Drew pulled his knees in closer and dropped his face, so all she could see of him was the crown of his head, the flat wavy locks of hair springing like separate leaves from the uneven part, the whorl at the back. He muttered something into his legs.
“Didn’t hear you,” Lacey said.
“I said.” He burrowed his face into his knees and shouted through his own body. “I said I was sorry, okay? I only wanted to make you listen.”
“You could have hurt me. You could have hurt the baby.” Outrage and terror sank into the sand of her mind. So exhausting. She’d had this conversation before. Children in classrooms had knocked over desks; they had thrown book bags, pencils, and binders at her; they’d hooked their feet around her ankles trying to trip her; twice, she’d been bitten bloody. Teaching was a perilous art. She coaxed, comforted, and challenged her difficult boys. Use your words, she said, and then she taught them better words. She’d never given up on a child, however troubled and strange.
“I said, I know! You have to be careful of babies. I know.”
“Okay. Thank you.” As in a classroom after talking down a tantrum-prone boy, Lacey sat quietly next to Drew and felt peace rising within him. She could do this, keep him calm, keep her baby safe. The heavy scent of liver cooked in bacon grease came under the door, and she swallowed again and again. She was hungry enough to eat the liver half raw, as long as there was a lot of it. But Eric, ever conscientious, would cook it gray, safe and sanitary.
Her door bumped open, and Bibbits trotted in, his nails tapping as he crossed the room. He stood up on his back feet so that he could see up to the bed, and when he looked at Drew, he whimpered and fell back to the floor.
Bibbits could see him, though not all the time. Ella Dane never had, nor CarolAnna at the kitchen table. Ella Dane was sensitive—she should have known there was something in the house. As a child, CarolAnna had actually seen Drew. Drew was in control of their awareness, he must be. Drew smiled at Bibbits, and the dog whined in the back of his throat. Eric called from the kitchen, “Almost done!” and Lacey patted the blanket next to her. Bibbits barked once at Drew, then jumped into the bed next to Lacey’s shoulder.
“So,” Lacey said. “Think you can tell me what upset you?” There was always a reason for the tantrum, and children liked to be taken seriously.
“You know.” Drew plucked at the blanket. He raised his chin up to his knees and peered at her under the fall of hair. “I don’t want you to talk to her.”
“Who?”
“That lady. The one whose name you found out.”
Greeley Honeywick. “Why?”
“She’ll tell you bad things.”
“Are there bad things?”
“She’ll tell you I hurt her.”
“Did you hurt her?”
“She was mean to me.”
“What did she do that was mean?”
Bibbits barked, one shrill word. Lacey glanced up at the doorway, and there was Eric, with a tray in his hands. Liver with bacon, hash browns, and a big glass of orange juice. “I heard you talking,” he said.
The weight still pressed at the foot of the bed, but Drew was gone. The weight gradually lifted, leaving her left foot numb. She could still smell his salty hair, the smell of a child who had spent a long day playing in the sun.
“Who were you talking to?” Eric asked.
And she couldn’t say, Smell that, it smells like a little boy, because he didn’t know children the way she did, and anyway the room smelled of liver now, also of poodle. Bibbits barked again and pulled at the blanket with his front feet. “Just the dog,” she said.
“I don’t think so.” Eric waited as Lacey pulled herself up against the cushions. He set the tray on her lap and sat next to her, holding Bibbits firmly in spite of the little dog’s growls. “Who got hurt? Who was mean? What’s going on, Lacey?”
Lacey took a bite of liver, for time, and handed a piece to Bibbits, for peace. She took a mouthful of hash browns. Eric had cooked them in the bacon grease and they were wonderful. “There’s something in the house,” she said, “and I know you won’t believe me.” She should stop talking; the teacher voice warned her, Stop before you say another word, but it was too late. She had to tell him; she couldn’t do this on her own, and nobody who made such perfect hash browns could be unsympathetic. “There’s something in the house, and it’s dangerous.”
“Something?” Eric said.
“Somebody.” She still couldn’t say ghost. The weight on the bed, the part in his hair. He was too real. “A person. He’s angry about something.” A thought came to her. “Angry, or maybe sad.” She gave a little bounce, and Bibbits took advantage of the motion to lunge for her plate and snatch a piece of bacon. Lacey grabbed the plate, and the liver slid off; she caught it with her right hand, and Eric pulled away from her with a sound of disgust. “Sad,” she said, brandishing the liver at him, “that’s what he is. Being sad makes him angry.”