Chapter 3 - The Morning the Ghost Disappeared
I stared at the photograph until Nathan called.
I declined it.
He called again.
Declined.
The third time, I answered.
"What?"
Nathan was breathing hard.
"Where are you?"
"Dead, apparently."
"Anastasia, this isn't funny."
"Neither was my obituary."
Silence.
Then he said, "You found out."
Not What are you talking about?
Not There must be a mistake.
You found out.
"You knew."
"I can explain."
"Everybody can explain tonight."
"Claire knows something's wrong."
"Good."
"Please don't contact her."
That told me exactly what he cared about.
"You're worried about Claire."
"I'm worried about everything."
"You should be."
"Where are you?"
I looked at the dark road ahead.
"Why?"
"Because we need to talk before she does something."
"What could she possibly do?"
Nathan hesitated.
"She found your nursery tag."
"I saw."
"Someone wrote on it."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Then why are you calling me?"
"Because Claire recognized the handwriting on the care instructions."
My grip tightened around the phone.
"She remembers me?"
"She remembers the woman who sold her the tree."
A car passed.
I stepped farther onto the sidewalk.
Nathan continued.
"She started asking why that woman had the same first name as my dead sister."
"So tell her."
"I can't do that over the phone."
"You've had eight years."
"Anastasia, please."
I closed my eyes.
There it was again.
Please.
The word my family used whenever they wanted me to absorb the consequences of their choices.
"I won't expose you tonight," I said.
Nathan exhaled.
"Thank you."
"I'm not doing it for you."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I'm finished participating."
I hung up.
That night, I slept in a twenty-four-hour motel beside the interstate.
By sunrise, I had made three decisions.
I would not return home.
I would not lie for my family.
And I would never again allow anyone to make my medical history the definition of my life.
I called Bellweather Nursery.
My manager, Rosa, answered.
"Anastasia? You're supposed to be off."
"I need help."
Those three words almost broke me.
Rosa didn't ask for details.
She said, "Come here."
An hour later, I sat in the nursery office holding terrible coffee while Rosa listened.
She didn't interrupt.
When I finished, she stared at me for several seconds.
"Your family told people you were dead?"
"Yes."
"And made you leave the house to maintain the lie?"
"Yes."
"And you're wondering whether you're overreacting?"
I looked down.
"I guess."
Rosa pushed a box of tissues toward me.
"You're not."
I cried then.
Not elegantly.
Not like Mom.
I cried until my chest hurt.
Rosa let me.
Then she helped.
Her cousin owned a small apartment above a closed bakery.
The rent was cheap.
The plumbing complained.
The windows rattled.
It was mine.
Within a week, I moved in.
My parents called constantly.
I blocked Dad first.
Mom lasted two more days.
Nathan lasted a week.
Then I blocked him too.
Claire never called.
I assumed Nathan had found another lie.
Life became smaller.
Then steadier.
I worked.
I saved.
I learned landscape design at night.
I discovered I was good at understanding what people wanted from a space even when they couldn't explain it themselves.
Rosa began sending me to clients.
One garden became three.
Three became twelve.
For the first time, people knew me for something I had built.
Not something that happened when I was eighteen.
Months passed.
Then one year.
I changed apartments.
I got promoted.
I started therapy again—not because my family told me I needed fixing, but because I wanted help understanding why I'd accepted being erased for so long.
The answer wasn't simple.
Love rarely was.
I had loved them.
That was why the lie worked.
Two years after leaving, Rosa offered me a partnership.
We renamed the design division Bellweather Garden Studio.
By year three, our work appeared in a regional magazine.
By year four, I owned half the company.
I had employees.
Clients.
Friends.
A home with windows full of plants.
A dining table people actually gathered around.
I was thirty-one when the past finally found me.
It happened on a Thursday.
I was reviewing plans for a community garden when our receptionist appeared.
"Anastasia?"
"Yeah?"
"There's a woman asking for you."
"Client?"
"I don't think so."
Something in her expression made me stand.
"Who?"
"Claire Holloway."
My body remembered before my mind did.
The nursery.
The dogwood.
The memorial tag.
I walked toward the showroom.
Claire stood with her back to me.
She looked older.
So did I.
She turned.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then tears filled her eyes.
"Oh my God."
I stayed where I was.
"Hello, Claire."
She covered her mouth.
"I knew it."
"What?"
"I knew you were the woman from the nursery."
I said nothing.
She reached into her purse.
"I've been looking for you for four years."
"Why?"
Her hand emerged holding something inside a clear protective sleeve.
The old tree tag.
My handwriting.
And beneath it:
SHE'S ALIVE.
"I didn't write that," I said.
"I know."
"Then who did?"
Claire looked toward the glass entrance.
A black sedan had just stopped outside.
Her face changed.
Fear.
"That's why I came."
The rear door of the sedan opened.
May you like
Claire whispered one name.
"Nathan."
