Yesterday's Gone: Season One

his spitting image — well, a cuter, girly version, anyway.
    Mary turned over and buried her face in the pillow. She hated dreaming about him, and really hated when they were sex dreams.
    He’d never stop being inside her , but he hadn’t actually been there in three years. They’d been divorced for two, but once she found out about Natalie Farmer, the bitch that was 10 years too young and as perky as a sitcom schoolgirl, she couldn’t touch him without a shudder.  
    She hated him for the innocence he stole and the lives he abused. But a large part of her could never forget the way he made her feel — the way he made her laugh, the way that, for no reason at all, he used to slip behind her and whisper treasures in her ear. The way he truly seemed to love her and their daughter, Paola. And the way he always reassured her that everything would be okay, even if he only did so in her dreams.  
    Mary rarely slept past seven. During the week, Paola had to be at school by nine and they usually left by eight because Paola liked to go early. Unlike most 12 year olds, Paola would wake early even on the weekends. Sometimes, Paola would join Mary for some early morning yoga before Mary worked a few hours on the greeting cards that paid for the $1.1 million house high on a hill in Warson Woods, just outside St. Louis – no thanks to Ryan.
    A million dollars bought a palace in Warson Woods, the kind of house Mary liked most, even though it made her feel guilty all the time. Her cousin lived outside L.A. He said nothing was for less than $350,000 unless you were willing to settle for bullet holes.
    It was probably thinking about bullet holes that made Mary realize how quiet the house was. More than usual. She sat up in bed. More than quiet – eerie. The trees were swaying, but that was it. No birds chirping. No dogs barking. And no lawnmowers. In Warson Woods, people loved lawns like children, and spoiled them the same, either themselves or through their teams of landscapers. Mary started calling lawnmowers the “Missouri Symphony” the second week she moved in. To not hear lawnmowers on a Saturday morning made her briefly question whether she’d slept straight through to Monday.  
    Mary left the bed and padded toward the stairs. She needed coffee. That would help the oddness fade. The hallway was dark. Mary flicked a light but nothing happened. She sighed and kept walking. One million for a house, fine, but everything should work.
    She would have a hard enough time this morning without light, but being without caffeine might make it impossible. So she wasn’t happy when her new Keurig wouldn’t work either. Maybe there was an outage in the neighborhood? A sudden chill iced her insides. It wasn’t logical, but it came from the place that keeps its eyes peeled for the stuff logical doesn’t.
    “Paola?”
    Paola didn’t answer, but the Keurig rumbled to life and started warming its water as the hall light came on and the air conditioner cycled on. She would’ve called for Paola a second time, but she didn’t have to. Paola called for her instead. “Mom!!!” Mom sounded like a war cry rattling from the throat of a warrior who knew she was about to die.
    Mary was at the foot of the stairs in less than a second and all the way to the top in two after that. She flew through Paola’s open door. Her daughter was screaming at something out of view.  
    It was gone before Mary got there, but it had left Paola a vibrating mess. Mary tried to soothe her, but Paola pushed her away. “It’s okay, Honey.” Mary pulled her closer. Paola surrendered and Mary’s hands fell in a familiar pattern behind her daughter’s head.  
    “What was it?” Mary asked.
    “I don’t know,” Paola shook her head. “I don’t know the words.”
    “Try.”
    “It was like,” Paola fell into a second fit of sobs. Mary continued to pet her. “It was like ...” more sobbing, then, “It was like Daddy.”  
    “What? What do you mean, it was like your father?”
    Paola shook her head. Her cheeks burned. “It was Daddy. He was in my room but he wasn’t. It was just him, but not all of him.”
    “Your father was here?!” Mary could feel her white face making Paola’s redder.  
    “No.” Paola started to say something, then closed her mouth. A long three seconds passed, then, “It was like if a ghost was there without the ghost. Daddy, but not Daddy.”  
    “How do you know it was a ghost, or your father, if you couldn’t