“That’s dumb, Dad.”
I was trying to make him laugh. “Lots of birds migrate through here in October. There are bird sanctuaries, but we have our own private view.”
“Wiki told you this?”
“Yes.”
Ethan snorted again. Moonie panted, trying to strangle himself on the leash. We splashed along.
“He said he’d play Call of Duty with you. He’s a gamer.”
“Is he supposed to be my new friend, like Dom is yours?”
I sighed inwardly. “I don’t know what to tell you, Ethan. I like the guy. I like them both. They’re trying to help us.”
“Well, I don’t need their help and I already have friends. Zach, Christopher, and Scott and the other guys. I don’t need an old-guy FBI friend.”
“He’s thirty-five.”
“That’s old.”
“We’re getting closer.” I noticed the surroundings grew brighter as the tree branches grew bare, and we came to a clearing. We could hear the flapping of wings and more calls and squawks, the chirping of crickets and other insects. The moon was as round as a bullet hole.
“This must be it,” I said, turning off the flashlight. I waited while my eyes adjusted, and Ethan let out a whistle.
Everywhere around us were dead trees, their bleached trunks white as skeletons, their branches denuded of life, reaching jagged in all directions, glowing like a field of lightning strikes against the black sky. They rose from a blanket of dark cordgrass rippling in the breeze, undulating as if alive. Snaking everywhere was tidewater, obeying the pull of the moon.
The place struck me as a convergence of life I couldn’t see and death that was staring me in the face. Tears came to my eyes, and grief ambushed me, as if it had been lying in wait, all along. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to go to a ghost forest so soon.
But Ethan gasped in delight. “Dad, this is so cool!”
It is? I cleared my throat. “Yes, it sure is.”
“How did it get like this, again?”
“The salt water kills the trees,” I managed to say, my throat thick.
Ethan touched my arm, looking up.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, clearing my throat again.
“Dad, you’re not.”
I felt exposed, despite the darkness. “You’re right. I’m sad about Allison.”
“But you don’t cry like Mom. She cries all the time. Me, too. You don’t.”
“I do when I’m alone.”
“Why? You cried when Aunt Caitlin died.”
“I don’t know.” I held back tears.
“Mom said you told her you’re not crying because if you start, you’re afraid you won’t stop.”
It caught me up short. I forgot when I had said that, but it was how I felt. I looked down at Ethan in the moonlight. “I love you, buddy. You know that, don’t you?”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
I put my arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. “We have each other. We’re going to be okay.”
“Mom’s upset we can’t go to the funeral.”
“Me, too. How about you?”
Ethan hesitated. “Is it okay if I’m not? I don’t want to watch it on TV, either.”
“Yes, of course, that’s okay.” I gave him a squeeze. “We know you love Allison and you miss her.”
Ethan fell silent. “She woulda thought this was cool. I wish she was here.”
“Me, too.”
“Like, I can’t believe she’s not . . . alive. I keep forgetting.”
“I know. It’s horrible.”
“I wake up and remember.” Ethan looked up at me, and I could see his stricken grimace, the moonlight glinting on his braces.
“I do, too,” I said, hugging him against my side.
“Do you think she’s a ghost? I mean, really? Do you think she’s in heaven, or do you think she goes flying around?”
I wasn’t ready for this conversation. “Well, I believe she’s always with us. Her soul is with us.”
“I believe that, too. I talk to her, Dad. Is that weird?”
“No, not at all. I talk to her, too, and I hear her voice. I think of conversations we had.”
“So do I. It comes into my head. That happened with Pop, too. I remember things he said. Like he always said, ‘Cheese and crackers’ and ‘Hot damn!’？”
I smiled, surprised. “You remember that? You were so young then.”
Ethan nodded. “There’s times when you say something he woulda said, or you do something he did. Like you suck your teeth.”
“Oh no.” I smiled.
“I miss Pop.”
“I do, too. They say time heals all wounds. I think it’s true with Pop. I think of him a lot, but I don’t always feel sad.”
“That will never happen with Allison. I’ll always be sad about her.”
My heart hurt for him. It was too much to deal with at his age. Not only the loss, but the horror. “You don’t know that yet, honey. Now is really, really hard, and I have to hope this is the hardest it will ever be.”
“No, Dad. It will always be hard.”
“Not forever, honey.”
“Forever.”
I feared he was right, but it wasn’t what I should say. I looked into his face, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Buddy, listen. This is a hard thing, very hard. We can get a counselor, if you want to talk to somebody about it.”
“I know, Mom already told me. She calls it a shrink. She said she went to a shrink after Aunt Caitlin died.”
I was glad that Lucinda had told him. It should come from her, since I had given away enough of her secrets. “She did go, and it helped her. I saw it help her.”
“Have you ever been to a shrink?”
“No, but I might go now.”
“Zach P goes every Thursday after school. Miles saw the number in his phone and started making fun of him, then everybody started calling him crazy.”
“That’s wrong. It’s wrong to call somebody crazy, and it’s good to talk to a therapist. We could go as a family.”
“But we’re not a family anymore.”
“What do you mean?” I remembered I had thought that in our family room, that first night. “We’re still a family, Ethan.”
“Not without Allison, it’s not the same. Nothing is the same.”
“It’s not the same, but we’re still a family.” I tried to figure it out, because Ethan needed to be reasoned with. “Think of it like this. We’re still a family, and Allison is still in our family, even though she’s not here, physically. She’ll always be in our family.” I thought it over. “The people you love, like Pop and Allison, even the pets you love, like Max and Wendy, they never leave you, not as long as you love them. You’ll always have them as long as you love them. And you’ll love them forever. That’s what lasts forever. The love.”
We both fell silent, listening to the sounds of the things we couldn’t see. The water flowed inexorably to the bay, a hushed rushing.
“Dad, I feel her here. Do you?”