She had found a few interviews online. They told a story of a group of people under the direction of a man who loved them unconditionally. Jeffrey Halcomb encouraged a sloughing off of the past to move on to a happier future. It was exactly what Vee wanted, what she felt she needed. Jeffrey had promised his followers love and peace. Who was to say that wasn’t what they had when they all died? Who were the living to equate death with sorrow and pain?
You should try harder. She had to heed her own advice. If she didn’t try, she’d be moving in a week or two, her parents would still get divorced, and she’d be afraid of what the future held. She’d lose the opportunity to find her spiritual self, and what better place to seek it than in a house of spirits?
Perhaps, if she tried harder, the ghosts that lived within the walls would reveal their secrets.
Perhaps, if she just put in a little more effort, Jeffrey Halcomb would help her, too.
Vee grabbed her phone and composed a text.
Maybe the stuff with my parents is my fault.
Heidi:
What R U talking about? UR parents are crazy.
Vee exhaled a breath and dropped her phone onto the sheets. Heidi didn’t get it. Sometimes it seemed to Vee that she didn’t even want to get it, and what kind of a friend was that?
She rose from her mattress, grabbed some things from her closet, and stepped out into the hall. But she couldn’t bring herself to go into the blue room again. Hesitating in front of the door that led into what should have been her bathroom, she only stared at the doorknob, afraid that touching it would bring back the phantoms that were hiding in that house. Vee glanced over the banister to the ground floor. Her dad was in his office. She could hear him in there. Ducking into the master bedroom, she slipped into her father’s bathroom and quietly closed the door.
Vee pulled her hair into a ponytail. She changed out of her pj’s and into a pair of black jeans and a sleeveless midnight-blue blouse her mom had bought her a few months before. Her dad had suggested the beach, but maybe they could go into town. She could ask him to drive by the school she’d attend if she decided to stay past the summer with him—here, in this house, not some crappy apartment. Maybe they’d go to the movies for once and she’d meet a few kids in the theater lobby. One or two good friends was all she needed to decide where fate would take her; back to New York, to Heidi and Tim, or to a fresh start in Washington with new friends, new boys, and Jeff.
It seemed to her that Heidi never texted her anymore; it was always Vee texting Heidi. Maybe Heidi didn’t care that Vee was three thousand miles away. Maybe Tim didn’t care, either. Maybe some new friends would do her good. Perhaps trying harder meant trying something new. Because had life in New York really been that great?
Washington could be cool, she thought as she smoothed her hands over her shirt. Washington could be better. She stared at herself in the mirror with a frown. Her eye still looked bad. It would lead to sideways glances and people murmuring about how maybe, quite possibly, her dad had laid into her like some abusive jerk. Bruises shining from the inside out. She opened the tin lunch box she’d brought with her and began to dig through it. Inside were various types of makeup—lip gloss, eye shadow, eyeliner, and a small tube of concealer. She kept the items hidden the way a superstitious person might keep a dybbuk locked away in a box. They were the fruits of sudden impulse, of a thing that felt wrong and unlike her. Vee never thought she’d be the type to pocket cosmetics when no one was looking, but the proof was laid out in front of her. Maybe her mother was right and the dark clothes and angry music were turning her into someone other than herself. Or maybe this was just who she was—bad, imperfect, inadequate, worthless.
She blotted some concealer around her injured eye and inspected her face, then turned away from the mirror and with her pj’s and lunch box in her arms, stepped back into the hall. Someone was downstairs. She stalled her retreat back into her room, listening to her father speak. A woman’s voice responded. When she spotted the weird neighbor lady drifting out of her dad’s study and out the front door, Vee pulled in a breath, stashed her stuff just inside her room, and made her way downstairs.
Try harder.
Moving across the living room to his study, she stuck an eye over the crack between the door and its frame and peered inside. He was huddled over his desk, already in the thick of work.
As the child of a professional writer, Vee had learned at an early age to never disturb her dad while he was working. It was a cardinal sin, like waking a sleeping baby or kicking a dog. But if she was going to try harder, some rules would need to be broken.
She cleared her throat and nudged open the door a little farther. Her dad looked up from a box on his desk, his expression full of what she could only read as fascination.
“Dad?” She shifted her weight from one Converse sneaker to the other. “What about the beach?” And maybe the movies and swinging by the high school. They’d been cooped up for so long; he at least owed her that.
Her question seemed to shift his intrigue from riveted to agitated. The change in his countenance appeared for only half a second at best, but she was quick to catch it. She was bothering him, always bothering him. Even though he’d suggested spending time together himself, such a mundane offering didn’t hold a candle to whatever it was their neighbor had presented.
“Um . . . can you give me a few hours, do you think?”
“Sure,” she murmured. “Yeah, whatever.” She turned away and, with slumped shoulders, moved into the kitchen in search of a snack. With a cherry Pop-Tart soon held tight in her grasp, she slouched against one of the chairs and tried to keep her emotions in check.
I work as hard as I do for you! he had yelled at her mom once. Everything I do is for you and Jeanie. Everything!
But sometimes it was tough to see it that way. At times it felt as though he loved his books more than anything else. She tore the silver wrapper from her breakfast pastry, her bottom lip quivering at this new thought: her mom could be a real nag, but maybe Vee hadn’t been fair. It was possible that her mother had given up on her dad because of this exact thing—the anticipation of spending time together crushed beneath the weight of his inability to disengage. Perhaps her mom had given up because she was too familiar with what Vee was feeling now—cast aside and forgotten.
Suddenly, Vee felt lonelier than she ever had, almost enough to finally read her mother’s stupid email. Although she tried not to, it was useless—she burst into tears.
She wasn’t sure why she held her dad in such high regard. Perhaps it was that invisible, unifying string of weirdness, that camaraderie of liking scary movies and strange music. Or maybe it was the fact that he didn’t make her feel like an alien because her clothes were black or she smudged eye shadow three shades too dark around her eyes. But what did any of that matter if he didn’t have the desire to give her the time of day? How could she live with him if she was completely invisible?
She considered that perhaps her mom had started paying attention to Kurt Murphy because that new romance made her feel like she mattered. After all, it was nice to be noticed every now and again. Maybe her mother wasn’t the bad guy in all this.
Maybe Vee had been rooting for the bad guy all along.
No, forget it. She’s just as bad as he is.