Nothing but Ghosts (13 page)

Maybe love, I think, is the biggest thing there is. Maybe love also contains the most amount of ruin, and I look at my dad and my mom’s empty chair, and I think about Danny going away in a few days, and I remember Jessie and Ellen and my own disappearing, and now I consider Ms. McDermott, going home every night to her house full of books, though she’s the most stunning librarian there is and could have anyone she wanted, if she wanted to take that chance. Maybe loving once means some part of you is stuck loving forever—loving and chasing and living with whatever you’re lucky enough to remember.

“We all come to terms,” Dad says, “in our own time.”

I sit beside Danny, knowing that my dad is right. I sit here imagining Miss Martine and my mother’s
flowers, settled in now, in her yard. I sit wondering if I’ll ever come to terms with losing my one and only mother, and then I suddenly feel grateful for the things that I still have, and the new things, too.

“Pretty great party, Dad,” I say, choking up.

“House needed a little livening up,” Dad says. “And besides, who doesn’t love a bona fide mystery?” He looks all right, almost half happy, one hand on the back of my mother’s chair, one hand on the back of Ms. McDermott’s. He takes a good long look at Sammy now and makes some kind of decision. “Katie, love,” he says, “will you take my first-rate assistant home? He appears to be a tad kaput.” I look toward that end of the table, and he’s right: Sammy’s half asleep—his eyes half open and his face all smeared, as if he has eaten way too much pizza.

“Everything was really great, Dr. D’Amore,” Danny says, standing beside me. “I’m glad we’ve met.”

“The door’s pretty much always open at the
D’Amores’,” Dad says. “I’m a great fan of Katie’s friends.” Danny makes the slightest bow. I give my dad a forehead kiss.

“Come on, Sammy,” I say, reaching out my hand.

He shakes his head no and doesn’t budge. Gently I wrestle him out of the chair, give him a kiss of his own.

“I’m coming back,” he says with a perfect pout. “I’m coming back tomorrow.”

“Breakfast will be waiting,” I say.

I
’m not sure that any of us ever come fully to terms with loss. And yet, in the stretch of time since my mother’s passing, I’ve been given the gift of extraordinary friendship by a deeply appreciated many. My first thanks, then, go to all who listened and loved, who filled my home with cards and flowers, who showed the way.
Nothing but Ghosts
is filled with their essence—with the deep, faithful goodness of my
father; with Jamie Comiskey’s spaghetti squash; with the kindness of Yvonne D’Amore and Ann McDermott; with the pure alivedness of my nieces and nephews, Miranda, Owen, Julia, Daniel, and Claire; with the impeccable intelligence of Ivy Goodman, Alyson Hagy, Jennie Nash, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Kate Moses, Ellen Brackett, Amy Rennert, and my own aunt Carol. Jeremy: How you have taught me, inspired me, blessed me. Bill, thank you.

To the Harper team—Laura Geringer, Jill Santopolo, Corey Mallonee, Cindy Tamasi, Lisa Bishop, Carla Weise, Renée Cafiero, Laaren Brown—I thank you for all you do. Laura, especially, I thank you for standing by with this, for seeing more inside the lines than I had seen myself.

Chanticleer Garden and the souls who keep it blooming: Once again, you have planted seeds; you have given this story a most glorious physical home.