by David Clark
This continued each and every night. Sometimes it was one presence; other nights groups would encircle his bed. They never moved or made any sounds. They stood, or floated, there as if they were on guard duty, or just enjoyed watching him sleep.
It took a few years before the fear subsided. He noticed he felt their presence before they showed up, which cut down on the surprise. He tried to talk to them, but they never responded. He tried to walk toward them and around them, but they never acknowledged him. It was as if they had no awareness that Edward was even there. A fact that Edward began to enjoy. Over time, he noticed a few regulars, so he gave them names, and when no one was around he would greet them. “What’s up, Bob?” and “I like you, Bob. You never hide anything from me. You are completely transparent.” His all-time favorite joke that his twelve-year-old sense of humor loved was, “You look boo-tiful today.”
“And you understand now that what you were seeing was not real. They were not real people, or ‘ghosts’ as you once called them. It was all in your mind, caused by the traumatic loss of your parents, right?” Without lifting his head, Doctor Law studied Edward’s reaction over the edge of his wire-framed glasses.
“Oh, yes sir. Absolutely. I was a child at the time. When I walked in and saw them lying there on the floor like that, I was torn to pieces. It was this ‘emotional distress,’ as you call it, that caused me to see people who are not really there. As we discussed in our many conversations, the images I saw are because of my desire to see my parents again. Once I realized that, I stopped seeing them and knew how silly my outbursts were. I feel horrible for how I treated my foster parents.” Edward hoped he didn’t spread it on too thick. He spent years perfecting the art of the game.
“Very good. You have been very well adjusted for the last few years. It is so seldom we have such a successful breakthrough, but I am happy to see it.” Doctor Law made a few notes. “With today being your eighteenth birthday, and with the great progress you have made, I believe we might have some very good news for you.”
With a feigned surprised look: “Really? What is it?” In reality, Edward knew exactly what it was. He had been working toward this day for several years.
3
A frustrated father pounded on the closed door of the hotel room bathroom containing his sixteen-year-old daughter. “Come on Sarah, let’s go.” They had been on the road for two days, make that two long days, cooped up together in the cab of a moving truck. They had only another three hours to drive to reach their destination. The original plan was to get an early start. That plan did not include her hour-long shower and two hours of make-up artistry. Edward and his seven-year-old son, Jacob, were packed and ready to leave over an hour ago. Instead, they waited and mindlessly flipped through the few TV channels available.
After he left the facility on his eighteenth birthday, he reunited with his foster parents. Everything was great the second time around. They felt bad for leaving him there and worked hard to be the family he had needed for the last four years. He put in the effort too, and suppressed his “quirks” as much as he could. Four years later, he walked across the stage and received a Bachelor of Arts in Education with a minor in English. It still brings a smile to his face every time he thinks of how proud they were of him.
His foster father was surprised by the choice of English. Before he went away, Edward was obsessed with computers and technology. In the hospital, Edward found comfort in escaping into a good story as a buffer against what he was surrounded by day in and day out. During his years of institutionalization, he read a shocking three hundred and thirty-one books. His reading material covered every genre imaginable, but anytime he was able to get his hands on one of the American Masters like Melville or Hemingway, it was heaven on earth. He found a true appreciation for those works. Before that, the only reading he did was for school assignments, and even then, he waited until the last minute and tried to skim it to learn what he needed to take a test or write a report. A few times, he even just rented the movie version of the book to cram for a test. All he really crammed during those sessions was popcorn and soda. His grade on the test showed him how different the movies were from the actual books.
During the many nights he passed reading, he saw the story as a movie playing in his head, letting his imagination run wild and take him to a place far away from the clinical walls that surrounded him.
After college, he moved to Portland, Oregon to take a High School English teaching job. He had other offers that were more local, but his foster mother grew up in the Pacific Northwest and after all the years of hearing her talk about it and showing him pictures, he felt a yearning inside him that he needed to explore.
It did not disappoint. The serenity of the various nature trails surrounding the area, combined with the small-town environment with big city luxuries, felt like the perfect fit. He never thought he could be happier, that was of course until in his third year of teaching. He saw Karen Lynwood, the new history teacher, walking down the hallway. She was a vision that took his breath away: long flowing raven hair, piercing blue eyes, a smile that would not just light up the room, but the entire skyline. Edward, never one to wait, was slightly forward, and during lunch of the first day of school he walked right up to her in the teacher's lounge and asked her out. Edward was not socially awkward. Quite the opposite. He was outgoing, and, in this instance, he had encouragement from his special friends. After she said yes, Edward asked her for her name, and then introduced himself. This became a joke they would share on every anniversary together, then at their wedding, and then every wedding anniversary after that. One their children would mock at each retelling.
A few years ago, his wife complained of feeling constantly exhausted. She was never one to slow down and take care of herself. Between all the children’s activities, her teaching, and the strict fitness regimen she had followed since college, Edward was convinced she had run herself ragged. He encouraged her day after day to take a break, but she resisted. Knowing there was only one way to help, Edward stepped in and took on many of Karen’s daily responsibilities with the hope she would use the time off to rest.
For the first few days, Karen resisted. She would find other ways to fill her newly freed time. Each time, Edward would intercede. It turned into a game between them that produced a laugh from time to time. But the humor soon died as the fatigue became too much for Karen to deal with. She found herself needing to stay in bed most weekends to regain her strength for the following week.
After a few weeks, she finally gave in and went to see the doctor. Edward thought the most horrific sight he would see in his life was the bodies of his dead parents, but he was wrong. Very wrong. That didn’t even come close to the sight of the look on Karen’s face when she told him she had aggressive breast cancer. She had just returned from the doctors, seated in the corner of the teacher’s lounge waiting for Edward, all the color gone from her face along with her sparkling blue eyes. In their place, lifeless dark orbs that resembled pieces of expressionless coal. To say it was unexpected would be an understatement. She was so young, every prior medical exam missed it. Her family had no history of cancer or any illness. Edward kept thinking about all the plans they had for the future, all the plans they would never be able to see come true.
The next eighteen months became the source of nightmares. Endless doctor visits, surgeries, treatments promising a fraction of a hope, and disappointment after disappointment. She declined quickly. It started out with fatigue, then she was bedridden. She eventually needed a specialized hospital bed and in-home care. Then hospice after just a matter of months. Everything in Edward and the kids' lives ceased to exist during that time.
The worse she got, the more effort Edward put into searching for a cure, but it was all for naught. On a sunny Wednesday morning, surrounded by her family and friends, the body that once contained Karen’s soul took its last breath. The soul had left weeks ago; the body was just a shell of who she used to be. Edward was not s
ure which was harder, walking out of that facility for the last time knowing he would never be back to visit her, or walking back into their home knowing she would never be there again.
He spent the next eight months teaching and doing anything he could to keep him and the kids out of the house. He found it unbearable to be there without her. He felt guilty just sitting there, always thinking he needed to do something to help her even though he knew she was gone. At night he would swear he could hear her voice whispering through the halls. Every time he jumped up and went running through the house in the hopes of catching a glimpse of her. Only twice he saw her walking down the hallway. It seemed very real. She was there, interacting with objects in the house, so real he thought he could reach out and touch her. She was always alone. He never saw any others at the same time as he saw her. He also never felt the normal cold shivers or tingling in the spine. She looked healthier than she had in months, exactly how he wanted to remember her. Every time he moved toward her, she would disappear before he could reach her.
When the school year ended, Edward knew he and the kids had to leave if they were ever going to feel normal again. He searched online for teaching jobs in neighboring cities, but found nothing. He widened his search nationally and came across one in his old hometown of Miller’s Crossing. He applied and heard back from Principal Rob Stephens in just a few days. The interview went so well he hired him right on the spot. Edward felt relieved and hopeful. This could not have worked out any better. He had a job, in his old hometown, and they even had a place to live. He would just have to face the demons he’d left that night in his family’s old farm.
They packed up their lives and memories, and with just a week before the new school year began, the three of them headed out on what Edward called “A New Adventure.” The drive took a few days. They took their time and saw some sights. While he tried to make the move as enjoyable as he could for his children, the anxiety inside him ramped up with every passing mile. He had not been back in his old house since the day he found his parents. Each time he tried to picture what it would look like, he only saw the image of his parents on the kitchen floor.
“OK, Dad, I’m ready.”
Edward thought to himself thank god, Jacob expressed the sentiment out loud. His exclamation drew a look of disgust and a light slap to the back of the head from his sister as she walked by. Jacob followed her out and tried to get a revenge shot at her before they loaded up. Edward sat there for just a second before turning off the TV and letting out a little sigh before he followed them to begin the last three hours of their trip.
4
After an uneventful three or so hours’ drive through the scenic mountainous countryside, they reached a sign indicating their cross-country trek was just about complete.
Now Entering Miller’s Crossing
Population 12,379
“Do they change the sign every time someone is born or dies?” sniped the teenager, still distraught about leaving the big-city life behind.
“Oh stop it, Sarah.” It is a good question that Edward had never considered. Did they reduce it by three when his parents died and he left?
As they drove into town, the woods and hills gave way to sporadic houses on large lots. All of the homes had no fences, which Sarah and Jacob had never seen. He explained that things are different out here.
The houses were all different styles; no subdivisions or sprawling apartment complexes, with their resort style pools and entertainment areas. Just house after house, unchanged for generations. The only thing they had in common was a mailbox out by the street with their family’s name on it.
Absent were the expansive galleria or malls, instead having just a few strips of locally owned stores in the center of the city. The closest thing to name brand stores were Walt’s Hardware and Lucy’s Bakery.
As they passed through the center of the town, the scene returned back to cozy homes nestled back in the woods. Sounding somewhat panicked, Sarah asked, “Dad, where is the Walmart?”
“Oh honey, there isn’t one here. I think there is one a few towns over.”
Sarah whipped her head around with a stunned expression. “What? There isn’t one? Is there a movie theater? An organic store? What about a Macy’s?”
Edward thought, There goes Sarah’s weekend mall-scapades.
While the culture shock set in on his daughter, Edward sensed a comfortable familiarity setting in. “When I grew up here, there was a movie theater out on Route 22 just before you got to Sterling, maybe a forty-minute drive away, but it only had two screens.”
Just the thought of only two screens left Sarah’s mouth agape.
Edward added a little more fuel onto the fire. “Oh, just wait until you see the high school. It’s coming up in just a few minutes down the road.”
The sight of the elementary school nearly brought a tear to Edward’s eye. It looked like it did when he was a student there. The playground in the front with the swings made of metal chains and rubber seats, the metal monkey bars, the slide. The flagpole with the American flag flying proudly out front. He doubted anyone in this town protested or asked to have it taken down; something that is common in the larger cities. The trees looked bigger. His mind drifted back to memories of running in through those doors trying to beat the bell, playing baseball on the simple clay diamond during the spring, and the school fall festival.
The screams of his daughter and hysterical laughter of his son interrupted his trip down memory lane. “DAD! What the hell is that? Is that Rydell High from Grease? This is not the fifties.”
Just like the elementary school, Miller’s Crossing High School looked like the school time forgot. The building was not modern, in any sense of the word. A large, long, two-story, red-brick, window-lined building with a simple roof over it. A large central staircase wound up the hill in the front to the main doors. The sign out front underneath its own flagpole proudly flying old glory announced the start of school in four days. Behind the parking lot on the side was a large football field with metal bleachers on either side and two small scoreboards at either end, with the Coca-Cola sign in the middle of it. Of course, his parents took him to every home game; everyone in town attended them. The homecoming games were special nights that were among his fondest memories. His father dressed Edward in his old jersey and his mom wore his dad’s old letter jacket. At halftime, the band formed an arch around midfield as they called out one by one the former players that were in attendance. One by one, they walked out to midfield amid the cheers of those in the stands and oh, how they cheered for his father. Edward and his mom clapped and screamed when they called his name.
“Sarah, it’s a great school. You’ll love it there. Plus, I’ll be teaching there.”
That thought hit her right between the eyes. “Ewww, you’re teaching at the same school? Why aren’t you at the other high school, like back home?”
“This is the only high school.”
Sarah’s sigh announced her disappointment at the appeal of attending the same school where her father would be teaching. That had never happened before.
A few roads past the high school, Edward took the familiar left down the grass driveway toward the old family farm. As many times as he thought about selling this place, he never could. He reached out to a local realtor once about selling, but changed his mind. The realtor put him in touch with someone who could help take care of the property until he finally made the decision. From how things looked, the thirty dollars every three months was money well spent. The mown yard and old farmland to either side of the driveway were a welcome surprise.
His anticipation grew as he maneuvered the van up over a modest hill and around the corner, giving him the first look in decades at his home. Oh yes, the caretaker’s services were well worth the price. The house looked great. The screen on the wraparound front porch was still intact, none of the bushes around it overgrown. The storm shutters were off and stored, probably in the shed, like he requested a few week
s back.
He pulled to a stop next to the front door, got out, and walked to the door. There was an envelope stuck in the door jamb. Edward pulled it out and opened it.
Welcome home, Edward.
- Jim Morris
That note was one of the little pleasures of living in a small town that Edward had missed so much. When they moved to the Portland area, the neighbors watched them through the window. None of them said anything for weeks.
Edward fished the front door key out of his pocket and looked up, pausing at the image of his mother standing at the door with her arms extended as if to hug him. He stood there and talked to himself. “Steady now. You didn’t see that. It’s just the stress of coming back here. Come on.” Her vision, now and at this place, was almost too much for Edward to handle. The encounter did not have the same eerie feeling he sometimes experienced. Instead, a warm and welcoming feeling overcame him. It invoked memories of her welcoming him home from school like she did so many days. He forced himself to hold it together, but couldn’t resist quietly saying, “Hi, Mom. I’m home.”
“Dad, are you OK?” Jacob asked as he walked up next to his father.
Edward steadied himself. “Yep, just thinking. Let’s go in.” With that, he pushed the key in and it opened right up. There was no evidence of the lock sticking like Jim Morris mentioned. He must have squirted some lubricant into it.
When he opened the door, only a hint of stale air escaped, which came as a relief to Edward. He walked in and looked around, half expecting to see boxes all over the place. Instead, it was just as he last remembered it: the sofa with the eighties floral print, books still left on the bookshelf, the console TV that he was sure his kids won’t know how to operate, the loop rug on the dark hardwood floor. All the things from his childhood were where he left them. But the one area that grabbed his attention most was the table full of family photos, all framed and sitting on display. How he wished someone had packed up even one of those and sent them with him when he left that night. He took nothing with him, just the clothes on his back. Something as simple as a family photo would have meant the world to him.
