“What is it, Sawyer? Why are you so quiet? Did I say something to upset you? I’m sorry if I did.”
Was she sorry? The urge to confess seizes me. “I blame myself for my sister’s death, and so does she.”
Honoree lifts her chin. “Why would you say something like that? You can’t read the minds of the dead.”
I lower my voice. “Her ghost haunts me.” I smile, hoping to diminish the absurdity of my words. “She’s standing next to your bed.” I keep a flicker of humor in my eyes. I don’t want to frighten Honoree with the manifestations of my guilt.
“Ghosts, huh?” She shrugs, causing me to think my admission is the most boring thing she’s ever been told.
“You’re mighty young to be bothered by ghosts,” she continues. “Live as long as me, and you get used to ’em. Some folk call ’em memories, but what are memories but the ghosts of people lost and left behind?” Her sigh is long and thoughtful. “Tell me more about your ghost, and I’ll tell you about mine.”
This is uncomfortable. It is one thing to see a ghost, another thing to tell someone you see a ghost, and another ball game altogether when the person you share your crazy with comes right back at you with crazy of their own.
“How about if we drop the subject.”
“The thing about death”—Honoree taps her chest as if warding off a demon—“we don’t have the slightest idea of when it will happen, and unless you’re old or sick or the doctors have told you to write your will, you don’t expect it. Your sister was young when she died, and I’m sure she had no plans to die. So, you seeing her ghost could be your way of keeping her memory with you.”
I sink into the chair. My legs uncross, my arms dangle at my sides. I drop my head back and sigh, releasing a year’s worth of pain and guilt, but on the next inhale, I swallow it all back, gather myself, and begin. “I didn’t start seeing her until last winter. My grief barometer is out of whack. I never go through shit in the right order.”
“Watch your mouth.” Honoree’s reprimand is gentle. “I know what you mean about ghosts. Mine is with me all the time. One ghost, in particular, is a constant bother,” she says, her words tinged with weariness. “I wonder why she haunts you, though? What happened to her?”
The question is one I ask myself a thousand times a day, and not once have I gotten an answer I will accept. “I was driving, and she was talking about her move to New York City and leaving home, leaving Dad. She made me promise to tell him everything about why she was leaving, but not until after she was gone. When it came to hurting my dad’s feelings, she was a coward. They were inseparable after my mom died. But as usual, she put the burden on me of telling him the bad news.”
Honoree chuckles. “It’s never what you did, but what you didn’t do.”
I rise and go to her; my hands grip the railing, and I search her watery-eyed gaze. “Christ. I never told him that she planned to move to New York.”
“Is that why she’s riled up?”
Azizi sits on the edge of Honoree’s bed, looking serene and mildly impressed.
“Could be,” I say to Honoree. “Seems such a small thing, though. Kind of a bullshit reason to haunt me.”
She cuts me a look.
“Sorry,” I say with a sheepish grin.
With an eyebrow lifted, she says, “Are you sure she’s mad at you? Or is there something else bothering you about that night?”
I wipe something from my eye. “Well, I was driving the car, and I didn’t die. There’s that.”
CHAPTER 23
HONOREE
Wednesday, October 28, 1925
Honoree had given up all hope the Dreamland Cafe would ever reopen. What had Miss Dolly said? She’d be dancing at Miss Hattie’s until the day she died. Vicious chatter from a venomous tongue, but her words still stung like the crack of a whip.
Sitting in Miss Hattie’s dressing room, Honoree mended a hole in her pantaloons, something the chorus girls did once a week. They came in early to sew up the rips and holes in their costumes.
“Ouch!” Honoree had stabbed her thumb.
“What’s wrong with you?” Edna Mae sat on the crate next to her.
Honoree waved her finger in the chorus girl’s face.
“I don’t mean that. You awful quiet tonight.”
