Now, with Bella around, she’d been so excited about her new abilities, she’d spent the last two days testing them.
And she’d spent that time watching Prentice and Bella play their crazy game.
The abilities part was good. She was getting stronger, understanding the focus she needed to manipulate things, happy that her anger, frustration and grief at being dead had some use. She got so good at it, she couldn’t only move things; she could even pick things up and hold them.
She was also able to talk to Bella. Bella definitely heard her. That was why the laundry got done, the ironing got done, the vacuuming and sweeping got done (her house was going to be taken over by dust mites if Bella didn’t do something about it, and she did, without hesitation, after Fiona screamed at her that it had to get done) and Sally got a chocolate cake (her favorite) but only after she ate her broccoli.
Of course, Bella did these things for other reasons too. Fiona knew that. After all she saw and heard these last days; she knew Bella wasn’t what she’d thought Bella was for all those years.
Instead, Fiona knew Bella’s soft heart and unique understanding meant Bella would have taken care with Fiona’s children, even if, perhaps, she wouldn’t have ironed Prentice’s shirts while she was doing it.
And Fiona had to admit, she was grimly fascinated by Prentice and Bella’s game.
They bickered a lot.
And Prentice obviously enjoyed it.
In the time Fiona and Prentice were courting before they married and a few years after, Fiona had worried she’d never live up to all that was Bella.
Prentice and Bella had an obviously passionate relationship. Everyone knew it because they saw it and they were amused by it because, even all that fighting and bickering was somehow sweet especially considering, when they weren’t fighting and bickering, they were clearly deeply in love.
It was something he and Fiona didn’t have.
Prentice and Fiona had a comfortable, easy life filled with laughter.
They had great sex, a lot of closeness and Prentice was affectionate but Fiona wasn’t nearly as passionate as he was so that part stayed only in the bedroom.
It didn’t spill out to life.
It spilled out everywhere with Prentice and Bella.
Bella and Prentice, when they were together, fought and they bickered.
And Bella challenged Prentice in a way Fiona knew she never could. Bella was well-educated, read a great deal and she’d travelled. Prentice, too, got top marks, got into a top university, read any book he could get his hands on and had spent three summers abroad, backpacking on the cheap and with a relentless schedule to see as much of the architecture in Europe as he could.
Fiona liked it in her village and rarely left though she wanted to see Los Angeles, not enough actually to go when Prentice offered it as a family holiday. Fiona said they’d go when Sally was older so Sally could go to Disneyland (what a fool she was). She read her crime novels but she didn’t read anything high-brow and she didn’t read many of her crime novels either.
She was happy with the simple life and, after awhile, Prentice convinced her he was happy with it too.
But the longer Bella remained in the house, the more alive he seemed.
And if she wasn’t already dead, watching that would have killed her.
She was back to hating Bella when, the night of the stag party, even though she knew it wasn’t right, she started to read Bella’s journals.
She floated, cross-legged above the floor by Bella’s bed while Bella slept and Fiona read.
And she couldn’t believe what she read.
One day, years ago, Fiona was in the fruit and veg shop when Hattie had made some vicious comment about some famous pop star who’d gone off the rails and Old Lady Kilbride, who was also there, heard her.
“You don’t know the demons she carries, Hattie Fennick,” Mrs. Kilbride said sharply. “You don’t know. Her life may seem charmed and glamorous to you but everyone has demons. Everyone.”
Old Lady Kilbride was right.
And Isabella Austin Evangahlala had demons and her demons were doozies.
She seemed like she had it all. She was beautiful, rich, well-educated, jet-set, stylish, classy.
But she had an abusive father who used to berate verbally and alternately beat her mentally unstable mother.
This, Bella had witnessed.
He also verbally berated and sometimes slapped Bella.
She had a best friend who’d lost her joy for life and Bella worked for years trying to help her find it again and luckily succeeded, Fiona learned through the journals, that while she and Prentice were encouraging Dougal from close by, from a distance, Bella was also encouraging Annie.
Bella also had a husband who played around on her constantly, even once she’d walked in on him and another woman.
He’d also taunted her with her inability to give him children, something Bella yearned for to the point of despair.
And he’d not allowed them to settle down even though she wanted a home. They owned several properties but they never stayed in one long. They travelled around like nomads from party to party, yacht to yacht, ski resort to ski resort, event to event, incessantly.
Bella missed her mother who she adored and she had vivid, excruciating dreams, even after all these years, of finding her dead in the tub.
And last, but not least, Bella loved Prentice in a fierce, beautiful way that Fiona had to admit that even she hadn’t loved him.
And that love never, never died.
Ghostly tears were falling from her ghostly eyes at all Bella had endured (and it was never-ending, no wonder the woman clenched her fists, all that pain had to be unleashed somewhere) when Fiona sensed Prentice’s presence nearing the house.
She flipped shut the third journal (her ghostly abilities extended to super-fast reading which had been a boon) and carefully arranged them in the tidy pile in which Bella liked them.
Then Fiona dematerialized and materialized in the living room.
Prentice was standing stock-still staring at the rug.
He looked angry.
Oh for goodness sakes. What was he pissed off about now?
Then he took off his coat, flung it on the chair and stalked to the hallway.
Fiona followed him, worrying so much she was wringing her hands and shouting at him to leave Bella be. She needed her sleep. She had to get some rest for the wedding tomorrow. She didn’t sleep well and she was sleeping soundly now.
But, of course, he didn’t hear her. In fact, when he encountered Bella’s closed door, instead of knocking or, better yet, turning away, he walked right in.
Fiona followed and as she would have floated over the threshold, she disappeared and reappeared in her whatever-it-was place.