Chapter 79

The minute Sam woke, his mind reached for Evie.
I'm right here.
The voice in his head soothed him, and he lay back against his pillows. It was nearly noon, but that was no surprise since they'd been awake until three watching porn. His salacious little ghost had enjoyed every minute of it.
Does that make me a bad person, Sam?
The doubt in her question nearly broke his heart. "Not at all, sugar. It makes you human. There's nothing wrong with being a sensual person - on the contrary, that's a good and glorious thing. Face it, Evie. If you'd been a slut, you wouldn't have died a virgin at the age of twenty-four. Whoever your fiancé was, he would have been a lucky man to have you." Great, now he was jealous of a man who'd probably died in WWI. This just kept getting weirder.
Gervase didn't die in the war.
"Oh, now you can read my thoughts too?"
Sometimes. Are you really jealous?
"A little. Why don't you tell me about him while I go downstairs and make some coffee."
All right. Though I don't think he's worth the time and trouble to talk about.
Sam climbed out of bed and pulled on a pair of cotton lounge pants before heading down the stairs. He'd showered after the first movie then fallen asleep right after the second. Since he planned to spend the afternoon working, he'd wait and shower again after he cleaned up the paint.
I love what you're doing to the house. He imagined Evie floating along by his shoulder as he walked. It's not the same as it was when I lived here, but it's nice.
"While I work today, maybe you can mentally paint me a picture of the house the way you remember it. I don't want to completely duplicate a turn-of-the-century style, but I'd like to incorporate a few elements here and there of the original."
Fine. It's better than discussing that snake, Gervase.
"He hurt you." Now Sam wanted to kill the bastard all over again.
Not physically. He just kept postponing the wedding, coming up with all kinds of excuses - even before the war broke out. I just waited for so long, expecting him to come back and marry me. Then I died before I ever really had a chance to live. The bastard didn't even mourn me. Instead, he just kept my dowry and married his mistress as soon as he heard I was dead.
"Couldn't your parents sue or something?"
An international lawsuit? During the war? France was such a mess, and Gervase, the lily-livered coward, was hiding in Switzerland.
"I'm so sorry, honey. I'd still go beat him up for you if I could. Did he at least die a horrible death?"
Evie laughed. Yes. Syphillis. I overheard my brothers talking about it. And we didn't have the same medications then. There were no... The ones that make infections go away.
"Antibiotics." Sam shuddered. He'd read stuff and even seen pictures back in high school health class. It hadn't been a pretty way to go. "Good thing then that you never slept with the bastard."
Because that would have been so much worse than being pushed from the second floor landing in my own home.
He smiled at her sarcasm even as the information blew his mind. "Pushed? The newspaper articles didn't say anything about murder."
Somehow, he felt her shrug. Nobody knew, except my bitch of a sister-in-law. And she sure as hell wasn't about to tell anyone she killed me.
"Your sister-in-law pushed you down the stairs?" He heard the incredulity in his own voice. Sam's family argued, sure, but even he couldn't imagine actually killing one of his brothers, let alone an in-law. He finished prepping the coffeemaker and popped a couple slices of bread into the toaster.
She did.
"Why on earth would she do that? Surely it had to be an accident."
No, though it was an impulse and not planned. My eldest brother had been pressing my parents to allow his family to take over the house - urging my parents to move out to our summer cottage by the shore. My parents refused to leave town while I still lived at home and even talked about leaving this house to me instead of to Michael. His wife Felicia was furious. They had two children already and were expecting a third. They needed more space than their townhouse afforded, but since they'd expected to inherit this house, they didn't plan to buy a bigger one of their own.
"So a pregnant woman actually shoved you down the stairs - hard enough for the fall to be fatal?" The logistics of it didn't seem quite right.
Again, he sensed a shrug. It's not as if I could fight back. I didn't like her, but I wasn't going to risk hurting my niece or nephew. She caught me off guard and shoved me over the railing. I didn't fall down the stairs, I fell over the stairs.
A wave of nausea rumbled through Sam's stomach. In her lifetime, she must have been so vibrant and vital. Having that snuffed out by a shove from a jealous relative was a true tragedy. And Sam briefly hated himself because part of him was just a little bit grateful. Otherwise, he'd have never known Evie.
"I hope you haunted the hell out of her."
She laughed. Oh, I did, at least for ten days a year. They moved out after the first Halloween and let my other brother David buy them out. David's children were so much fun to watch growing up. I loved them all, even if they never knew me.
"You would have made a fabulous aunt." And an even better mother. It's a shame you never got the chance.
I like to think I'd have had a family some day. I've enjoyed watching yours over the last few weeks. Your niece is adorable, and there's to be another one soon. You enjoy spoiling her rotten, don't you? You love being an uncle.
"Very much."
And you are close to your siblings - even your brothers-in-law. Especially the one who was here tonight.
"Theo and I were friends long before he married Star. To be honest, it was a bit of a shock when my sister married my college roommate. I'd never even thought they liked one another."
They seem to be truly happy together, just like your parents. I think you had a very good example.
"We did. All of us want to someday have a relationship like our parents have. Even our grandparents on the Holiday side are still happily married after over fifty years. Though unlike my parents, I don't think any of us wants five kids. One or two, maybe even three, but not five."
There were four of us, but I was only ever truly close to David. Michael and Jeanette were both much older. And our parents' marriage was more casually fond than the intense love I see in yours.
"That's too bad." He spread some of his mother's homemade strawberry jam on his toast then poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.
It was an arranged marriage, she replied. It could have been much worse - they could have not liked one another at all.
Now that was an unpleasant thought, which led to an even worse one. "Was your engagement an arranged one? I didn't think those persisted into the twentieth century."
It was. They weren't common then, not here, but my mother had ties to the French nobility, and the old ways were still strong in her family.
Sam didn't know what to say, so he just sipped his coffee. There were several long minutes of silence.