ghosts of the city. Sometimes they’d seen him too.
“I’m not actually taking up residence,” Tucker said, biting his lip. “In fact, I’m probably breaking a bunch of rules showing up here at all. But the thing is….” He looked around. “Which one of these is yours, by the way?”
“The one back near the corner,” Bridget said, her Irish brogue still a playful lilt on her tongue. “See? A bit of shade there, so it doesn’t get too damned hot. A little rain—would it be too much to ask for?”
“We’ve had quite a drought,” Tucker apologized. “Here, may my friend and I escort you ladies to the shade?”
“Of course,” Bridget allowed. “Your friend there is looking a little bit more like our type. Are you sure he doesn’t belong here?”
“No, no, Bridget. Look at….” Sophie frowned and whispered in her companion’s ear.
Bridget raked Angel with eyes that were still Ireland green, even after eighty years in the afterlife. “Oh yes,” she said mildly. “I see them now. Well, aren’t we honored, then.”
“The honor is mine.” Angel took his cues from Tucker’s garden-party manners. “But let us venture near the shade. Perhaps we’ll see your brother there.”
Sophie’s eyes flickered, and her neck drooped. “James hasn’t had an easy time of it, settling in here,” she said softly. “So much of him is elsewhere. Bridget and I, we’ve tried to give him some peace, you know. His wife, Henri, has moved on already to be with their boys. I can’t think what he’s waiting for.” She bit her lip and looked at her mate.
“He’s been kind to us,” Bridget acknowledged. “In ways I didn’t know kin could be kind. Henri and James—they were lovely. And the thing… the thing James did for us….”
For a moment, the women flickered, transported, as it were, to a thicker, richer lawn in the shade of a great hotel.
Angel understood in that moment.
He imagined that back at Daisy Place, they would have seen the two women appear from nowhere and go traipsing by, arm in arm, lively with youth.
“Yes,” Tucker said, holding out his arm. “I think we have a pretty good idea of what your brother did for you. And we’re so very glad he did. My dear?”
Sophie laughed, becoming more solid in this cemetery, more in tune with this place where she’d gone happily to rest. She took Tucker’s arm, with Bridget still firmly attached to her other side, and Angel kept pace a few feet ahead.
“Are you truly?” Bridget asked, all suspicion. “Glad at what he did?”
Angel grunted because he knew that was a falsehood. Tucker wouldn’t gain their trust with lies.
“Did you live good lives?” Tucker asked wistfully. “Gentle lives? Did you have chickens?”
“And cats,” Sophie said, nodding. “How did you know?”
“Tell me.”
Angel caught his breath.
They were going to tell Tucker a story.
“There’s not much to tell, really,” Bridget said, voice soft. “We… that night we got the letter from James. We knew he was coming, and Sophie was—”
“So happy,” Sophie supplied. “We didn’t know how he’d greet us, you see? I wanted a divorce. You just didn’t do that in those days.”
“I am aware.” Tucker dimpled at her, and Angel’s heart gave a little ping. “You were very brave.”
“We wanted to live.” Simplicity and courage rang in her voice, and Angel’s heart gave a big ping. “We wouldn’t have if I’d stayed with my husband. No cottage by the river, no chickens, no parade of kittens. We wanted to live, so we came here. And my brother—he missed our family so badly. He’d been violent as a boy, you know. So angry. His school years had been terrible for him. He was much smaller than the other boys. He grew up using his fists more than his chalk. He went west hoping to find a place where he could start over and become known neither for his temper, nor for being a scrawny, put-upon boy.”
“He did well?” Tucker prompted, although both Tucker and Angel knew the outcome of this endeavor.
“He did,” Sophie said simply. “He made a name for himself, became a foreman. He had a reputation—tough but fair. It was a reputation that followed him the rest of his life on the railroad, even when he stopped laying track.”
“Even after…?”
“Oh yes.” Both women nodded. “Especially after,” Sophie continued. “See, nobody knew about that night.” She grimaced, and while Angel was screaming, That’s your opening, use it, Tucker had apparently already jumped light-years ahead.
They came to the shade, and a low wooden fence