The Wish Collector
Page 33

Clara was quiet for a moment, and he pictured her face, pictured those wide, sensitive eyes blinking at her ceiling, pictured her pulling her full bottom lip between her teeth the way he’d seen her do when she was focusing on something her teacher was saying the night he’d watched her dance. “What about your mother? Is she still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” She sounded surprised.
“My mother lives in the south of France with her new husband.”
“Oh, I . . . well, she must obviously know what happened to you.”
“She does.” There was a small painful clenching in his chest, and it surprised him to know he could still feel the ache of his mother’s abandonment after all of these years. Her emotional detachment.
“They were already living out of the country at that time. She came back briefly, but then she left again.” He’d been too zonked out on pain medication to remember much of her short visit. “It was all too much for her . . . Justin’s death, everything that happened to me.”
“Too much for her?” Clara sounded incredulous.
“My mother is selfish, Clara. She always has been. I didn’t expect more from her.” That was the truth, and a lie, and they were both wound so tightly together, Jonah had no clue how to separate them. He hadn’t thought about all this in so long.
Up until now, he hadn’t had a phone, but his mother sent postcards from different places she was obviously vacationing in, and he always read her singular scrawled line—Wish you were here! Or, Love you bunches!—and he never knew whether he should laugh or cry. He sort of felt like doing both, but what he generally did instead was rip the card into a hundred tiny pieces and watch as they rained down in the trash. He never wrote back.
“Oh,” Clara breathed. Jonah heard her sadness even in the single syllable, uttered half under her breath.
“What about your mother, Clara? You’ve never mentioned her.”
“My mother died when I was eight. I don’t have many memories, but the ones I do have are good ones.”
“You’re lucky for that.”
“Yes, I . . .” She trailed off and Jonah waited for her to collect her thoughts. “I’m sorry you’ve been so alone.”
His heart squeezed. He deserved it. He deserved his solitary life. And it’s what he wanted, what he’d carved out for himself, despite a few motorcycle rides, despite an appearance at a masked ball. So why did Clara’s words—said so sincerely—make him ache? Make him pine? Christ, that old bastard Cecil was right on the damn money.
“You’re not alone anymore.”
He smiled at Clara’s sweetness, though it felt sad upon his lips. “You sound tired,” he said, picking up on the slight slurring of her voice and using it as an excuse to change the subject.
“I am.” She yawned and then laughed softly. Jonah closed his eyes and took every small sound she made inside of him as if he could hold on to tiny pieces of her forever. “And I have to get up early. Can I call you again?”
“Of course.”
He heard the smile in her voice when she said, “Goodnight, Jonah.”
“Goodnight, Clara.”
Jonah rolled onto his back, dropping the phone on the bed next to him. He was exhausted, but it was a long time before he fell asleep that night.
When he did, he dreamed of Clara, lifting her ball gown as she ran, glancing behind her with both sorrow and fear in her eyes. The vision mixed with murky images of dark alleys and tall rows of sugarcane, of a woman kneeling in a dark puddle that reflected the silvery sheen of a knife that then morphed into a razor blade.
There was a strange pounding in the background that made his heart race with fear. Hurry! Hurry! And then he saw Justin at the end of the alley beckoning to him, a smile on his face right before he disappeared into the mist beyond.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Everything felt brighter to Jonah the next day, as if there’d been a veil of gossamer fog hanging over the world he hadn’t known about, and it’d suddenly lifted.
He knew why. It was because he’d fallen asleep to Clara’s voice in his mind, and despite the way his dreams had twisted and turned, she’d been a part of them.
He went for his early morning run and then strolled aimlessly around the property, stretching his arms and breathing in the sweet fresh air as his heart rate slowed and the sweat dried on his skin.
As he was turning to go back to the house, he swore he heard soft weeping. He paused, listening. Yes, underneath the loud morning bird chatter someone was crying.
He moved tentatively toward the wall, taking care not to step on anything that might make a sound and give him away.
He leaned forward, turning his good eye toward one of the larger cracks. He couldn’t make out much through the thin space, but he could see it was a woman. She was standing back from the wall enough so that he could tell she was young with dark hair. For a moment she continued to stand there weeping quietly.
He leaned away, feeling awkward about intruding on this moment, one the woman obviously believed was private. But he halted in his movement when she began to speak.
“I know I’ve already come here once and made a wish, but I didn’t think it would hurt to try again. I’m sure you get so many, and . . . if mine stood out . . .”
She hiccupped and then let out a strangled sound, half chuckle, half sob. “God, I’m desperate, aren’t I?” She paused for a moment. “It’s just, I was thinking that maybe my last wish wasn’t specific enough. You might be a spirit, Angelina, but it doesn’t mean you’re a mind reader, or, well, maybe you are but . . .”
The woman let out a shuddery breath and Jonah waited, unwilling to move and let her know he was there while she was pouring her heart out in what she thought was a confessional. I know what that feels like, he thought, closing his eyes as he ran his fingers over the coarse rock, picturing Clara on the other side, listening as he’d bared his own heart.
He felt like an ass listening to her, but the birds had quieted, her sobs had halted, and he was afraid to back away and make a noise. He was stuck.
“Anyway,” she continued, and he noted that her voice sounded more dull as if she had lost hope in her own wish, as if she’d already talked herself out of any possibility of it coming true before she’d even made it. “My son’s name is Matthew Fullerton, and he’s at Children’s Hospital. He’s very sick and he needs surgery . . . if there’s any hope for him. I can’t afford it, and I need help. Just”—she let out another small choking sound—”fifty-thousand-dollars-worth of help.”
Her words faded away and Jonah’s heart clenched as he closed his eyes. Fuck. Was this the woman whose wish he had read about her sick son? It must be.
“That’s all.” She sounded drained, her voice a mere whisper now. “I need help to save my boy.”
Jonah heard the sound of her footsteps moving away and pressed his eye to the crack again, watching as a blue car drove away, leaving only silence in its wake.
Jonah sat down on the grass, his heart heavy just like it’d been the first time he’d heard that woman’s wish for her dying child, feeling helpless all over again.
But you’re not helpless, are you?
The question wandered through his mind and for a second it felt as if someone else had asked it. Where had that come from? Did he think maybe he was some sort of masked hero now that he’d assisted one helpless woman who was being assaulted in an alley?
He ran his hand over his head, his hair now completely dry from the soft breeze blowing through Windisle. Oh Jonah, you fucking fool.
Although . . . this time, the person in need of help was requesting something that would require far less effort on his part: all she needed was money. My son needs surgery and I can’t afford it.
He blew out a breath. Was he seriously considering granting one of the wishes that had been made at the weeping wall? God, wouldn’t Justin love that?
He stood up, the idea taking hold in his mind, the ease with which he could do it forming.
He might not even have to leave his property. Although . . . no, he did not want this attached to him. He’d have to make the delivery in person. He’d have to make sure Matthew Fullerton’s mother received the money she needed. Fifty thousand dollars. It was nothing to him, but it would be everything to her.