The Hungry Ghost

by Dalena Storm

  At last, they arrived at the cafeteria level. The elevator beeped and the doors shuddered open. The aroma of hot food filled the air and Sam launched herself forward, making for the lunch buffet, behind which a fat woman stood sweating under her hairnet.

  “Hey!” Peter called out, hurrying out after Sam. Madeline trailed behind, giving them space. There was an old man in the line in front of them, loading up on potatoes. The fat woman turned to Sam, and her eyes widened in recognition.

  “Hello,” she said. “Some of everything again?”

  “All of it,” Sam barked out in a strange, hoarse voice.

  “Yeah, yeah. A little of everything. That’s all you can have, honey. This here is all we’ve got.”

  Sam’s eyes moved in tandem with the woman’s spoon as she watched the woman pile scoops of various dishes onto her plate, urging her for “more, more.” The end result was a tray heaped with a gross quantity of food, but Sam still appeared dissatisfied. She grabbed the tray and then rushed for the nearest table where she sat heavily and immediately began shoveling food into her mouth, ignoring the plastic utensils and making do with her hands.

  “Hey, easy!” Peter said as he tried to coax a fork into Sam’s fingers. After thirty seconds of struggling, Peter gave up, backing off, hands in the air in surrender. He glanced at Madeline as if looking for help.

  “Has she been like this long?” Madeline couldn’t hide her shock.

  “Ever since she woke up. I’m pretty sure she recognizes me, but sometimes I don’t know. It’s like she has a one-track mind, and it’s trained on food. No one can get her to focus on physical therapy unless we promise to feed her something after she’s cooperated. She’s like an infant or an animal, except obviously she’s not…”

  Madeline watched Sam cram food into her mouth, and the comparison to an animal wasn’t too far off. It was a terrible thing to think, and Madeline didn’t want to, but this just wasn’t Sam. It wasn’t her at all. The woman at the table was a stranger.

  “What about language?” asked Madeline, knowing how important the topic was to Sam, particularly as a professor. “Is she talking? Reading?”

  “Reading?” Peter scoffed. "Maybe we could try a cookbook, but otherwise, not a chance in hell. She can talk okay, but she doesn't have much to say. Just, ‘I'm hungry! When's lunch?'” Peter’s voice affected a hoarse tone that was eerily reminiscent of Sam’s new voice. “She's like a damn garbage disposal,” he went on. “I’m surprised she hasn’t thrown up all over me, given the amount she eats.”

  Even as he said it, Sam began to gag and Madeline wondered if Sam had thrown up on other things, just not Peter. Sam paused, mouth open as her throat moved visibly in a hard swallow that looked like she was forcing a mass through a much smaller pipe, and then, after a big burp and a momentarily satisfied smile, she continued to shovel in the food as ravenously as before.

  Peter studied Sam’s rounded spine, her swelling stomach. “Sometimes I wonder,” he said, watching Sam, not Madeline, “if this is some sort of a sick joke, like some kind of payback.”

  “Payback? For what?”

  “Oh, come on. I’m sure she’s told you.” There was a hint of derision in Peter’s tone.

  Madeline waited, thinking she probably did know what Peter meant, but also not wanting to put any words in his mouth.

  Peter sighed. “The alcohol. The fact that I let it ruin our marriage. The fact that I couldn’t stop myself, I just had to have it, and so now she’s doing it back to me, but she’s doing it with food. Making herself sick. Showing me how it feels to see someone do that.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Madeline. “Sam wouldn’t do that.”

  “You don’t know Sam,” Peter countered, “not like I do. Did. She could be bitter, vengeful. We both could. We brought out the worst in each other.” He stopped for a moment and seemed to consider his words. “I don’t want to think it’s true, but it could be something subconscious, like this huge suppressed anger that’s finally boiling over in a massive, self-destructive act that was somehow triggered by her waking up and seeing me there…” His voice wandered off, leaving Madeline to fill in the rest.

  Madeline felt uncomfortable hearing Peter talk like this about Sam when she was sitting right there.

  “Still,” argued Madeline, “if it were that, couldn’t you talk to her? And besides, you look… I mean, how are you doing?”

  Peter looked at Madeline. His face was tired and worn, his eyes glassy and deep and sad. “Do you mean am I drinking myself to sleep every night? No. I mean, I am, just with chamomile tea.”

  “Chamomile?”

  “It’s supposed to help you sleep. Mostly it makes me have to pee, so I think it might be doing the reverse. Think I should let the advertising companies know? Their slogan should really be, Chamomile! Wakes you up at night to pee!” Peter looked eagerly at Madeline, waiting for a reaction. “What, you don’t think I should take that one onstage? Don’t worry. Sam wouldn’t either. You two are a lot alike. Isn’t that right, Sammy?” Peter asked, raising his voice and addressing her directly in a tone that bordered on sarcastic. “You don’t think I’m the next Robin Williams?”

  Sam had cleared all the food on the tray and was licking her fingers. When that was done, she picked up the tray and licked it, too, until the entire thing was covered with a sheen of clear spit.

  Madeline wasn’t sure what to say, and so she let the silence hang between them. One thought kept returning to her mind that she was trying to push down, but the more she watched Sam, the harder it was to ignore. She’s so hungry, it’s like she’s possessed.

  “She’s getting better, don’t you think?” asked Peter, looking at Madeline hopefully.

  “Yeah,” Madeline lied, “sure she is.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Peter hadn’t meant to grab Sam in the hallway like that. It had been a reflex. She’d grabbed his hand where he had burned it and it triggered some buried rage, but the expression in her eyes when he’d pinned her was unfazed. There was no fear, no anger. No usual pissed off Sam. The closest word he had for the look might have been desire, but it wasn’t that, either.

  It was more encompassing somehow—a chasm that could never be filled. And it looked almost eager.

  When Peter jerked off later, he found himself recalling that look in Sam’s eyes. His breath caught, and he came in a pitiful shudder that didn’t leave him satisfied. At least the urge to masturbate had come back to him now that he’d quit the booze. That was something.

  A few days later, when Peter arrived at the hospital for his visit, he ran into Bianca. Sam wasn’t in the room. She’d probably been taken for a quick exam. Peter was relieved Sam’s dad, Jeff, wasn’t there with Bianca. Jeff had never gotten along with Peter, despite the large amount of effort Peter had put in to sucking up to him—watching the Dodgers together even though he didn’t like the Dodgers or baseball—and cooking hamburgers on the grill out back.

  “Hi, Bianca.”

  “Oh, hi, Peter,” Bianca said with her usual aridness. She looked tired, but her smile was automatic. She was built broader and sturdier than Sam and had always struck Peter as being a bit masculine, even though Sam was the tomboy. Bianca had dyed auburn hair that fell in curls to her cheekbones, and she always looked put-together and professional. “How’s work?” she asked. “Sam tells me you got a new job.”

  “She does?” Peter stumbled for a moment, forgetting, momentarily, that Sam could speak. “I mean, I do. It's good. I'm working at the new bakery on Wentworth, and it's steady. Pays the rent." Peter had not yet heard Sam string together much in the way of coherent sentences, but it made sense that her mom would be the one to get her to talk and that it would, of course, be to gossip about him.

  Bianca nodded. “Good, good. I’m glad to hear it. Do you have plans for the holidays?”

  Again, Peter stumbled. He’d nearly forgotten Thanksgiving was right around the corner. The weather outside had been bitterly cold but there had
been no real snow yet, just a few flakes that hadn’t stuck.

  “I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “Well, if the doctors are right and Sam is released in time, Jeff and I are planning on having a celebration in her honor. You should come,” Bianca said, and then she seemed to catch herself. She looked guiltily at Peter and then away, adding, “Madeline should come, too. Everyone should come! Everyone who’s helped out, I mean, since the accident…” She trailed off, leaving an awkward silence in the space between them.

  “Yeah?” Peter said. He doubted Bianca really wanted him there, but he wasn’t about to miss out on what might be his one chance to make amends with Sam’s family. “Sure, that would be great! I mean, if she’s…”

  Sam shuffled back into the room using a walker. Instead of a hospital gown, she was dressed in her own pajamas, a mismatched set that Peter recognized from years before—blue drawstring pants and an oversized tee shirt that said “Get Lit” on the cover of a book. She said nothing and made no eye contact with anyone as she sat back down on the bed and swung her legs in front of her, pulling the sheets over them. Only then did she turn to her mother and say, in that now-familiar raspy whisper, “I’m hungry.”

  “I thought you would be, love,” Bianca said, extracting a sandwich and a granola bar from her bag, then unwrapping the first and holding it out for Sam to take. Sam grabbed it and stuffed it into her mouth as if she hadn’t eaten in months. That was just how she always ate these days. Bianca was already unwrapping the granola bar in preparation.

  As Sam ate, her eyes drifted to Peter. Finishing one half of the sandwich, she paused, licked the tips of her fingers, and then whispered as she lifted the second half to her mouth. “I’m hungry.” Sam’s gaze held his and something about the way she said it made Peter think it had nothing to do with ham and cheese. His stomach lurched.

  “No, dear,” Bianca said in a cheerful, motherly voice—the kind reserved for young children and not grown women. “You mean, ‘I’m eating,’ or, ‘I’m getting full,’ or maybe even, ‘This is good’.” Bianca patted Sam’s leg under the sheets and turned to Peter, shaking her head. “She still gets confused, but don’t worry. It’ll just take time.”

  Ever since their encounter in the hallway the ghost had been watching Peter carefully during his visits. When everyone had left and the ghost was alone again it lay in bed fantasizing about the people that had visited. Bianca was an excellent provider of food. Peter, on the other hand, was mostly a nuisance. Yet, there was darkness in him the ghost could identify with, and he seemed to have given a great deal of power over to whoever it was that had inhabited this body. With a little push, the ghost might be able to get Peter to give himself completely to the ghost. The thought sent a thrill of desire through the ghost’s body.

  It could hardly wait.

  Bianca wanted to generate as much support as she could for Sam during her recovery, which was why she was hosting the Thanksgiving party.

  At first, Jeff had opposed it, especially the part about inviting Peter and Madeline.

  “Just keep it to family,” he’d argued over dinner. “Or invite some of Sam’s friends, if you want to. But Peter? He’s been clinging to Sam for so long, and Christ, I wish we could just ship him off to some other planet and never have to deal with him again. They’re divorced, Bianca, why invite him?”

  “I don’t know…” Bianca mused, grasping for a reason to explain why she’d been compelled to invite him. “He’s just been around so much lately. I guess I’ve gotten used to him.”

  She looked apologetically at Jeff who snorted and shook his head.

  “That man has no future—zilch,” he said. “He’s just bogged down by a long history he wants back.”

  “Like Gatsby.” The words came out of Bianca’s mouth automatically. Peter was certainly no Jay Gatsby, but the undeniable similarity was in the desire to reclaim a past that was dead and gone.

  “What?”

  Bianca shook her head. “Nothing.” She sighed and raised one hand to push back hair that was falling in her face. “Look, I hear what you’re saying, and maybe you’re right. But the problem is, I already invited him.”

  “What?” Jeff’s eyes widened.

  “It just slipped out.” Bianca shrugged. “Reflex. He was there at the hospital last week, and the poor sap seemed so lonely—”

  Jeff snorted again, interrupting his wife’s excuses. “Bianca, you’re as bad as Sam is! You two think it’s your job to save everyone.”

  “Well, maybe he won’t come.” Bianca resolutely set down her fork and stood to clear away their empty plates. It wasn’t what she’d planned. She was trying to protect Sam, but it had been difficult since she’d woken up. Her daughter wasn’t the same now as she had been before, though it was hard to say how exactly. Peter was willing to do so much, and God knew she could use an extra pair of hands.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Thanksgiving hit Boston cold and hard. The sky finally made true on its threat and snowed. Pedestrians scurried about the streets, wrapped in long coats and fuzzy hats, their gloved hands stuffed into pockets and heads bent against the wind as they navigated around icy patches of the ground.

  Jimmy watched them pass outside his shop as he played holiday tunes over the speakers. Some people got upset if you played Christmas tunes before Thanksgiving was over, but Jimmy had always had a soft spot for the magic of the Christmas season. After all, Santa was kind of like Christ, when you got down to it, wasn't he? There was the baby in the manger and the man with the presents. Weren’t they really kind of connected? Wasn’t Santa just a stand-in for God?

  The holidays were about hope, Jimmy thought, and he tried to surround himself with it. Not to mention, in a world like this one, he needed all the hope he could get. Everybody did.

  Jimmy scratched Mickey under the chin. “You’re happy here, aren’t you, little girl?” he asked. She lifted her chin, closed her eyes, and purred. “Do you want to get adopted, or do you want to stay here with old Jimmy?” He used both hands, massaging the sides of her tiny face as he spoke. “Do you want to grow up big and strong, and be the ruler of this whole domain? The queen?” The kitten shook back and forth in delight as he rubbed her little body. Picking her up, Jimmy tucked Mickey into the crook of his arm, continuing to pet her. Her purring formed the background music for his thoughts. He’d promised himself he’d never get attached to the cats, but Mickey was so different. He couldn’t help but feel his heart softening for her.

  What was Jimmy thankful for? For snow, he thought, watching it fall outside the window, and for the cats—especially Mickey.

  Peter cursed the flakes falling outside the window of his apartment. The high for Thanksgiving Day was predicted to reach twenty-five, but by evening things were expected to fall to the negatives. He put on long underwear first, followed by his nicest pair of jeans, a white undershirt, a pinstriped shirt, and a blue bowtie. He could do this, Peter thought to himself as he smoothed down his hair and adjusted his collar. He could go to Bianca’s, where he’d gone so many times before. He could mingle with Sam’s family, he could be cordial to Madeline if she showed, and he could not drink a drop. Not a single drop, unless it was only a sip of champagne to toast, and even then only if someone offered, so as not to be rude. Or, if Jeff and the guys had that special brew from Vermont, the kind in the can. That was tradition, and how could a man say no to tradition?

  Warm anticipation started in Peter as he thought of cracking open a can, but he caught himself. He knew where he’d wind up if he let himself go there, and these were slippery thoughts. He could see his mom’s face, he could feel his dad’s absence, and Sam…first her tears, then that strange, stony look that had ultimately replaced them. She’d hardened herself because of him. His soft, loving Sammy had gone colder than any beer he’d ever had.

  Taking a deep breath, Peter sighed and stared meaningfully at his own face in the mirror. He’d made it three months without a drink, but he’d
made it this far before. It was always around now that he’d manage to slip up—which meant there was the possibility he’d slip again. There'd be a party or a get-together, and he'd think, "I can take it or I can leave it," and then, of course, he'd take it.

  He always did.

  “It’s now or never,” Peter whispered fiercely at himself. Even after these few sober months he still had a drunk’s face—a drunk’s papery skin and broken-capillary-blistered nose. “You can do this. You succeed, or you kill yourself. For real. No more failing. This is your last chance.”

  Bianca was still in her running around clothes when her daughter-in-law, Carly, arrived with her granddaughters. Bianca had spent the day before cleaning, and the afternoon had been consumed with decorations and food. She shivered when the cold air followed the girls in the door. Of course, the first snow would arrive on Thanksgiving.

  “Go on girls, stomp your boots. Get it all off.” Carly raised her head and turned her attention to her mother-in-law. Carly was a good wife to Tom, Bianca thought. Smart. Energetic. “We’ve been having a bit of a rough day,” Carly said, motioning at her daughters with fatigue obvious on her face, “but I brought tons of toys to see if we can’t cheer them up.”

  “Well, hello, my little loves!” Bianca cooed. She knelt down and smothered her granddaughters in hugs, then lowered her voice so she could disclose a secret without their mother hearing. “I’ve got fresh cookies in the oven, and the first two will go to you!” She was in her element with the young ones. She’d taught fourth grade for over thirty years, but she loved them more when they were even younger, wide-eyed and delectable, demanding and innocent, their cheeks pink from cold and with fluffy little hats on their heads. Six years old and four, the girls were Rosa and Diane—an odd, mature name for the youngest. Rosa was dark-haired and skeptical-mouthed and reminded Bianca of Sam, and indeed, Sam had taken quite a hand in helping both of them develop into fierce little feminists. “I’m sure Sam will be thrilled to see them. Maybe they can speak her language better than the rest of us can. Where’s Tom?” Bianca straightened up to her feet, turning to Carly.