It didn’t feel sad. It felt ... peaceful.
Harper toyed with the twine around the wildflowers and cleared her throat.
“I’m not really sure how to introduce myself, or if I even should,” she started. “I’m in love with your husband so I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t make us friends if you were still here. But maybe, given the circumstances, you’d be okay with it?
“I think you must have been a pretty amazing person. I think Luke is, too. You must have been so happy together.
“I don’t really know why I’m here. He shouldn’t be trying to keep you locked away. I can’t tell if he’s trying to protect everyone else or himself.
“I fell in love with a man who can’t be honest with me and I don’t know what this is going to mean for us when he comes home.”
Harper sat in silence for a few moments. She leaned forward and ran a finger across the phoenix. She missed him. Missed him with a hard edge that rubbed everything raw. She didn’t know what the future would hold, but right now she knew that she wanted him home.
***
The workweek was passing in a blur. Harper found if she kept herself busy, she didn’t have as much time to focus on the keen edge of need just below the surface. It was only at night that she couldn’t block out the ache. She found herself getting up earlier and earlier in the mornings to head out for a quiet run.
Like today.
It was still hours away from the full heat of a summer day when she laced up her shoes. Hours away from work, from words, from people. Now there was only time for thoughts and dreams.
She chose a different route today, one that wound through the still silent streets of town. Harper had finally found that space between the beats of her foot strike where peace reigned.
Aldo was impressed with her progress and she with his. The last round of modifications made to his prosthesis really seemed to help. His gait was smooth and he was steadily increasing the intensity of his physical therapy. She was surprised she hadn’t seen similar progress between him and Gloria.
“Not everyone is a love story waiting to happen,” Luke had teased her last night from seven thousand miles away.
He was smiling on the screen, and Harper knew it was a good sign. After Aldo, she had seen the gray, the shadows, and she knew that he was fighting battles not just on the ground. As strong as he was, he took sustenance from the good news at home. They discussed work in brief broad strokes, but Harper saw his expression come to life most when she talked about home. Aldo’s latest stunt at physical therapy or Josh’s new saying or what new tofu recipe Claire had tried on Charlie.
She didn’t mention Karen or her trip to the cemetery. They would talk eventually. Face to face.
It was Karen on her mind that had Harper choosing this route. She stopped to catch her breath in front of a tidy two-story duplex. 417 Meadow View. Their home together. Luke and Karen. Behind those walls they had cooked breakfast together, made love, argued, and planned a family.
She didn’t know what she expected to feel being here. What was someone supposed to feel when they stalked ghosts?
Hands on her hips, she paced the sidewalk, glancing every now and then at the house. Did Luke ever do this? Did he come back to the place where there was life? Did he visit the cemetery where there was only death?
Harper felt something. A presence. A ghost?
But it was a woman. Flesh and blood. Haunting the sidewalk. They studied each other from several paces away. The trim figure was dressed casually in shorts and a t-shirt. She had her brown hair with its silver strands pulled back in a short curly stub.
Harper felt like she had been caught in the act. She gave an awkward wave. “Morning,” she called.
The woman simply stared. There was something familiar about her face. It reminded her of Karen. Harper felt her heart skip a beat. “Joni?”
The woman’s face transformed into an impassive mask.
“So you’re her,” she said, her tone soft, but laced with pain.
“I’m who?”
“Luke’s replacement for my daughter.”
Harper froze where she was.
“Joni, I can guarantee there’s no replacement for Karen.”
“That’s not how it looks to me. What it looks like to me is he tried to pretend she never existed until he found someone new to help him forget.”
