She’d cried herself to sleep again that night.
He didn’t come to the museum. She didn’t catch a glimpse of him walking around town or the beach. He didn’t call or text. She didn’t ask Grandma if she’d seen him, because she knew she’d only earn a disapproving look.
It hurt. It made it feel like there was a perpetual lump in her throat. And even though he wasn’t dead, it reminded her of how she’d felt the first day back at school after a summer of dealing with her family being gone.
She’d come out of the fog of grief and entered into a period of pain that had felt all-encompassing. Because every step living was a step without them and she couldn’t ignore that it’d be that wayforever.
Had she chosen that now? Aforeverwithout him. He wasn’t dead. She could track him down, but had she irrevocably ruined something important to her?
She had to wipe a few tears from her eyes as she closed up the register in the museum for the night.
She didn’t want to lose Ty forever. She didn’t want to feel that insurmountable grief again.
“But you surmounted that,” she muttered. “You can do it again.”
A door slammed somewhere downstairs. “See? Floyd gets me.”
But ghost support didn’t exactly fill the empty, aching hole in her heart. Particularly as she closed up the museum after another day, knowing she wouldn’t find Ty at her grandmother’s cottage when she got home.
So she dawdled. Instead of taking the straight shot home, she walked out onto the frigid beach. The sun was beginning to set. Maybe she’d try to sketch. She had her book and pencils in her bag. It’d take up some time before she had to go face…everything she’d chosen.
She settled herself onto the rock she liked to sit on. She got out her notebook, her pencils. Set everything up, then looked out at the horizon.
She couldn’t think of anything to sketch. She didn’t want to sketch. She wanted tocry. In a childish move, she tossed the notebook down onto where her bag sat on the sand. Disgusted with it and herself, she pulled up her knees and rested her chin on them, looking angrily out at the horizon.
Eventually, it began to penetrate that the sunset was going to be one of the delicate ones she liked so much. The sunset, in fact, hadn’t taken on that particular shade of pink since…
That first night Ty had been back, when she’d been sitting in this very place, thinking about that color and her mother.
Her mother. She sighed. What would her mother think of her life? What would any of her family think of what she’d done with it?
She pressed her forehead to her knees and for the first time in a long time let herself actually think about it. About them. If they were here, or maybe just if they were watching from wherever souls went, what would they think of her life?
She’d like to think they’d be proud of her for taking on the family tradition. Dad especially would be so proud she worked side-by-side with Grandma. That she wanted to stay in Wild Rose Point forever. That she believed in fanciful things like ghosts and treasured the history of this place.
Mom would be so excited she’d sold paintings. She’d always thought it so amazing what Lara could do. Lara smiled into her knees even as a few tears fell. If they were still here, they’d no doubt have her art hung all over their house.
But what would they think about Ty? They’d always treated him like a member of the family. Now, looking back, she realized that sometimes the quiet conversations she hadn’t understood in the moment had been about what they could do to protect Ty from his father.
But it hadn’t beenjustabout trying to help a young, abused boy. They’d liked him and been proud of him. They’d gone to some of his local baseball games and made a family day out of it and bought Ty ice cream and given him a ride home when his dad had been pissed off at whatever had happened in the game that wasn’t quite good enough for his standards.
More tears trickled down her cheeks. For that little boy, who had somehow become just the best man she knew.
And she’d lost him.
Because he wanted things to change, and she needed them to stay the same.
When an arm came around her shoulders, her head jerked up. She hadn’t heard anyone walk up, and she looked around the beach to see…no one. Still the weight of what felt like an arm was around her shoulders.
Her breath hitched, her heart beat over time, and the pink in the sunset was delicate and perfect.Mom’s favorite shade.
She thought of the little shove she’d been given in the museum when she’d fallen into Ty. The little touches over the years she’d attributed to this ghost or another, but what if…
“Mom.” Nothing happened. No apparition appeared. No ghostly voice whisperedI’m here. And still, she felt the weight of an arm around her. Shefelther mother sitting here with her—even if it wasn’t true.
It didn’t matter, because it felt good, hopeful, comforting. So she followed those feelings, leaned into them. “Mom, what should I do?”
There was nothing but the wind, the waves. Then Lara felt something on her cheek. Lara’s heartbeat erratically. She wasn’t imagining it. Shefeltthe pressure on her cheek, to turn her head, to look down the beach, to where a figure walked.
