The Ghosts of Beatrice Bird by Louisa Morgan

Author:Louisa Morgan [MORGAN, LOUISA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2023-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

24

Beatrice, San Francisco, 1976

BEATRICE REACHED A point where she couldn’t walk the San Francisco streets without tears streaming down her face at the sorrow and pain emanating from the people she passed. It was slightly better with her private patients. She could do something to help them, but every appointment left her drained. Twice she fled the clinic, her emotions out of control. She couldn’t socialize with the few friends she had or with Mitch’s friends from the hospital. Mitch withdrew further and further from her, making excuses to work late, taking extra shifts. Hiding. She understood. He was protecting himself.

It did no good to pretend she didn’t see his ghost, his nonna. Others joined her, the shades of unhappy patients, frightened ones, angry ones, sad ones. She tried to pretend she didn’t see them, struggled to shut them out, but it was no good. She couldn’t do it, and Mitch knew she couldn’t do it. He watched her expression change when she looked at him, and he grew more wary and frustrated by the day.

“I can’t live like this,” he finally told her. It was November, and their misery was mocked by the red and green holiday lights glimmering gaily through the foggy San Francisco night.

“Mitch—” Beatrice began, but then didn’t know how to go on. When he had come home that evening, a half-dozen ghosts of every color trailed him. Another, pale and shivery in the background, made her heart clutch with anxiety. It was her own, generated by his worry for her, his anger over what she had done, his grief at the destruction of the life they had built together. It was terrible. She pressed her hand to the base of her neck, trying to ease the ache that swelled there, that closed her throat so she could barely speak.

Mitch made a halfhearted attempt at dinner, but neither of them could eat more than a few bites. Beatrice lit a candle and turned off the lights over the table, but the relief that gave her was too little and came too late.

“Every time you look at me,” Mitch said bitterly, “I see your pain. I dread walking in the door, because I know what I’ll see on your face.”

“I’m sorry,” she said weakly, as she had said dozens of times.

“I want to fix it,” he said, staring at his plate. “I want to cure you. I want to prescribe something, but I have no earthly idea what it would be. And to tell the truth, sometimes I’m not even sure—” He broke off and dropped his fork against the china.

“You’re still not sure you believe me,” she finished for him.

“Are you guessing about that?” He lifted his eyes to her, and her heart quivered at the familiar shine of the candlelight in his round glasses.

“No,” she said, very quietly, dropping her gaze to her plate. “Not guessing.”

“One of your feelings.” It was not a question.

“I’d rather not talk about it, because you won’t believe that, either.”

“I’m trying, Bea.

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