Talking to the Dead Page 5

  I tore the paper up and started a new sheet. I drew a chart with two columns and labeled them, filling in the blanks with my recent behavior.

  Not Crazy

  Crazy

  Trouble sleeping

  Camping out on living room floor

  Mood swings

  Freaking out on sister and kicking her out of my house

  No interest in regular routine

  Forgetting to eat for days at a time, not showering—allowing leg hair to grow to braiding length

  Missing dead husband

  Hearing voice of dead hus—

  “Write down ‘burns the toast,’” Kevin said.

  My pen froze midword.

  “You always burn the toast. It’s a terrible habit.”

  Without moving I cast my eyes around the kitchen. I saw nothing, no one. My heart tapped out its fear. This really is crazy. Still, some strange part of me want to press on, to know what would happen if I tried to converse with him. “I don’t burn it. You just like to eat raw toast.”

  I heard his laugh rumble through the air. I gasped. “Can I see you?” Silence.

  Don’t ask questions. “I’m the perfect housekeeper,” I tried again.

  “Tell the counselor you burn the toast, and you don’t know how to fold socks,” Kevin said.

  What is this? I thought. Am I awake? Dreaming? Dead? I was afraid to move. “I miss you.”

  I waited. Nothing. I didn’t know which was worse, hearing his voice or not hearing it. Which was crazier? Hearing the voice of your dead husband, or expecting to hear it?

  I spread my hands out in front of me on the table. “I hear you talk to me about teakettles and burnt toast,” I said. “You died and now you talk to me about socks.”

  “Everything is white.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. What’s white? Socks?”

  Silence. Cold, frustrating, infuriating silence.

  I blinked at the list I was writing and circled crazy with my pen. “I’m flat-out, stark-raving, bug-eyed crazy.”

  “Not crazy,” Kevin said.

  I looked at my chart. Should I feel better about my mental health because the voice of my dead husband assures me I’m not crazy? Somehow I did. Even dead, Kevin’s opinion mattered more to me than my own.

  It’s the sort of place high school kids try to sneak into. Deafening music pulses like a heartbeat, the bass so loud it’s impossible to hear the song itself. Heather and her new boyfriend, Paul, are on the dance floor, bouncing to the throb of noise. Kevin and I stand by a tall table with no chairs. Heather smiles and waves. I wave back.

  Kevin pulls me close and bellows in my ear, “Let’s go.”

  I shake my head no. He nods yes. I wish we’d learned sign language. I holler back, “We just got here.”

  He taps his watch. “Like, an hour ago.” Then, just so I don’t miss the point, he cups his hands over his ears.

  I turn back to the dance floor and watch Heather and Paul. She has this cool-girl way of dancing; she can toss her head and swirl her hips all while looking like she doesn’t really care. Paul is doing something strange with his hands. Balled into fists, he alternates between holding them close to his body and pushing them far out in front of him. He looks like a Rock ’em Sock ’em Robot boxer. We’d had dinner with them at the Tower, then Paul suggested this place. I turn to Kevin. “What do you think of Paul?”

  Kevin tipped his glass back, dumping the last of the ice into his mouth. “I give it two weeks. Less if he keeps dancing like that.”

  My laughter is muted by the thumping music. I rifle through my purse until I find a pen. I grab his napkin and write, “Heather thinks he could be ‘the one.’” After our meal Heather and I had gone to the ladies room together and taken far too long in there while Heather regaled me with Paul’s many good qualities, starting with how punctual he is picking her up for dates. He was considerate and kind, she said. “Oh, and before our first date, he called me to ask what my favorite flowers were. Can you imagine?” She giggled at the memory. I couldn’t help but like him too.

  Kevin takes the pen. “Isn’t that what she always thinks?”

  I shrug and write back, “She’s a romantic.”

  Kevin shakes his head. “She’s codependent.”

  This bothers me more than it should. I’ve always considered myself a romantic too. Any girl who has read the complete works of Jane Austen before the age of fifteen has to be a romantic in the best sense of the word. Right? I gave Kevin a weak smile, but he’s not looking at me. He’s shaking his head at Heather and Paul on the dance floor. I’m suddenly offended. Heather is the nicest person I know, even if she is my sister. She’s sweet and always thinks of others. How does that make her codependent? She and I used to sit on her bed and talk for hours about the men we would marry, making long lists of attributes we believed were critical to a man. I had always been amazed how alike she and I were. But I can’t say any of this here, so I take the pen and write a lame, “No, she’s not.”

  Kevin writes, “And he’s a dork.”

  I give Kevin a look that says, “Huh?” And he points to Paul on the dance floor and raises an eyebrow. As if bad dancing summed up the character of a person.

  I poke him with my elbow and write, “He’s nice.” I’m thinking about adding an exclamation mark, but Kevin grabs the napkin and crumples it in his hand. Heather and Paul have returned to the table. Paul’s face glistens with sweat. Heather yells in my ear, “You guys aren’t going to dance?”

  I throw a glance at Kevin, who is gesturing to Paul in an attempt to communicate. “No.”

  Heather hollers into my ear, “Should we leave, then?”

  I glance at Kevin. Paul is talking to him. Kevin nods, but doesn’t look at Paul. I turn to Heather, “Yes, let’s go.” Heather grabs my arm and pulls me toward the exit, waving for Paul and Kevin to follow. She does a quick jog to the door, dragging me with her. We hit the cool summer-night air and the quiet is like a gift. The guys are several paces behind us. Heather squeezes my arm. “So?” She wants to know what I think of Paul. No, she wants to hear me say I think he’s a dream man, the personification of all our long talks, that he’s “the one.” I look back; the guys are following, Paul is talking, gesturing in broad strokes, Kevin’s hands are jammed into his front pockets, he nods now and again, his face a blank slate. Paul lets out a sharp laugh, a blowing “Ha!” and puts his hand on his stomach. He does look like a dork.

  Heather whispers, “Isn’t he fabulous?”

  I pat her hand. “He seems … nice.”

  She pouts. “Just nice? That’s all?”

  “Yeah, that’s all.”

  9

  I sat in the small, stifling room and watched the counselor shift in his chair. First right, then left. He was a man of about fifty. He fidgeted constantly as I shook his hand and sat down.

  He pursed his lips, tugged at his hair, crossed and then uncrossed his legs. “Tell me why you came to see me today.”

  I put my purse on the floor, smoothed my jeans with the palms of my hands, and crossed my legs. His jitters were catching. “I seem to be having trouble getting over the death of my husband, over a month ago.”

  Scooch, smile, pen click, frown.

  I cleared my throat. “I haven’t been myself.”

  Bum wiggle, foot shuffle, nod, nod, pen click. I wondered if his underwear had recently shifted, making sitting painful. Maybe it was the chair that was uncomfortable.

  I watched him pull at his shirt. “Uh, some mood swings too.”

  He gave his pen t
hree rapid clicks. “Mmmm, when did you first perceive the problem?”

  Perceive? Like maybe I’d been crazy my whole life but just recently noticed. “Like I said, it started after my husband died.”

  He squirmed in his seat again. “I’m sorry to hear of your loss.”

  “You know what might help?” I asked.

  His face brightened and he leaned forward in anticipation. “What?”

  “Bigger chairs.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I pointed to the chair he was sitting on. “If you got rid of that chair and replaced it with something bigger, maybe something with some extra padding, I bet it would be more comfortable.” I was getting concerned for this man’s health.

  He jerked his head around, as if there might be an overstuffed chair lurking behind the draperies. I looked around too, taking in the details of his office for the first time. A battered desk made of particleboard sat at the far end of the room, piled high with file folders. Beside them sat an older-looking computer that hummed quietly, its green light blinking monotonously from its place on the monitor. It wasn’t one of those sleek flat screens; it was fat and squat, taking up half of the desk. Above it was a small window that looked out to the brick wall of the neighboring building.

  Aside from the two chairs we were occupying, there was a short, worn sofa pushed up against the concrete block wall. I knew without looking that behind me was an orange room divider—similar to one that could be found in a school classroom—that acted as a buffer between the space where we sat and the door. Nothing about the room spoke of good health, mental or otherwise.

  “Once I found a really great swivel chair at a garage sale,” I said. “I paid, like, five bucks for it.”

  He nodded gravely, as if I had just revealed important information about my psychological state. “Do you like to go to garage sales?”

  “Oh sure,” I said. “I helped a friend of mine furnish almost her entire house by buying things from garage sales. And you’d never know it. It looks great. Not like—” I waved my arm toward his shabby office. “Uh, what I mean is—”

  “Not like this. Is that what you meant?” He glanced at his watch.

  My hour was up.

  The next day, sitting at the kitchen table, I heard a tapping at the door. I looked up from the list I was writing. Blair’s face, framed by the window, peered in.

  “Your sister called me a couple of days ago, said you were cracking up,” Blair hollered through the glass. I opened the door for him and he stepped inside. “You look fine to me.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled and smoothed my freshly washed hair. I was even wearing a clean pair of jeans and a fresh shirt. I could pass for positively normal if no one looked too closely. I still hadn’t gone into my bedroom, but I had enough clothes in the laundry to keep me going. I was washing them over and over so I didn’t have to go into my room to get new ones. I was seriously considering running to the Shop ’n Save for underwear.

  Blair smiled. “Want to talk about what happened with Heather?”

  My mouth quivered, threatening to lead the rest of my face into a crying jag.

  Blair put a hand on my arm. “I miss him too, Kate.”

  I glared down at my shoes, but I didn’t push his hand away. “Please stop talking.”

  “Sure,” he said. “No problem.” He propped himself up against the counter and crossed his arms. His T-shirt rode up to reveal a sliver of taut skin. He looked big and lean and handsome. I noticed his jeans hitched just above his hip bone.

  I looked away, feeling the heat rise in my face. “I’m angry.”

  Blair looked shocked and then his face went pale. “About what?” He suddenly wouldn’t look at me. His eyes darted around the kitchen.

  I gave him a questioning look, but he waved his hand in a “go on” gesture. “I don’t know. I’m mad at my life, at the universe. I’m mad at Kevin,” I said, startled by my own words, but they slid into place like truth.

  He looked overly alert, eyes wide and intent, as if trying to interpret a language he had only passing knowledge of. “Mad at Kevin?”

  “Yeah. For leaving me.”

  His mouth opened, then closed like a drowning fish. Finally he managed a strangled, “What?”

  I held my hands out in an empty gesture. I didn’t know how to explain. “I’m mad at him for dying and leaving me alone.”

  Blair let out a breath, like he’d been holding it. I supposed it was odd, maybe even improper, to be angry with my dead husband.

  “Kate, he didn’t mean to die,” Blair said. “He didn’t plan it. You can’t be angry at him for it.”

  I cried. Big, sloppy sobs I couldn’t hold back. Blair’s arms went around me. He pressed me to his chest and held me there. I spilled snot and tears onto his shirt and spoke into his chest. “My whole life was entwined with Kevin’s.”

  Blair moved his hands up and down my back. “I know. You guys were great.”

  I sniffed. “We were?”

  Blair held me away from him. “Of course. You two were the storybook romance. Solid gold.”

  Gold? It occurred to me that Blair could fill in some of the missing pieces of my memory. “I quit my job at the bookstore …”

  Blair narrowed his eyes into questioning slits. “Yeah. How come you sound like you’re not sure?”

  “I am sure. I mean … I just …” He pulled me to him again and made shushing noises. I knew I had quit my job, I was certain of that, but I couldn’t remember actually quitting. Or why I quit. I loved books, and I loved working for the bookstore. What would have caused me to leave a job I loved? And why couldn’t I remember? I pressed my eyebrows together. “I’m just tired. I know I’m not making sense. I’m sorry.”

  A soft rumble from somewhere deep in Blair’s chest, the sound of mumbled understanding, of soothing empathy. I pulled away, but Blair caught my waist and wrapped his arms around me like metal bands. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You’ve been going through hell. You’re allowed to not make sense.” He tried to pull me closer, but I stood firm, pushing against his chest. He relaxed his arms and cocked his head to one side. “Let me help you, okay? Talk to me. I promise I’ll just listen.”

  I nodded. I so badly wanted to talk to someone about what I had been going through, but it was difficult to find the right words. If he would be patient with me and just listen without interrupting, it would help. “I’m angry about everything and nothing. I don’t even know if anger is the right word. I think I’m fine and then something sets me off, like Heather the other day.” I recalled the red meat sauce oozing down the door and shuddered. “My feelings are right under the skin, right there, ready to come out at the slightest touch.” I touched a finger to my forearm. “I want all of this to stop. And I want everything back that belongs to me.”

  “You mean Kevin?”

  I nodded. “Kevin and everything else. He’s gone and I can’t remember what happened that day, what we said to one another. Or the day before, or the day before that. It’s as if my memory is missing.”

  He cupped my chin with his hand and tipped my head up so our eyes met. “Don’t push yourself, Kate. Losing Kevin was horrible. And sudden. Your mind hasn’t had a chance to wrap itself around what’s happened.” Blair must have taken a few Intro to Psychology courses while he was away at college. His advice was shallow, but it did the trick. I felt a little better.

  The soundtrack played in my mind again. Kevin saying, “Don’t wait for me.” I still couldn’t connect to anything else. Just that, his voice, speaking to someone, maybe me, maybe not. Blair was right. My mind hadn’t had time to absorb the shock. Eventually my memories would be restored. Maybe the next counselor could help me with that. I gave Blair a humorless smile. “You’re right. I’ll try to slow down.”

  Blair’s gorgeous grin bro
ke out all over his face. “Good. And while you’re at it, stop freaking your sister out.”

  I thought about it for a second, then looked up with a small smile. “No promises.”

  10

  Eliza Campbell’s office was tucked away in a part of the city I wasn’t familiar with, and I made three wrong turns searching for it. After Blair left, I had double-checked the address and driven to a massive Victorian-era home I had passed at least twice. I squinted at the building and sighed in frustration when I saw a teeny sign that read: Whole Being Counseling. I climbed out of my car and then up the wide stone stairs to the front door. The main floor lights were all out except for the porch and foyer. The entire place looked closed up for the day.

  I turned the knob and was relieved to find it opened easily. In the foyer was a list of the names of the companies in the building. There were eight businesses set up in the house. Upstairs you could find both a massage therapist and a reflexologist. The main floor was home to a denturist, a tax accountant, and a Holistic Wellness Center, as well as a business calling itself the Success Sellers. I couldn’t imagine what product they were offering. The basement level held the office of Eliza Campbell’s private counseling practice and a taxidermist business called Live Again. I clumped down the stairs and made sure it was Eliza Campbell’s office door I was opening.

  I heard the faint sound of a bell ringing as I stepped into the waiting room. I knew it was the waiting room because there was a sign affixed to the wall that read, “This is the waiting room. Please take a seat.”

  I sat. I wondered if anyone knew I had arrived. I looked around. The room was small, the walls painted in muddy earth tones. The inner door, which, I presumed, led to Eliza Campbell’s office, was bedecked with a hand-painted picture of a tree. Its swirling lines and drooping branches were green and brown, its flowers blue and orange. Two peacocks flanked the tree at the bottom while an array of other birds graced its branches. I had never seen a painting like it. On the table in front of me were current copies of Psychology Today and Holistic Times. A small black book lay beside the magazines. At first I thought it was a Bible, but when I picked it up, it turned out to be a book called the Bhagavad Gita. I stole a glance at the ornate door and thought about knocking. I reread the sign and waited.