Page 3 of Dream Lake

The ghost was wrenched with anxiety. Destroying the house might be the end of him. It might send him to oblivion.

“I’m not going to tear it down,” Sam said. “I’m going to save it.”

“Good luck.”

“I know.” Sam dragged a hand through his hair with a scrubbing motion, causing the short, dark strands to stand up in wild dishevelment. He let out a heavy sigh. “The land is perfect for the vineyard—I know I should settle for that and count myself lucky. But this house… there’s something I just…” He shook his head, looking baffled and concerned and determined all at once.

Both the ghost and Sam expected Alex to mock him. Instead, Alex stood and wandered across the parlor, going to a boarded-up window. He pulled at the ancient sheet of plywood. It came off easily, offering only a creak of protest. Light flooded the room along with a rush of clean air, knee-high eddies of dust motes glinting in the newly admitted sun.

“I have a thing about lost causes, too.” A faint, wry note edged Alex’s voice. “Not to mention Victorian houses.”

“Really?”

“Of course. High-maintenance, energy-inefficient design, toxic materials… what’s not to love?”

Sam smiled. “So if you were me, how would you go about this?”

“I’d run as fast as possible in the opposite direction. But since you’re obviously going to buy the place… don’t waste your time with a regulated lender. You’re going to need a hard-money guy. And the rates are going to suck.”

“Do you know anyone?”

“I might. Before we start talking about that, though, you need to face reality. You’re looking at 250K of repairs, minimum. And don’t expect to lean on me for free supplies and labor—I’m going ahead with the Dream Lake site, so I’ll be as busy as a cat burying shit.”

“Believe me, Al, I never expect to lean on you for anything.” Sam’s voice turned arid. “I know better.”

Tension laced the air, a mingling of affection and hostility that could only have come from a troubled family history. The ghost was perplexed by an unfamiliar sensation, a raw chill that would have caused him to shiver if he’d had a human form. It was a depth of despair that even the ghost, in his bleak solitude, had never experienced—and it radiated from Alex Nolan.

The ghost moved away instinctively, but there was no escaping the feeling. “Is that how it feels to be you?” he asked, pitying the man. He was startled to see Alex cast a glance over his shoulder in his direction. “Can you hear me?” the ghost continued in wonder, circling around him. “Did you just hear my voice?”

Alex made no response, only gave a brief shake of his head as if to clear away a daydream. “I’ll send an engineer over here,” he eventually said. “No charge. You’re going to be spending more than enough on this place. I don’t think you have a clue about what you’re getting into.”

***

Almost two years passed before the ghost saw Alex Nolan again. During that time, Sam had become the lens through which the ghost could view the outside world. Although he still couldn’t leave the house, there were visitors: Sam’s friends, his vineyard crew, subcontractors who worked on the electricity and plumbing.

Sam’s older brother, Mark, appeared about once a month to help with smaller weekend projects. One day they leveled a section of flooring, and another they sandblasted and reglazed an antique clawfoot bathtub. All the while, they talked and exchanged good-natured insults. The ghost enjoyed those visits immensely.

More and more, he was recalling things about his former life, gathering memories like scattered beads from the floor. He came to remember that he liked big band jazz and comic book heroes and airplanes. He had liked listening to radio shows: Jack Benny, George and Gracie, Edgar Bergen. He hadn’t yet recovered enough of his past to have any sense of the whole, but he thought he would in time. Like those paintings in which points of color, when viewed from a distance, would form a complete image.

Mark Nolan was easygoing and dependable, the kind of man the ghost would have liked to have as a friend. Since he owned a coffee-roasting business, Mark always brought bags of whole beans and began each visit by brewing coffee—he drank it by the potful. As Mark meticulously ground the beans and measured them out, the ghost remembered coffee, its bittersweet, earthy scent, the way a spoonful of cane sugar and a dollop of cream turned it into liquid velvet.

The ghost gleaned from the Nolans’ conversations that their parents had both been alcoholics. The scars they had left on their children—three sons and a daughter named Victoria—were invisible but bone-deep. Now, even though their parents were long gone, the Nolans had little to do with each other. They were survivors of a family that no one wanted to remember.

It was ironic that Alex, with his bulletproof reserve, was the only one of the four who had married so far. He and his wife, Darcy, lived near Roche Harbor. The only sister, Victoria, was a single mother, living in Seattle with her young daughter. As for Sam and Mark, they were determined to stay bachelors. Sam was unequivocal in his opinion that no woman would ever be worth the risk of marriage. Whenever he sensed that a relationship was becoming too close, he ended it and never looked back.

After Sam confided to Mark about his latest breakup, with a woman who had wanted to move their relationship to the next level, Mark asked, “What’s the next level?”

“I don’t know. I broke up with her before I found out.” The two were sitting on the porch, applying paint remover to a row of salvaged antique balusters that would eventually be used for the front railings. “I’m a one-level guy,” Sam continued. “Sex, dinners out, the occasional impersonal gift, and no talking about the future, ever. It’s a relief now that it’s over. She’s great, but I couldn’t handle all the emotion salad.”

“What’s emotion salad?” Mark asked, amused.

“You know that thing women do. The happy-crying thing. Or the sad-mad thing. I don’t get how anyone can have more than one feeling at a time. It’s like trying to simultaneously watch TVs on different channels.”

“I’ve seen you have more than one feeling at a time.”

“When?”

“At Alex’s wedding ceremony. When he and Darcy were exchanging vows. You were smiling, but your eyes got kind of watery.”

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