Page 90 of Dream Lake

“Past.”

“Lincoln.” As he shook his head, she continued to guess. “Jefferson. Washington. Oh, give me another hint.”

His mouth curved against her palm. “Born in Ohio.”

“Millard Fillmore.”

That drew a low laugh from him. “Millard Fillmore wasn’t born in Ohio.”

“Another hint.”

“A Civil War general.”

“Ulysses S. Grant? Your middle name is Ulysses?” She snuggled next to him, smiling against his shoulder. “I like that.”

“I don’t. A thousand playground fights started with someone calling me by my middle name.”

“Why did your parents name you that?”

“My mother was originally from Point Pleasant, Ohio, where he was born. She claimed we were distant relatives. Since Grant was a notorious alcoholic, I could almost believe it.”

Zoë kissed his shoulder.

“What’s your middle name?” Alex asked.

“I don’t have one. And I always wanted one—I didn’t like having only two initials for a monogram. When I married Chris, I finally got three. But I went back to being Zoë Hoffman after the divorce.”

“You could have kept your married name.”

“Yes, but it never seemed to fit me.” She smiled and yawned. “I think deep down, you always know.”

“Always know what?”

Her eyes closed, an overwhelming weariness settling over her. “Who you are,” she said drowsily. “Who you’re supposed to become.”

***

The ghost lay beside Emma’s sleeping form, her hair and face silver-limned as a stray moonbeam slipped through the partially shuttered window. He listened to the soft flow of her breathing, the occasional disruptions as she drifted through dreams. Lying beside her, so close that they would have touched if he’d had a physical form, he could remember the feeling of being young with her, the thrill of being alive and in love, the promise that everything was still before them. With no idea of the evanescence of life.

A memory came to him, of Emma fragile and distraught, her eyes swollen from crying.

“Are you sure?” he asked, the words coming with difficulty.

“I went to the doctor.” Her hand pressed against her stomach, not in the protective way of an expectant mother, but clenched in a fist.

He felt ill, furious, blank. Scared out of his mind. “What do you want?” he asked. “What should I do?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.” Emma began to cry, with the rusted aching sounds of someone who had already been crying a long time. “I don’t know,” she repeated hopelessly.

He put his arms around her, and held her firmly, and kissed her burning wet cheeks. “I’ll do the right thing. We’ll get married.”

“No, you’ll hate me.”

“Never. It’s not your fault.”

Silence.

“I want to marry you,” he said.

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