Page 38 of The House on Haven Way

Even though things were rocky with Amber at first, they’re so easy now. I’m just myself around her. I don’t know how to act with Manny.

“Uh. How are you?”

“I’m good! I’m real good! My wife and I found each other again after a long time apart. We got married, and we just adopted our first baby this year—a little girl. She’s our little peanut, oh, let me tell you! Here, I’ve got pictures.”

I blink through Manny’s life, looking at pictures of a beautiful wife, although I can clearly see she’s not human, not with her dead white skin, and their very human daughter, a pink-cheeked little bubble with lots of dark hair. Amazing, Manny. Happy for you.”

“Thanks, Johnny. Say, I’m so sorry about what happened to you. And about Nancy. I heard you wondered about her, huh?”

“I found out she didn’t show up that night. Maybe she called me, and I didn’t know. I wasn’t doing so well,” I say, voice stiff.

“Well, I knew from your friend here that you wanted to find out, so I asked around, and I remembered that Nancy Benson used to room at the old Dullahan house on First Avenue—you know, it’s an office building now, but it still looks like a grand old place, and anyway—do you know who ended up buying up that place?”

“Who?” How the hell would I know?

“The bank! Silverman First Fiduciary. And being as the Silvermans are werewolves—”

Amber lets out a little yelp. “I bought my house from a werewolf?” she yips, eyes wide.

“Oh, a good one. With an excellent degree in financial management, I’m sure,” Manny placates, “and I asked if they could help out one member of the paranormal community, so I asked if they could help me track down anyone who might have lived there around the same time or been close with her.”

“I don’t think she had a lot of friends. I remember we were both on our own. She was the quiet type.”

“Well, it turns out she was close to the landlady, one of the Dullahan family daughters, and the Dullahan family is still very active in Pine Ridge. I asked if Patrick Dullahan could recall his mother mentioning anything about it. He’s a customer, you know, about sixty now, and still in agriculture—the large commercial end, but he said he’d try. And guess what?”

“What?” I really hope all of this is going somewhere after all that.

“He sent me a long text. Here.”

Manny holds out his phone.

Patrick: Hey, Manny, thanks for taking a look at the car for me. I’ll get it in for those new ball joints mid-month. Mary says she’d be happy to babysit anytime, so you let Rhea know. Oh, looked up Nancy Benson in Mom’s old journals. She was a great one for keeping notes about the tenants. Nothing nosy, just efficient. Found her journals from 1954, and she had an entry for September 16th. I took a picture for you. I hope this helps.

I know from Amber that you have to tap the phone, but screens and ghosts don’t mix in my experience. Amber lets me use a little stylus pen when she’s teaching me about technology, but now she’s already next to me, tapping the image, eyes desperately curious.

On faded blue lined paper, scrawly script in a notebook states:

Pretty little Miss Benson was pacing and boiling the kettle dry in the kitchen this afternoon when I went to meet the meter man. Talked to her about kitchen privileges and fire safety. She’s a waitress, and she’s normally very conscientious. Seemed distracted.

When I spoke to her, she mentioned that she was planning to go over to her sweetheart’s for supper, and I reminded her that no gentleman callers could be in her room, nor in the house after eight. I reminded her of the curfew for residents when not at work. I run a respectable house. She burst into tears and said she had led that nice boy on and couldn't marry him. She was in love with his best friend, that good-looking Harry Rogers at the hospital who dances with all the girls and never gave her so much as a tumble.

Poor little thing cried herself sick after that. She was quite hysterical, and as she had no family, I had to sit with her. Seems she’d thought she would get over Harry in time, but she wasn’t. Johnny (that young mechanic at Manny’s) is a good and decent man. I told her to call the young man and talk it over, but she went to bed with a headache and was still asleep when I left.

Meter man arrived. $8.50. I must talk to Miss Murtree about running her radio and that new television.

Mr. Crawford’s laundry bill is overdue.

Miss Murtree says Mr. Crawford’s practicing his banjo before seven in the morning. Wrote him a stern note and pinned it to the linens.

“She... she wanted Harry. She did want Harry.” Why do I feel better and worse at the same time?

Amber’s hand is warm and steady on my back. “And Harry wanted her.”

Manny pipes up. “You know, John, I don’t know why things work out the way they do. Rhea and I were apart for over a century. I’ve been thinking hard for the last few days, back to that month, that year. I don’t think Harry would even have looked at Nancy except that you spent so much time with her. You made him see that she was worth noticing, and when you died, he went to comfort her, and things shifted.”

“He came over here that night. His face was different. Closed over. Told me Nancy deserved someone who loved her all out. I thought... I thought that was him. And when I started to feel sick, to feel worse that night, I thought...” I trail off.

Manny’s eyes narrow. “Oh. Johnny, no.”