Ghost Sickness

by Amber Foxx

  “He’s got a lawyer already? Jeezus.”

  Mae expected an explosion after this, but all that followed was a long silence broken once by a faint meow.

  “Talk to me, sugar. Are you mad at me?”

  “Yeah.” Jamie sighed. Gasser squawked the way he did when he was hugged too tightly. Jamie murmured an apology. “But the stew’s been cooked, y’know? Nothing left to fight about.”

  Nothing? If Niall got proof of forgery, he would take Reno and Kathy to court. They might testify against people like Zak who had helped them. Mae couldn’t see the tension between her and Jamie over this resolving any time soon. Their relationship could be haunted by his friends’ mistakes for a long time to come.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Late the following Wednesday morning, Mae drove on I-25 South, passing sculpted pink cliffs and bright blue sky, taking Jamie to visit Florencia at the hospice in Las Cruces. He fidgeted in the passenger seat, drinking coffee and occasionally murmuring stressed-out little unhs and nngs, and toying with straps of his backpack that he kept jammed between his knees.

  “Sugar, maybe you’ve had enough coffee. Remember what happened at the race—”

  “Jeezus. There we go. Jamie-the-sick-person. I’m not having a fucking panic attack. I’m thinking about bloody fucking death.”

  “She might not die while you’re there.”

  “I hope not.” He took another gulp of coffee, popped the lid off his mug, and tipped it up to get the last dregs of the drink. “Niall going to be there today?”

  “He should be. He spends most days on sort of a vigil now. Daddy drops him off on his way to his softball camp and picks him up later. She never liked Daddy, though, so he doesn’t go in.”

  “She doesn’t like your father? He’s twice as easy to like as Niall.”

  “I know. But that’s her. She’s picky about people. I probably shouldn’t go in with you. I think I made her feel sick and old when she met me. I didn’t mean to, but it was how she reacted. I hope you don’t mind, but you’ll be okay without me.”

  “Yeah. No worries.” Jamie tugged the straps of his pack back and forth. “I sort of figured I’d be with her alone.”

  Mae wanted to say she was proud of him and that he was courageous, but in the mood he was in he might think she was condescending. She reached over and rubbed his upper back. “You’ll be fine. I know you’ll help her a lot.”

  He slumped in his seat. “Maybe.”

  *****

  Death, however peaceful, was on all sides. Jamie knew he should be fully present, coming as a healer of sorts, but his task made him anxious. He wasn’t sure he was up to it, and yet he couldn’t back out.

  Leaving Mae waiting for him in the guest lounge, he walked down the hall with his head full of dismal images. Flashes of his endless nightmares about the death of a childhood friend. Another friend’s death two winters ago. The extra weight in his pack troubled him also, the things he’d brought in addition to his flutes. Would they work for healing the dying woman or would they upset her? He almost walked past her room, stopping only because he saw Niall rise from a chair on the far side of the patient’s bed and signal to him.

  Ironically, the room reminded Jamie of the one where his sister had given birth to his younger nephew. Cozy, warm, with a craft-themed décor—quilts, baskets, pottery—in shades of green and blue. It had been pinker in Haley’s room, but the concept was the same. Medical hidden behind homey. The room’s occupant, or someone trying to amuse her, had hung what he guessed was one of Letitia’s calendars. On the July page, a slim, athletic Indian man clad in nothing but a leather breechclout rode a galloping horse bareback across a field.

  Jamie recognized the profile of the mountains behind him, the Sangre de Cristo range near Santa Fe, and he recognized the rider. Will Baca. It might have been taken at Letitia’s place out on the far west end of West Alameda, but Jamie wasn’t sure. It had been dark when he’d stopped by Sunday night to pick up the offerings. He hoped the dying woman would receive them as he intended.

  She looked dried out like a mummy. A new crop of silvery hair formed a thin sheen on her head. Niall came around the bed and grasped Jamie’s hand in what felt more like desperation than a handshake and then leaned down to his friend. “This is Jamie Ellerbee. Jangarrai. The fellow that does the music Lonnie gave you.”

  Her creaking, whispery voice was too soft for Jamie to make out the words, but Niall chuckled.

  “She says you’re pretty. Manly but pretty. Her words, not mine. Trust me.”

  Dying and flirting? But why not? Last chance. No risk of rejection. “Manly, pretty, and straight. Your lucky day.” Jamie did his best to flirt back, unpacking his flute cases onto the table beside her bed, next to a small framed picture of her blue parrot. “Here to serenade you.”

  She offered him a papery hand. It was weak and shaky, but he could feel her trying to squeeze. He squeezed back. Her deep brown eyes grew watery, but there didn’t seem to be enough moisture left in her body for tears. She glanced at Niall and then at the door.

  Niall frowned. “You want me to go?”

  She nodded. Jamie said, “Heard you’ve been just about living here. Take a break. She’s in good hands.”

  Niall indicated the other bedside table, where a bottle of natural mouthwash sat next to a plastic dispenser full of giant swabs. “She can’t swallow anymore. We swab her mouth with some of this once in a while. If she points to it, can you do that for her?”

  Jamie hesitated. Could he get that close to a dying person? If she couldn’t swallow, she was close, very close, to the end. “Yeah. No worries.”

  “She’s a little out of it. She finally let them up her morphine.”

  The artist moved her lips. Jamie could have sworn she said, “Up my ass.”

  “They put it up your arse? Seriously?”

  Niall tucked his friend’s bedsheet around her shoulder. “Ayeh. Suppositories. She hated having that drip attached.”

  Jamie snort-laughed. It felt rude but he couldn’t help it. Something that might have been a responding laugh rasped from her throat. She waved Niall off. He lingered, and she gestured again. He nodded and backed out, his eyes on her. Jamie opened a flute case, waited for Niall’s steps to fade, then put the flute back down and closed the door.

  Feeling more confident about the first offering, he took the framed black-and-white photograph out of his pack. “Brought you a present.”

  She frowned, pointing at him and then at herself. From you to me?

  “Nah. It’s from the naked cowboy lady. She sent you a cowboy.”

  The artist’s eyebrows lifted and she batted her eyes in a way that made Jamie laugh, but then the sound of her struggling breath made him feel like he couldn’t breathe. He covered his unease by talking while he propped the picture against the bedrail by her shoulder. “I’ve met her. She keeps asking to do my picture. Not that I’d want her to. But anyway, she’s a nice lady. Wishes you well. I mean, as well as possible. Sorry. I’m not saying it right. Can you read what she wrote to you?”

  The artist turned her head. Jamie rearranged her pillows so she could regard her gift more comfortably. It was a portrait of Will. Bare-chested, clad in skin-tight black jeans, a black hat and boots, he leaned against a fence, cigarette in hand, a series of perfect smoke rings floating above him. On his right stood a black horse. A black goat lay at his feet on his left. His lips, forming the smoke rings, suggested a kiss. The picture was signed with a dedication. Jamie read it aloud. “To Florencia Mirabal from Letitia Westover-Brown. Thank you for the inspiration. The Cowboy Devil.”

  It was strange to say her name after being so careful with it in case she was gone. A hint of a smile crinkled the corners of her eyes as her head moved slowly in approval, and though her breathing became more labored, she seemed to grow more alive.

  She mouthed a thank you, gazed at the gift for a while, and then closed her eyes, her face going slack. She pointed toward her mouth and
throat.

  “You want the mouthwash?”

  Her lips formed the word no.

  Throat and mouth. She wanted him to sing. “Favorite song? Any requests?”

  She shook her head.

  A lot of sick people wanted Ave Maria. Not always because of religion but because of the tenderness and transcendence and the sound of a tenor singing it. He took her hand. Her eyes opened and locked with his, intense and burning, yet distant, and her speech emerged with sudden force. “I have my devil—and my angel.”

  Angel. Did she mean him? Bloody hell. I’m her escort.

  He placed the other offering in the bed beside Will’s picture. “One more thing, Florencia.” He put her hand on it. “You need to look.”

  She blinked at the object, a small, colorful wooden triptych, made like three little arched doors hinged together. The center panel showed a petite dark-haired woman in a chair, her face severe and yet beautiful with deep, glowing dark eyes and thick eyebrows. She had a few colorful streaks in her hair—pink, green, and blue—and a set of beads to match them, but aside from this reference to Florencia she looked like another famous artist whose self-portraits were even better known. The woman wore a white dress, and a large blue parrot with yellow-ringed eyes perched on her shoulder. The other two panels showed the parrot in flight over a flowering jungle background, glowing like a saint or a god.

  Though her own style had been different, the woman who lay dying next to this strange little work of art must have admired Frida Kahlo. Reno’s imitation of the artist’s style, though not exactly a forgery, was an ironic touch to the parrot’s memorial.

  Florencia whispered, “Violet.”

  “Didn’t want you to go without her.”

  Jamie went to the other side of the bed, lowered the rail, sat beside her, and began the song.

  As it ended, he realized he was curled behind her, holding her, not singing the words anymore but slowing the melody and sustaining the notes, his voice growing softer. He felt the vibration of his voice through his chest against her frail back. Her breathing became like labor, like giving birth. Then the death light came, the crack between the worlds. The door that had stayed ajar after those other deaths. She began to dissolve into the opening like pollen blowing away on a breeze. Panicked, Jamie drew back from her and sat on the edge of the bed. His breath struggled along with hers.

  For the length of that song—it could have been five minutes or five hours—he’d lost his boundaries completely. Now they were back and the transition shook him. He didn’t know what he’d done. How had he chosen to hold her like that?

  Her breathing stopped. She wasn’t hooked up to anything, no intrusive devices to signal her departure, yet he was sure she was gone. The life force had left her. Bloody hell. He’d abandoned her. Though he had been in the room, at the final moment he had left her to die alone. He’d thought he would be healing her with music and art, not guiding her into death. Had she gone in peace or felt his fear when he let go?

  Jamie slipped the portrait and the triptych back into his pack. At least she’d had those. Had they been enough?

  The door opened. Niall and a nurse came in. Jamie walked to the window. Their words blurred behind his back, mingled with a tinny ringing sound. His heart felt crowded, his lungs frantic. He knew he should leave the room but didn’t trust himself. He dropped into the nearest chair, head in his hands. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was a sketchbook lying open on the broad windowsill. A colored pencil drawing of a blue macaw with a yellow-rimmed eye.

  When he came to, the nurse knelt in front of him, touching his ankle in a soft, maternal gesture and offering him a plastic cup of water. She had curly red hair, darker than Mae’s, and a round face with deep sun lines around her eyes and mouth. “When you feel better, we need to give Niall some time alone with her.”

  The room was quiet except for the hum of the air conditioner. “But she’s dead.”

  “He needs to say goodbye.”

  Niall was arranging and then rearranging something on the table next to the photograph of the parrot, turning it as if his late friend might see it. Her own final drawing of the bird. The sight made Jamie want to weep. He took the cup and tried to drink, but a deep shiver made him splash water on the nurse’s knee. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I know it was a lot for you to handle, but that was beautiful, what you did for her. I wish everyone could go that way.”

  “I couldn’t do it again.” His voice came out husky. He cleared his throat. “Dunno how you can work here. People dying all the time.”

  “I love my job. Dying people are ... I hope this doesn’t sound too New Age for you ...” She looked him over. His appearance probably didn’t send a very conventional message. She continued. “They’re beautiful. Death is a really spiritual time, if it’s handled right. You handled it right.” She rose and offered him her hand. “Your girlfriend is in the guest lounge. Can you walk if I go with you?”

  Jamie drank the water and stood. He didn’t want to look at the body, but he couldn’t help it. The artist had died facing the calendar picture of Will Baca, but someone had turned her on her back and folded her hands on her chest. Niall finally stopped fussing with the placement of the sketchbook on the table and stepped back from it.

  “That’s better, Flo.” The tips of his fingers grazed the dead woman’s shoulder. “You have her with you. And your work.”

  “Are you ready?” The nurse took Jamie’s elbow.

  “My flutes.” He’d left them on the table where Niall had placed the sketchbook. “Do you mind...? Don’t think I can ...” Get that close to her body.

  The nurse fetched them for him, and he let her guide him down the hall.

  *****

  Jamie’s voice had spread sweetly through the entire wing of the building. Mae could have listened in peace, proud of his courage in facing his fears, awed by the beauty of his singing, but Niall didn’t stop pacing and rambling. Since leaving his friend’s room he’d been talking more than she thought he might have ever talked in his life.

  “She sent me out. She can’t bring herself to die in front of me? I want to be there.”

  “You will be.” Mae had no idea if this was true, but she hoped it was.

  Niall reached one end of the parlor-like room and turned, feeling his pocket as if still unconsciously seeking cigarettes. “I don’t want her to feel alone. She was too alone. I could have been like that. Coming out in a small town back then, everyone cut me off. Seventeen, out of the closet with nowhere to go but the living room. Not even that. I could have been bitter. My cousin came to see me when I was in college, though. Apologized. Said he would talk to my parents. It made all the difference. Her brother should have reached out like that. I wonder what she’ll do with her collection. No family that cares. I always told her she should give it to your college. Museum of Southern New Mexico Art, something like that. Start some scholarships with her money, too.”

  Niall would have a shock coming with Florencia’s will. She had used her legacy to make a statement—that she valued his friendship above all else—but if he wanted those other legacies to happen, she’d left all the work in his hands. No wonder Daphne had anticipated stress with Florencia’s death.

  He passed Mae’s chair on another lap of the room, coughing a little less violently than a few days ago. “She should have sent Reno off, told him to go to college. But she was alone. She wanted him around. I can’t believe he used her like that.”

  “Let’s not think about Reno. Think about all you did for her. She isn’t really alone. You’re always there for her.”

  “Not like family, though. Nothing’s ever the same as your family. And then her family—damn them—them and Reno.”

  Niall continued his restless monologue until Jamie’s song changed. More softly and slowly now, he chanted without words. With a look of pain, Niall held still. “Is this is it? Is she leaving? Is this what she wanted? Without me?” Mae got up and took
his hand. He squeezed hers back. When Jamie’s voice ceased abruptly, Niall bolted down the hall. A nurse in the passage changed direction and went into Florencia’s room with him.

  After a while, Jamie emerged with the nurse holding his arm as if she thought he might fall. His backpack hung from one shoulder. When he saw Mae, he shook free of the helping hand, attached both straps, mumbled thanks, and walked on his own. Mae met him in the doorway of the guest lounge and tried to hug him but he pulled away. She took his hand. He was hot and shaky.

  “Sugar?” She stroked his hair. “Do you need to talk?”

  He shook his head and walked away. The world was upside down. A talkative Niall. A silent Jamie. She urged him to sit and got him some herbal tea from the array of beverages available on a sugar-sprinkled counter.

  “I’m not a fucking invalid,” he grumbled as he accepted the cup.

  Mae sat on the couch beside him. “Did she die while you were there?”

  “Yeah. But I fucked up. I backed off.”

  “No, you didn’t. I heard you. It was beautiful—”

  “Stop trying to comfort me.” He gulped the hot tea and cringed. “Jeezus. Fucking burned my mouth.” And then, in that troubling way he had when it came to causing himself pain, he drank again. “I know what I did.”

  Mae gave up on further reassurances. When he fell into this angry kind of misery, fighting everything she said, there wasn’t much she could do but give him time to get over it.

  He finished the tea and stood. “Need to get out of here.”

  They had to pass Florencia’s room on their way. Mae hesitated. The door was ajar.

  “Don’t go in there,” Jamie said.

  “I ought to let Niall know I’m leaving.”

  Jamie kept walking. “I’ll be in the lobby.”

  Niall sat in the chair by the bed, holding the dead woman’s hand. Mae remembered how she had felt when her grandmother had died in her sleep, taking a nap during a family visit. Crying, not wanting to let go, Mae had kissed Granma on the cheek, saying goodbye. Her face had still been warm, as if she hadn’t quite left yet. Niall had to be feeling Florencia’s presence in that way, too.