“Nothing,” Darcie says, sighing.
“Nothing?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Sometimes they don’t show up.”
What did I expect?
If I hadn’t downed the two brandies, I’d have realized that Darcie likely had this whole séance event staged to help her friend move on from a long-dead asshat. Still, privately I desperately hoped Philip would appear. I realize how much I wanted it to happen. I ached for it.
“Can you try again?” I ask pathetically.
“Let’s see.”
She closes her eyes, and collectively we hold our breath in silence. Then she snaps her eyes open and shakes her head.
“Sorry, luv. He’s not coming.”
“Well, why ever not?” Ms. Fernsby implores.
“Sometimes, they choose for us not to see them. It can be a kindness.”
Really, Philip?
“Lizzie, we can always come back here,” Ms. Fernsby says gently. “He might just not be up to it tonight. It uses up a lot of energy, right, Darcie?”
Darcie shakes her head. “It’s not that. Sometimes the spirits know it’s not good for us to see them.”
“Why wouldn’t it be good for me to see Philip?”
“I’ve encountered this before. Sometimes, the love is so strong it continues uninterrupted, steady as it was in life. You don’t need me to bring him here.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Why wouldn’t it begoodfor me to see him?”
Darcie speaks slowly, choosing her words carefully. “There are dangers with this type of love, Lizzie. Because the love is sturdy, when one partner dies, the other one remains actively attached in such a way that they are unable to move on. The good spirits know this about their living loves. You don’tneedPhilip to show up to you tonight. And he won’t—because he knows it’s not good for you.”
“I hope you’re not too disappointed,” Ms. Fernsby says as we ride back to the row house. “These séances—they rarely turn out as expected.”
I stare out the Uber car window at the passing streetlamps.
I’ll probably feel embarrassed in the morning, silly that something in me wanted to believe Philip could return tome. But I think part of being warm and human is holding out hope in the fantastic—that we can be surprised in our ordinary, known world.
“How doyoufeel about what happened?” I ask.
She sighs. “Released.”
Back at the house, we find Mabel sipping hot tea at the kitchen island. Everything is clean and quiet, with Heathcliff safely tucked in and asleep upstairs. Ms. Fernsby has settled into a distracted mood since we left the séance, and after chatting a bit with her daughter, she heads up to bed. I sit across from Mabel. I’d only met her briefly before we left for Darcie’s, and here in the kitchen light, I see immediately her resemblance to Lord Routledge—the high cheekbones, the long nose. Although not much younger than Sarah and me, she could pass for a college student. Sporting an oversize sweatshirt with floral yoga pants and hair up in a high ponytail, she looks fun, like someone who hares off backpacking to Switzerland on a long weekend.
“Love that little boy of yours,” she says, her eyes a warm blue like her mother’s.
We make small talk for a bit. She tells me about how she and Heathcliff built a LEGO Gotham City and how he managed to negotiate three books before bedtime. (Fiercely negotiating beyond one book at bedtime has been Heathcliff’s longtime MO with babysitters.) When we hear Ms. Fernsby’s bedroom door shut upstairs, Mabel leans forward, lowering her voice.
“Mum seemed a bit off. Is everything okay?”
I tell her about the séance and Ms. Fernsby’s response in the car.
“Released,” Mabel says thoughtfully, taking another sip of tea. I stare at the tea bag, wet and limp on a nearby floral saucer. “It’s about bloody time.”
“She’s loved him for all these years,” I murmur. “I could tell that by the way she talked about him during the séance.”
