was a skil, like math, that she had learned over the years. Sometimes she tried to teach Michael. But it was gone. Whatever it was that had made her carry pointless conversation, underpinning it with a smile and an attentive expression, had deserted her.

She tried to make herself smile. She could manage to make herself talk. “We can try.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It doesn’t matter. If I talk about it, if I don’t. If I cry or I don’t. It doesn’t change anything.” She shook her head, bit her lower lip. Tried to make the anger return to wherever it had unexpectedly come from. It fought back. “I go there,” she added, “because it doesn’t change anything. I don’t expect him to answer me if I talk. I don’t expect to turn around in the dark of night and see him. I don’t expect him to—” She looked across at Eric, realy looked at him.

Something about his expression was so unexpected, she said, Something about his expression was so unexpected, she said, “You lost someone too?”

It was his turn to laugh, and his laughter? As wrong as hers had been. Worse, if that was possible. He turned his hands palms up on the table and stared at them for a long time.

Begin again, Emma thought. There was no anger left. What she felt, she couldn’t easily describe. But she wondered, watching him in his silence, if this was what people saw when they watched her. Because she wanted to say something to ease his pain, and nothing was there. It made her feel useless. Or helpless.

“You’re right,” he said softly. “It’s none of my business. I don’t even know why I asked.” He took a breath and then picked up his coffee. This time, he even drank some of it, although his expression made her wonder why he bothered.

Which was a whole lot safer than wondering anything else at the moment.

“Can you see them?” Emma asked, trying to shoulder her part of the conversation.

“The dead?”

She nodded.

“Yeah. I can see the dead.”

“Does it help?”

He gave her the oddest look, and then his smile once again spread across his face. It made him look younger. She wanted to say it made him look more like himself, but what did she realy know about him?

know about him?

“No. It doesn’t help anything. It doesn’t help at al.” He paused and then said, “Did it help you?”

She nodded. Lifted her hands, palms up. “He’s my dad,” she said. “It was almost worth it—the pain. To see him again.”

He grimaced. “Don’t go there,” he said, but his voice and tone were different. Quieter. “You’re not dead. He is. Emma—” he hesitated, and she could almost see him choosing the right words. Or choosing any words—what did right mean, now? “I know the pain is bad. But you can get past it. It stops. If you can ignore it for two more days, you’l never be troubled by the dead again.”

Thinking of Nathan’s grave, she was silent.

“Why can I see them? Is it because of—”

“Yes.” He didn’t even let her finish the question. “It’s because of that. You can see them,” he said, “and you can talk with them.” He hesitated, as if about to say more. The more, however, didn’t escape.

“And it’s only that?”

He looked out the window again. After a long pause, he said, “No.”

Emma hesitated. “I can touch them,” she said, a slight rise at the end of the sentence turning it into a tentative question.

He nodded.

“My dad—people could see him because I touched him.”

“Yes. Only because of that. If you hadn’t, he would have stayed invisible and safely dead.”

stayed invisible and safely dead.”

She wanted to argue with the use of the words “safely” and “dead” side by side, but she could see his point. “Can you?”

“Can I?”

“You can talk to them. You can see them. Can you touch them?”

“No.”

“Oh. Why not?”

He didn’t answer.

“Eric, why is it important to you that I—that I stop seeing the dead?”

“Because,” he replied slowly, “then I won’t have to kil you.”

EMMA BLINKED. “Can you say that again?”

“I think you heard it the first time.”

“I think you heard it the first time.”

“I want to make sure I heard it the first time. Sort of.”

He merely watched her. She watched him right back. It was almost as if they were playing tennis and the bal had somehow gotten suspended in time just above the net; she wasn’t sure which way it would fly when it was released.

“Why were you at the graveyard?” she finaly asked.

“I can see the dead,” he replied. “And oddly enough, there are very few dead in the graveyards of the world. It’s not where they lived,” he added, “and it’s not where they died. They’re not al that concerned about their corpses. I like graveyards because they’re quiet.”

“But—but you were with someone.”

“Yes. Not intentionaly,” he added, “but yes. I expected some difficulty. I did not expect you.” He picked up his coffee again.

Set it down. Picked it up.

“Eric, it’s not a yo-yo.”

And he actualy smiled, although it never reached his eyes.

“What did you expect?”

“Trouble,” he finaly said. “Not Emma Hal and her dog.

Which she cals Petal for some reason, even though he’s a rottweiler.”

She winced. “My dad caled me Sprout. Petal was a puppy when my father brought him home, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Because of his ears. And my nickname.” She looked at Eric and said, “You were expecting me.”

“Emma—”

“You didn’t know who, but you had some idea of what.”

He shrugged.

“Why did you phone my mother? Why did you help me home? Eric, what were you planning to do in the graveyard?”

He continued to say nothing. But at length, he replied. “I watched you, in school. Al of you. Amy, with her ridiculous entourage, her obvious money.”

“And her fabulous body?”

“That too. But not just Amy. Philipa. Deb. Nan. Alison.

Connel and Oliver. Michael. You al have your problems, your little fights—but you also have your generous moments, your responsibilities. This may come as a surprise to you, but your thoughtless kindnesses made being in a new school a lot more pleasant.”

“Thoughtless kindness?”

“Pretty much. You do it without thinking. There’s not a lot of calculation, and I can’t see how most of it directly benefits any of you.” He paused again and then added, “I did not expect to see any one of you in that graveyard. Even when I saw you, I didn’t expect what happened.”

“If it hadn’t been me, or any of us, what would you have done?”

He looked at her for a moment and then shook his head, and something about his expression was painful to look at: not frightening, not threatening, but almost heartbreaking.

“What I should have done, I didn’t do. What I should be doing, I haven’t done. Instead, I’m sitting here in a cafe in the doing, I haven’t done. Instead, I’m sitting here in a cafe in the middle of a school day drinking coffee that isn’t very good with a confused, teenage girl.”

“Teenage girl?”

“And talking too damn much,” he added. He drained the coffee cup.

“Eric, you’re not exactly ancient, yourself.”

He laughed. It was not a good laugh. “Come on,” he said, as if the bitterness of the dregs of the coffee had transferred itself to his voice. “You shouldn’t have touched your father.” He grimaced. “Emma, understand that what I know about—about what you can do was learned only so that I could prevent most of it. I can’t tel you what you can do; I don’t want you to know.

I want you to turn your back on it and walk away.”

“So you won’t have to kil me.”

“I told you you heard me.”

She managed to shrug.

“I don’t want to draw your mother into this; I don’t want to draw your friends into it, either. Usualy that’s not much of a problem; most of the people who are affected by this are loners.”

“Like you?”

“Like me. You’re not. You’re tied to your life, and you take it seriously.” He looked out the window again. “I shouldn’t be talking to you, and you shouldn’t be skipping school. Let me pay for this, and I’l drive you back.”

“Are you coming to Amy’s party tonight?”

He looked at her as if she were almost insane, and she had to He looked at her as if she were almost insane, and she had to admit that as a non sequitur, it was pretty damn ridiculous. “I’m probably driving you home, where you’l sit in the dark until al this has passed. But yes, I intend to go to Amy’s.” He stood.

She stood as wel. He waved the waitress over, and they had a smal argument about who was paying, which Eric won by saying, “You can get the next one.”

As they were heading to his car, he asked, “Wil you try?”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “Yes.”

He nodded, as if that were the most he could expect.

Alison caught up with Emma in the lunch line-up, looking slightly anxious. “You missed English. Is anything wrong?”

Emma grimaced. “My mother has given up pretending she didn’t see my father in the hospital, if that’s any indication.”

Alison winced. “Is she okay?”

“She’s the Hal version of okay, which is to say, she’s fine.”

“What’s she going to do?”

“If I’m lucky it won’t involve joint trips to the nearest psychiatrist.” Emma paused and pointed at the macaroni and cheese, which was one of the hot meal choices. “You know what my luck is like.”

“And English?”

“I was talking to Eric,” Emma replied. She hesitated and then added, “And I’l tel you al about it tonight. If I’m not curled up in the dark someplace whimpering.” She reached out and caught Alison’s hand; it was a gesture she’d learned to use with Michael over the years, and it meant, more or less, I’m serious, Michael over the years, and it meant, more or less, I’m serious, pay attention. Alison, who had also learned the same gesture, understood. “I’l tel you everything, but you have to promise that you wil do your absolute best not to worry at me.”

Alison nodded. “I’l try.”

“I’m going to try to go to Amy’s tonight because I like having a social life, and I already told her I’d be there.”

“Michael’s going to go.”

Even the horrendous background noise that was the cafeteria didn’t disguise the utter silence that folowed this statement.

Michael was always invited to the larger gatherings, he just never went. Ever.

“Oliver’s going,” Alison told Emma, nudging her to get her moving. “And I think Connel might go as wel.”

“How’s Michael getting there?”

“I’m not sure. We can figure it out when we get back to the table.”

Eric seemed to have decided that their table—that being whichever table Michael sat at—was also his table. Even given his concerns, most of which she stil didn’t understand and most of which she was now certain she didn’t want to understand, he was pleasant and low-key company. He listened to Michael without eye roling, which was pretty much the only requirement in a lunch companion at this table.

Not, Emma thought, if she was being fair, that she didn’t sometimes engage in eye roling, but she felt she’d earned that, and Michael understood what it meant when she did it. Michael didn’t ask her about her father, for which she was grateful. It was a normal day, and Emma wanted to hold on to the normal for as long as she could.

But as they were filing out of the cafeteria, Emma noticed that Alison was hanging back, and she was doing it in front of Eric.

She started to say something and thought better of it, folowing Michael out of the cafeteria instead.