Page 85 of Old Flames

“How can I be?”

“Go on. Tell me more.”

“It’s like a hologram. That’s the best I can describe it. And she doesn’t look like my mother, but somehow, she does.”

“When did you see her?”

“Twice over the weekend. I was drawn to the garden our second night here. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Was she waiting there?”

Jules shook her head. “No, she materialized.”

“Is that why you came back? To figure this out?”

“I hoped that with no one around, I could get some answers.”

“Have you gotten answers?”

“Beverly gave me some insight on how this works.”

“Has your mother returned since?”

“No,” Jules replied. “I don’t feel it anymore. It might be over, whatever it was.”

“Over?” He rested his head back, deep in thought. “That would be too easy.”

“It’s possible I was so desperate to see her that I made up the whole thing in my mind. At least that’s one working theory.”

“I doubt it,” he said. “Are you telling me you wanted to encounter your mother in the garden of a Key West inn?”

“No,” she admitted. However, her most ardent wish had been to see her mother again, and she wasn’t about to get picky on logistics. Recent events having made a mockery of that wish, the suspicion that she may never see her mother again tore at her gut. Jules couldn’t stand it. She had to believe that the mother she loved was waiting for her somewhere to take her by the hand and, together, they’d walk the rest of the way.

“What did Beverly say about this?” he asked.

“She said I should be cautious,” Jules said. “Spirits are intelligent, and this one, perhaps, is using my memories against me.”

“I like that theory better,” he said. “You say she doesn’t look like her.”

“She’s far younger than when she passed away,” Jules said, looking for details to support this theory that they both liked better. “Her eyes are . . . different. But it’s more than that.”

“Yes?”

Jules shivered again, reliving the second and final time Ruby had confronted her, because that’s what it was, a confrontation—not the loving, joyous reunion she longed for. “She doesn’t know me. Does that make sense?”

He nodded. “It does.”

For some reason this upset her. “You’re not questioning this at all. You’re just taking it at face value.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked. “I haven’t seen any ghosts, but something is going on with this property. We’ve heard enough stories, and I’m not willing to dismiss them because I haven’t experienced it firsthand. I’m a fiction writer, July. I believe in stories.”

Now she worried she might disappoint him. “Leo, there’s a good chance it’s all in my head.”

“If it is, we’ll find out,” he said. “You came back for answers and found me instead. If I’m meant to be your sidekick, I’m going to be as useful as possible. I know the deal. I’ll get you where you need to go and likely learn a lesson along the way. Then I may take off on a hero’s journey of my own. Who the fuck knows? But I’m not going to let you down.”

“Leo White, I don’t understand you.”

“I think you do,” he said. “I think you have from the start.”