she donated to the animal shelter in Wicks Hollow. Oh, I do miss her a lot. But it’s because of her that I was able to move back here. So I’m okay with it. She had a good, long life.
“And as for my mom—well, she’s living in Boise with her husband. She’s been clean and sober for six years and counting now. He’s really good with her—they met at a dog park near where she lived at the time. She got an emotional support dog to help with her anxiety and addictive behaviors, and it’s really helped keep her healthy.”
“I’ve been thinking about getting Pop a dog,” Jake said. “He could use someone else around the house, you know?”
“Having seen how it’s helped Mom, I’d say that’s a great idea.” She was about to say something else when Jake lifted a hand to stop her.
“I know what you’re doing, trying to keep the conversation going in every other direction. But we have to talk about it, Vivien.”
She sighed and slumped a little against the back of the booth as their salads arrived. “I know. It’s just so difficult to acknowledge there’s a real ghost haunting my theater. But I don’t have any other explanation—”
He was chuckling, shaking his head with a weird expression. “I meant we needed to talk about the fact that someone is trying to sabotage you. Not…the other.” He looked a little pained.
“Oh, I see. You don’t want to admit there’s supernatural activity involved,” she said, conveniently putting aside her own reluctance to talk about it. Because, obviously, it was time. “But what else can it be? We literally rolled the scaffolding out from the back room—it was unattached, freestanding—there were no wires on it, nothing that could have caused it to shake and shimmy like that—”
“The whole stage floor was shaking, Viv—that’s why it felt like the scaffolding was moving.”
“And how on earth did someone make that happen? That would have taken some serious machinery. And what about the rattling light cans and shaking flies—and the sudden, intense cold? And the smell?” She shook her head. “No way that was manufactured—at least by anyone human. It was too instantaneous, too intense, and too…whatever. Creepy.”
He looked down into the bowl of his wine glass as he swirled its dark red contents.
“Are you saying you don’t believe in ghosts? In the afterlife? In spirits?” she asked.
Great. He must’ve thought she was nuts when they were together and she talked about feeling Liv’s presence nearby, or even talking to her. Ugh. No wonder things hadn’t worked out.
“I’m not saying that at all.” He looked up, his eyes hooded. “Look, I’ve been around death enough to have experiences…that, uh, indicate that… Well, there’s a lot going on we might not understand.” He gave a short laugh. “I’ve never experienced anything before like what happened at the theater, but when people die, there’s often…things that happen.”
“Like what?”
“Well, once there was a patient—when I was on a hospice rotation—who was telling me about how she was going to stay with her sister Anne, and how excited she was about going on the ‘journey’—she used that word. She said Anne had just stopped by and told her to get ready for the trip, and that she’d be back for her soon…and it turned out her sister Anne had been dead for five years. But this patient had carried on an entire conversation with her that was overhead by one of the nurses. Obviously, Anne was there to, uh, guide my patient to the afterlife or whatever.” He shrugged. “I’m not going to dismiss the idea of ghosts. I just have never experienced them before. Myself.”
Vivien tilted her head a little and looked at him intently. “Your mom never visited you after she died? You never, you know, felt her or anything?”
He shook his head. “No. I guess…I guess some people are maybe just more susceptible or open to supernatural happenings.”
“Well, susceptible or not, you and I experienced supernatural happenings today, and, let’s be honest, the other night when we opened that trunk in the pit and it got all cold and frosty all of a sudden.”
“I can’t deny it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he said.
“Right. But do you remember what you were saying when all that frenzy whipped up?” she said, giving him a crafty smile.
“Not really,” he said, but she could tell he was hedging.
“You were saying that someone was messing around with me, trying to make me think