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I flinched when the ghosts started and Inez was immediately hurried off. She was going up and down one of the highways out of New Orleans that had been cleaned and checked. It made sense to have areas for her to handle the ghosts near where she would be working for that day.
I caught her just before Kristof got her in the SUV. I handed her the phone and earbuds I’d synced to the device. “I recorded something to distract you. I can’t say it all—it’s in other languages. What I want to say to you but you’re not ready to hear yet after what I did.”
“Okay, thanks,” she muttered, taking it from me with a slight frown and seeming confused.
I grabbed her arm when she turned away, making her face me again. I leaned in and brushed my lips over her cheek. “I don’t like you leaving me when you do this. It worries me. I wanted you to have me with you to help.”
She blinked at me a moment and then looked like she wanted to smack me. “Who said you had to leave me? Why not just ask if you can come with like…”
Kristof does. That was what she didn’t want to say but was on her tongue.
“Can I come with?” I asked, hating how stupid I sounded to my ears.
“Of course,” she answered easily before getting in. She went to close the door behind her, but I got in too. She seemed shocked by that, but I didn’t say anything until we were moving.
“It’s been really hard to see you deal with these new ghosts,” I admitted. I did one better and turned so my back was to the door and then pulled her against me. I would be her seatbelt and even seat if she wanted.
She did, hugging my arm to her and sort of settling on my thigh. “Snuggles are good during this.”
“Whatever you want, love,” I whispered, kissing her hair. “I don’t realize I’m being a hypocrite. I keep getting upset at how hard it is to tell you what I want or what I’m feeling, but then I expect you to always do it. That’s horrible of me. I just always think that I’ll do whatever you want, so that’s not the issue. But it is. It is for you to ask as well.”
She nodded after a moment. “That makes sense. Thanks for saying it.” She put in the earbuds though and focused on her task.
I rubbed her arms and kissed her hair, hoping that the comforting gestures were understood to help her instead of making her feel pressured.
She did really well. I felt like I blinked and it was already an hour and all of the empty seats were full of seeds. I warned Kristof she was getting itchy and he pulled over. I carried her and followed after him, glad we’d already discussed that.
She got several smaller hotels back online in the French Quarter before we were back at the SUV again. It was the same deal as normal.
Until it wasn’t.
“They died,” she yelled.
I was panicked as to what she meant or which of the ghosts told her something, but then she put the earbuds in my hand. Fucking bloody hell. I didn’t check the charge level of them.
Was I seriously such a git?
I nodded that I understood but then put one in her right ear and pressed my lips to her left ear. They were still noise-canceling at least. I sucked it up and did what I could to help my amazing wife.
“I miss you, love. I miss you so much it hurts. I miss our tai chi time. I’m so sorry that I stopped doing it, especially when you had thought I would after the wedding.” I knew she could hear me when she flinched. “It wasn’t because I didn’t want to do it with you. All I’ve wanted is to spend more time with you. I stopped having faith that tai chi actually worked.
“Or that it did what I’d thought it did since I turned into such a raving basket case. It felt like everything fell apart and I didn’t know what to trust. The idea of doing it when I didn’t know if it actually did anything helpful was—it felt such a waste of time. And I’d shared that with you like I was an expert. When I couldn’t handle my own life really.”
I kept talking when she squeezed my arm tighter and linked our fingers. I told her how I doubted myself so much now. It was hard to admit and made me feel small. I was too old to be this self-conscious, but I’d thought I’d had a grip. It wasn’t something small that tested me and the emotional strength I thought I’d had, but it had shattered.
How did someone come back from that?
How the fuck could I ever help her with her issues when I’d failed so epically on my own?
But none of that compared to the loss I felt at not having that time with her anymore. And I told her that. I was honest and said everything I’d told her in the recordings, even finally saying it in English so she could understand me. Part of it was that she wasn’t saying anything back. I knew she heard me, but she was also distracted.
Oddly enough, that did actually help. I had no idea how, but… It did.
We made another stop for her to use her power and get the charge out, but something changed when we got back in the SUV. For one, she didn’t want to sit with her back to me.
She straddled my lap.
“You said whatever I want, right?” she asked too loudly, something fun dancing in her eyes.
