Shadow of a Life (21 page)

After lying in bed for what felt like
an eternity, I got up and flipped the switch of the lamp on my
bedside table. I pulled out my laptop and looked up flights,
wondering if Sophia and Nick had already left. There was a Delta
flight going to Port-au-Prince via Washington D. C. and an American
Airlines flight going to Port-au-Prince via Miami. Both were
leaving around dawn. I tried to imagine Sophia and Nick huddled in
the baggage compartment, completely invisible, but who was I
kidding—they would totally be riding invisibly in first
class.

I must have eventually drifted off to
sleep because the next thing I remembered was Dad knocking softly
on my bedroom door. In my blurred state of mind, it took me a while
to figure out what the tapping noise was and where it was coming
from. My lamp was still turned on, but my computer had slid off my
lap and rested next to me on the bed.

“
Yeah?” I called
groggily.

“
It’s Dad. Sorry to wake
you.”

“
It’s fine. Come
in.”

I looked at my alarm clock. It wasn’t
even six yet. I rubbed my eyes as Dad entered the room fully
clothed in a black suit with a red and grey paisley tie.

“
I didn’t want to leave
without saying goodbye. Sorry I have to leave so early.”

I’d completely forgotten that he was
leaving for Chicago. “It’s alright. I wasn’t sleeping very well
anyway.”

“
I made sure there’s plenty
of money in your household account and I left a list of things I’d
like you to get done in the next couple of days. I hope to be back
Friday, but it might be as late as Saturday.”

“
Okay.”

“
I’ll keep my cell phone on
in case you need to reach me.
Please
make sure you take yours if
you go anywhere.”

“
I will.” Early morning
conversations weren’t really my thing. Dad was used to my short
answers.

“
I love you. Be good.” He
disappeared into the hallway and shut the door behind
himself.

I lay back against my
pillows and sighed. I wasn’t sure if I should even try to go back
to sleep at that point. It seemed useless. Instead, I opened my
computer again and made notes of things we could do while Sophia
and Nick were gone. There were still a couple of museums that we
could visit. They might have something in their collections that
would be helpful. I decided that our goal for Tuesday would be to
visit the Sippican Historical Society and maybe take a bus up to
Salem to visit the Peabody Essex Museum. If I remembered correctly,
the museum had some of Captain Briggs’ belongings that had been
found on the
Mary
Celeste
. I forced myself to stay in bed
until seven and then got up. I blared the radio while I showered
and dressed. I could handle quiet when Dad was around—or when he
was at work—but there was something about him being out of the
state that always made me want to have background noise so that I
didn’t feel completely alone. That was the first business trip he’d
gone on since I found out about the existence of ghosts and I
didn’t feel all that safe.

I decided to look at the list Dad left
so that I could get most of it done before I met up with Cam and
Peter. Dad always left “chore lists” when he went out of town. They
made me laugh because most of what was on them were pointless
things I did normally without ever having to be asked. I knew he
trusted me, but I figured it was his way of trying to be a parent,
rather than a roommate. The list was small:

*Water the plants

*Check the mailbox

*Wash any needed laundry

*Take out the trash if you fill it
up

Love you, Dad

Yep. It was definitely one
of Dad’s typical lists. I could have it all done in fifteen
minutes. We had a couple of houseplants on a stand in the living
room. I quickly watered them, pulled off a few dead leaves, and
then re-filled the water of the Memorial Day flowers still on the
kitchen table. I threw a load of my clothes into the washing
machine, dumped some soap in, and turned it on. I slipped my feet
into a pair of pink flip-flops and walked to the curb. No mail. I’m
sure Dad had checked it the day before anyway. There was never
anything for me so I could probably wait a few days before I needed
to check it again. I went back to the kitchen and opened the
garbage can lid. All that was in there was an empty yogurt
container which my father must have eaten before he left. There—I
was all done with chores. I looked at the clock. It was only
8:07.
What am I supposed to do all
day?

All I could think about was Sophia and
Nick. I convinced myself that they were in the air somewhere. I
wandered back into the living room and opened the cabinet holding
our television. Neither Dad nor I watched much TV, but right then
it seemed like a good way to kill some time. I flipped through a
few channels before I settled on a morning news show.

Two anchors—one male and one
female—were seated at the large news desk. He had black hair that
was plastered to his head in such a way that I couldn’t decide if
it was real or a toupee. She had a poufy hairdo and wore so much
makeup that it probably took her an hour to remove it every night.
I didn’t find the male anchor particularly interesting, but every
time he would say something the female anchor would toss her hair
back and laugh. That movement was usually followed by a dumb
comment. When they got to a serious story (a car accident that
killed a mother and her son) she put on a sad pouty face, as if she
hadn’t been laughing just a moment before. The whole thing felt
staged and I wondered if she—or they—had majored in drama instead
of journalism.

My phone beeped at me around ten. It
was Peter.

“
Got any plans for
today?
”
he
texted.

“
I thought we could check
out a couple of museums,
”
I texted back.

“
When you say ‘we,’ does
that include me?
”

“
Of course.
LOL.”

I hit send and immediately wished I
could take it back. I usually prided myself in not using annoying
teenage slang like LOL or ROFL. Oh well—it was too late.

We agreed to meet at the Sippican
Historical Society at 11:00. I threw a few things in a backpack and
headed to the garage for my bike. My hand was on the doorknob
before I decided to double-check the locks on the front and back
doors. They were secure, not that it mattered if any ghosts decided
to visit. I rode to Camille’s house and walked up the stone path to
her house. She opened the door and came out before I even had a
chance to ring the bell.

“
Grrr. Allison is driving me
crazy this morning. Her latest boyfriend, what’s-his-name, gave her
a promise ring last night and she can’t stop talking about it. What
does a promise ring really mean, anyway? There’s no way she’s ever
really going to marry him or even get officially engaged. I predict
they break up before the 4
^th
of July. My guess is that he
just gave her the dumb ring to let other guys know to keep their
hands off her until he gets bored with her. Nick is sooo cute. He
and Sophia are the cutest couple
ever
.”

The Camille I knew was back. She could
talk up a storm without even knowing it. I often wondered how she
was able to say so much without coming up for a breath of air. I
think I even caught her turning blue once before she stopped
talking. I wanted to tell her I’d held hands with Peter, but I
didn’t know how to bring the subject up. Guys were her area of
expertise—not mine. She always held guy’s hands and I’d lost track
of how many she’d kissed. She’d had her first kiss in seventh
grade. For me, though, it had been a new experience and one that I
didn’t know how to talk about.

The Sippican Historical Society was
only a few blocks from the library and a short bike ride from
Camille’s street. Peter was already there, sitting under a large
shade tree, when Camille and I showed up. I appreciated his
promptness, but I wondered how much of it had to do with boredom
from being alone so often.

The museum wasn’t large, but it had a
treasure trove of information about Marion and the history
surrounding our city. The three of us were greeted by an elderly
docent the moment we stepped inside.

“
Hello and welcome,” she
gushed.

I looked around. I hadn’t
been inside the museum since the fourth grade when we went there
for a class trip as part of a unit on local history. Camille and
Peter had been with me then, too, and I wondered if either of them
had been back since. The woman introduced herself as Rebekah and
offered to give us a tour. She was obviously excited to have
patrons and we agreed. For the most part, the information she gave
us didn’t really pertain to why we were there, but I learned some
things about our town’s history that either I hadn’t known
previously or I’d forgotten. Everyone perked up when we got to a
small replica of the
Mary
Celeste
.

Rebekah was fascinated by
the legend as well and her storytelling became a lot more animated.
She explained what had been found on the ship and gave a little
description of each of the theories that had been thrown around
about the fate of the Captain and his family and crew. Some of the
theories were new to me, which probably meant they weren’t widely
accepted, but it didn’t really matter. I already knew the
truth
of what happened
that day. When the docent had told all of her stories she excused
herself to help someone standing in the gift shop area and invited
us to continue looking around.

I looked at the model ship and tried
to picture Sophia there as a little child. She would have been two
years old and just learning to talk. I wondered if her little laugh
back then brought as much joy to people as her laugh did now. I
bent over and looked into the windows of the ship’s miniature
cabin, trying to picture her mother playing music and singing while
Sophia sat on the wooden floor playing with a doll. Unfortunately,
I also pictured Jeremiah and Elsa boarding the ship with a band of
unruly pirates to take the crew hostage. I pictured Sophia’s
reaction as she was yanked from her mother’s arms and I jumped when
I heard imaginary gunshots signaling the end of her parent’s
lives.

“
You okay?” Peter
asked.

“
Yeah. Sorry. I was trying
to imagine what it must have been like to be in Sophia’s place back
then.”

“
Do you realize that I’m old
enough to have been a cabin boy on a ship back then? I guess guys
my age are pretty lazy these days.”

“
Can you imagine trying to
cook on a ship like that?” Camille asked. “It would have been hard
enough in a house in those days without an oven or a microwave, but
on a boat it had to have been so much worse. All that rocking back
and forth probably made it hard to eat, too. I bet the food was
super boring.”

“
I did learn something new
that I don’t remember hearing before. I wonder if Sophia even knows
it. Did you read the paper talking about the Brigg’s family
curse?”

Camille and Peter shook their
heads.

“
A few days ago Sophia told
me about all the Brigg’s family members that had died at sea, but I
don’t remember her mentioning her Uncle Oliver Briggs. Apparently
he died only a month after Sophia’s family disappeared. His ship
got caught in a storm and sank. He survived by floating on some of
the wreckage for a few days, but died shortly before the only
remaining crewman was rescued. Sophia’s grandmother was still
holding onto hope that Benjamin, Sarah, and Sophia would be found
alive when she found out about Oliver’s death. That poor
lady.”

“
That
is
sad,” Peter and Camille replied in
unison.

An awkward silence hung over us for a
few moments. Nobody spoke because none of us knew what else to
say.

Finally, Camille cleared her throat.
“Is anyone else hungry?”

“
I’m starving,” Peter
replied gratefully.

“
I could definitely eat.
Want to go to Grandma’s Cafe?”

We left the museum and rode to the
library where we chained our bicycles to their bike racks before
crossing the street to the restaurant.

“
I miss Sophia. I like being
friends with someone who has a car and a license,” Camille
complained.

“
You better not get too
attached to it. I don’t think she plans on sticking around
forever.”

“
Where will her car go when
she dies? I mean when she’s extricated.”

“
I honestly have no idea.
Maybe Jack and Rita will do something with it. When a ghost is
living in mainstream society it’s probably difficult to cover up
their unexplained permanent disappearances.”

The usual crowd of kids from school
filled the café. Just as we walked through the door a couple of
Peter’s good friends, Scott and Jason, walked out.

“
Peter. Where’ve you been,
man? Aren’t your parents out of town? You usually hang with us when
they’re gone, but you haven’t been home. I thought maybe you went
with them this time,” Scott said.