“She’s already suffering,” I ground out, pulling to get my wrist free of his grip. “I can’t harm her more than this. Let me go.”
“No.” He slung an arm around my waist.
“Azazel, please.”
His grip was implacably firm. I tried making myself visible, but the telltale prickle never came—he kept me invisible, unheard.
“Please,” I begged, my voice as brittle as I felt. “I can’t just—”
My words died at the sight of my aunt walking into the kitchen. Stopping my struggle against Azazel’s hold, I stared numbly. Aunt Cora was my mom’s younger sister, the only other close family we had left. Both my maternal grandparents had died years ago, taken too soon by cancer and heart attack. Working long hours at a law firm on the East Coast, Aunt Cora hadn’t been able to visit us much in the past years. Sometimes we didn’t even see her on Thanksgiving or Christmas, when she had to work overtime for some clients.
But now she was here, outside of any big holiday...to comfort my mom in her time of grief.
That broken part inside my soul fractured a bit more.
“Hey,” Aunt Cora said, sinking into the chair beside my mom and stroking over her back. “Hey. Shhh. Still nothing?”
My mom shook her head, her eyes reddened. “They’re not even really looking for her. They still think she just ran away. She wouldn’t. She just started a new job, for God’s sake!”
“I know.” Aunt Cora pulled my mom in for a hug. “We’ll keep looking, and digging, okay? I know some people who could help.”
Mom nodded and blew into a tissue.
Aunt Cora’s voice grew quiet. “Have you decided if you want to go?”
My mom’s features hardened. “I don’t know yet. I don’t know.”
“Well, you have two more days to make up your mind, and I’ll be here for another week, so even if you want to go after the funeral, I can come with you.”
Funeral? If they were still looking into my disappearance, then it couldn’t be my funeral they were talking about. My soul became very, very still, dread stealing through me on icy claws.
“I just…” my mom whispered. “I always thought, the day he died, I’d be… Happy is the wrong word. But I’ve been angry with him for so long, and there’s just so much pain, I thought there’d be...closure. But now…” She rubbed a hand over her face.
I felt like I’d been dunked in ice water. No. Oh, no, no, no.
“Yeah,” Aunt Cora said, taking mom’s hand. “It’d be nice if everything were black and white, hm? Feelings aren’t rational. You guys were married for as long as you’ve been apart now, and you loved him once. It’s never that simple turning your back on that.”
No. It couldn’t be.
“I mean,” Aunt Cora went on, “we can always go after the funeral so you don’t have to see them. And then whether you want to cry or spit on his grave—or both—no one will judge you. I’ll be there for you either way.”
My ghost form trembled. My whole spiritual core shook with the chilling implication of their words. “Azazel,” I whispered.
He’d grown very still behind me.
“Has my father died?”
He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know.”
I trembled some more. “How can you not know?”
“I’m not omniscient.” His voice held an edge. “And I didn’t keep tabs on your father. You were estranged.”
“Let’s get something to eat,” Aunt Cora said. “Take your time to think about it. It’s all a bit much right now… First Zoe, then…” She bit her lip. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”
Mom nodded and rose from her chair.
I turned, and Azazel let me go enough so I could face him. “Take me to my father’s.”
His expression was guarded. “Are you sure?”
“I need to know,” I rasped.
He regarded me for a few seconds, but whatever he saw on my face made him give a curt nod. “Does he still live in the same house?”
“Last I heard, yes. The two times he moved, he let me know the new address.” I pressed my lips together, numb though the gesture was. “Not that I ever wrote, or came to visit.”
“Let’s go, then.”
He scooped me up once more, this time the usual way, and I looped my arms around his neck as he took off into the skies, my spiritual form churning with a sickening feeling, like toxic sludge spreading through my system.
My dad’s new family had made their home in Gresham, all the way on the other side of Portland.