Talking to the Dead

by Bonnie Grove

  “I know you didn’t. And I know it’s impractical, ridiculous really, for a single woman to buy a house like this. But …” I could neither explain nor deny the impression; that’s how best to describe it—nothing but an impression, a notion more than a thought or idea, that I was to live here. A wordless imprint on my heart that spoke to me: Yes, here.

  I looked around. “You said you’re moving in with your daughter. Would you consider selling the house furnished?”

  Her hand fluttered near her throat. “Well, I don’t know. There are a few pieces of furniture that are heirlooms. My children would never want me to part with them. But—”

  “But the rest of the furniture?”

  “I suppose so. I don’t see why not.” She fanned her face with her hand. “

  “Good. Should I write the check out to you?”

  Georgia stood up too, shaking her head and smiling. “You’re certainly not one to waste any time.”

  “I’ve wasted too much time already.”

  46

  Every surface in my Greenfield house gleamed. After only two weeks on the market, it had sold. The walls were freshly painted, the furniture arranged just so. It hardly looked like the house I had lived in for the past five years. With Jack and Maggie’s help, I’d managed to complete the long to-do list and now it was time for me to go. But I lingered, walking through the rooms, as if I’d forgotten something.

  The new owners would take possession in a few days and I now had a new, furnished home in the city.

  In the cleaned-out kitchen I sighed. I didn’t feel a connection with this sparkling-clean room. The sound of the refrigerator humming seemed loud. How had I not heard such a loud sound all those years?

  I opened the back door and stepped outside. I had raked the last of the autumn leaves only a few days ago. The air was crisp with the promise of winter. I had wanted to be in my new home before Christmas, and I’d managed that, with six weeks to spare.

  So much change, so quickly. Dr. Alexander had told me to take things slowly, not to rush. Once again I hadn’t listened. But it wasn’t rebellion. I was simply doing what I knew had to be done. I couldn’t stay in Greenfield any longer. Couldn’t wrestle my past anymore. With one last look at the yard, I headed back into the house.

  In the kitchen I picked up the sponge and bucket, planning to put them in my car, when I remembered I hadn’t pulled out the stove and washed behind it.

  Would the new owners even think to look behind the stove? Would it really matter if I left it dirty? I pulled the stove out and leaned forward, looking at the floor. It was disgusting.

  I filled the bucket with water, added a cap of yellow cleaner, and got down on my knees. I started with the sides of the stove, then ran a sponge over the floor, and grazed something as I wiped. I thought it was a dried shard of pasta, or a shriveled pea, but, upon examination, I saw it was a pill. A painkiller from the bottle I’d spilled on the floor when Kevin’s voice had screamed at me.

  I held it up, rolling it between my fingers, remembering that horrible day, the day I spiraled into full-blown mental health crisis. The hinge on which my mental health had swung.

  I sat on the floor, behind the stove, and rested my head against the wall. Kevin’s voice. The answer seemed to be that I had manufactured it, created in my grieving mind—not to haunt me, but in an effort to save myself—to reassemble the pieces of my past, burying the terrible truth and creating instead the life I had wanted to live. That was the official explanation, the one Dr. Alexander and I had put together over the past weeks. And it seemed to fit, seemed to make sense—only …

  If I had made Kevin’s voice up in my own mind, that meant that I had been speaking for him—using my words and his voice. So why would I have screamed at myself? Why would I have called myself names, said hateful things, berated and abused myself?

  I rolled the white pill between two fingers. And what about the more recent event, when I mistook Jack for Kevin? It would have been obvious to anyone that it was Jack who had been standing there in his jeans and black shirt. But I had seen Kevin—not just seen him, but yearned for him. For a moment I had been completely convinced it was him standing there. What did that mean to my mental health? A simple mistake? A … what had Dr. Alexander called it? A psychotic break?

  I pushed myself up and stepped out from behind the stove. No guarantees—that’s another thing Dr. Alexander had said.

  I finished cleaning the floor, pushed the stove against the wall, and gathered up the cleaning supplies. I felt oddly self-conscious in the spotless, picture-perfect house, an intruder. I laid a set of house keys on the small table by the door.

  Tears streamed down my face as I stood, hand on the doorknob, ready to leave, but not ready to leave. I walked back into the living room and sat on the floor, my back to the sofa. I let the grief of the past pour out of me onto the floor.

  Random images began to drift through my exhausted mind, just like they had when I was still in the psychiatric ward. But these were different, more complete; they spanned my whole life, from my earliest childhood memory forward. Words, memories, hopes floated together through my consciousness: strange images, unrelated to anything, even to each other. Just pictures and words, fragments of thoughts, shards of ideas. The dress I’d worn to senior prom; my mother baking cookies on a rainy day; Jack’s face; my father’s funeral; Christmas presents.

  I hugged my knees to my chest. “Kevin?” I didn’t expect him to answer, knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—but I had to speak to him one last time. I pushed myself up from the floor and stood in the middle of the living room. “I’m leaving this place. Going to the city just like you wanted to. And I think I understand now how you felt suffocated in this house.” My throat burned and clenched as emotion rose and I pushed it down again. “I understand the desire to move on, to reach for something bigger than this town.” I turned a slow circle and spoke to the ceiling as if he might be floating there. “But what you did was horrible, Kevin. You didn’t just reach for a new life, you ruined the one you had. And we didn’t deserve that. Not me, and not our child.” I moved to the front door. “I’m still grieving my baby,” I whispered. “But I can no longer grieve for her father. Good-bye, Kevin.”

  I knew he wouldn’t answer.

  47

  “I’m so glad you called.” I could hear the relief in Heather’s voice.

  I gripped the handset, wondering if it was a good idea to have phoned her. I’d just taken possession of my new house, and the sprawling space and airy, open rooms filled me with possibilities for the future. As the cool of winter approached, and with it the promise of Christmas coming in a matter of weeks, I’d been thinking about the future more and more.

  Dr. Alexander had said I needed to decide what to do with my past, and if I was going to have any hope of moving on, I needed to make peace with it. I had no idea what that would look like. My past still seemed so unwieldy, so difficult. A yawning chasm of loss too large for me to explore and understand.

  But Jack’s struggle to forgive his father had inspired me. Maybe I was ready to begin working on forgiving too. Not because I had a burning desire to absolve the villains in my life, but because I’d already lived through the worst of what not forgiving could do to me. I knew what it was like to carry hatred.

  So I had picked up the phone, determined to reach out, for my own sanity’s sake. Heather seemed like a logical place to start. She was my sister, after all. We’d grown up together, shared secrets, and swapped clothes. And, despite her friendship with Donna, she had supported me over the past several months, coming to the rescue more than once.

  Perhaps if I spoke to Heather, I’d be able to forgive her, be able to remember the best parts of our relationship.

  But hearing her voice on the phone made me doubt my plan. The last time I’d seen her had been at the psychiatric cente
r when I had been hauled out of the recreation room and put in confinement. Partly because of her.

  I squeezed the receiver. “I’ve moved.”

  She sighed. “I know. Mom told me.” She fell silent. Was she hoping for an invitation? Come on over and see my silk drapes? Was I willing to extend one to her? I glanced around the house. Its bright walls and open spaces felt large enough to hold the whole world. But was there room in my heart for Heather, after her betrayal? My sister—friend of Donna the Destroyer, the angel of death. Death to marriage. Death to Kevin. Death to my unborn child.

  “Are you still in touch with Donna?”

  “Kate—”

  “Just asking.”

  Her breath came in noisy puffs over the line. “We’re still friends, yes.”

  I thought of hanging up. What was there to say? But the roiling of my stomach told me there was at least one more thing to say to her. One more thing I needed to know. “Remember last Christmas, when I was so sick with the flu?”

  “Huh? Yeah, I remember.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Did Donna say anything to you about that?

  “What are you talking about? No, she never said anything about your being sick. Why would she?”

  Relief flooded my body and I was struck with ironic gratitude. Donna hadn’t told my secret. She knew I’d had an abortion; I had overheard Kevin talking to her about it on the phone. But she’d kept my secret.

  The day may come when I would be able to tell Heather about my abortion, but I wasn’t ready. Didn’t know when I would be. But I didn’t want Donna telling her, either. “Nothing. No reason. Just forget it.”

  Heather spoke quickly. “She’s never said anything bad about you, Kate. Not once.”

  “How kind of her,” my voice dripped sarcasm. Donna had wrapped my husband around her finger, swayed Heather’s loyalties, and ruined my life, but she was too much a lady to speak ill of her conquered opponent. She would draw blood when it suited her, but drew the line at rubbing salt in the wound. A true lady.

  Heather said, “I know it’s difficult for you to understand. But try to see it from my perspective. I literally had no one to talk to. Mom was a mess still from losing Dad, and you were in crisis—” Her breath warbled across the line, but when she spoke her voice was normal. “I know it sounds twisted. But when Donna spoke to me the day of the funeral, she was so open. She listened to me.” She made a sound of frustration, an argh. “I can’t explain it. It just … happened.” Her voice sounded small. “Please, Kate. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  Sorry. The word was a gauntlet thrown down, it couldn’t be ignored. She’d said the word and I was forced to either accept or reject it. “Will you stop seeing her?”

  She was quiet for a moment. Then, “If you want me to.”

  I held the receiver away from my ear and shook my head at the heavens. What kind of reluctant regret was this? If I wanted her to? “Shouldn’t you want to stop seeing her? Shouldn’t the idea of befriending that woman make you feel—”

  She interrupted, “Okay. I’ll stop seeing her. Okay?” Her words were clipped, terse, but her voice was soft.

  I stood, tight-lipped, staring out the window into the backyard. The sky was white with clouds and the promise of snow. I had choices. That’s what Maggie had said. I always have choices. I closed my eyes and pictured my sister. She had been the one I turned to after I’d smashed my car, the one I had called after Kevin’s voice screamed. Each time I needed her, she’d been there.

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay.” It was a start, something I could cling to as I worked at forgiving her. Our shared roots were deep; they intertwined through time and family. But it would be a long road. “I’m having a party next weekend.”

  She was silent.

  “A sort of housewarming, early Christmas party,” I explained. I paused. Did I want to include her? Could I face her? I made a choice. “Why don’t you bring Mom?”

  The house crackled with energy. From my vantage point, sitting on the top stair looking down onto the living room and foyer, I watched my guests mingle and sway through the rooms of my new house. Outside the first snow of December sprinkled down, causing everyone inside to brighten and hum with anticipation of winter, Christmas, and a new year. From my perch I watched my mother, in a high-backed chair in one corner of the living room, as she leaned forward to hear whatever it was Grace said to her. The two women had met tonight for the first time, and found an instant connection—two women who had thought this time of their lives would be about retirement and travel, but instead found themselves suddenly alone. After a few minutes of circulating with the other partygoers, they drifted to a quiet corner.

  Across the room Heather stood, back against the wall laughing, a group of gangly and admiring teenage boys gathered around her. She looked flushed and happy to be the center of attention, even if it was the attention of high school boys from Glen Hills. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Heather’s eyes sparkled and she would blare out an occasional “Oh, stop it!” when it was obvious she didn’t want them to stop.

  When Heather had arrived with Mom, I had greeted her briefly before turning to hug Mom and hustle them in away from the cold air. The distraction of the ongoing party was a buffer between Heather and me. Every once in a while our eyes met briefly, but I always looked away. Maybe we would find a quiet moment later in the evening to talk. Or maybe not. Perhaps it was enough for now that I had invited her and she had come.

  Sekeena and Creeper sat side by side on the floor in another corner of the living room. They passed a cell phone back and forth, each pushing buttons, texting, I supposed, and occasionally Sekeena reached out to give Creeper a playful swat in reaction to something he said. I wondered if she had told him the news. At least they were talking.

  Creeper leaned in close to see what she had written, their heads close together. They looked like children, without a care in the world. Deceptive. Even now they had a difficult burden to carry. Choices to make. I wanted very much to help Sekeena, and planned to talk to her about an idea I had that might suit her, help her, but not tonight. Tonight she was having fun, smiling and giggling. It was a party, a time to relax and pretend there were no difficult decisions to be made, no bad things at all.

  At that moment Maggie—decked out in a Santa dress, complete with a red, fur-trimmed hat—wandered in from the kitchen. She spoke loudly so that the group of women who followed her—Janice, Mimi, and three teenage girls from Glen Hills—could hear her. She was like a queen in her court, or perhaps Mrs. Claus giving a tour of the North Pole. Her outfit would have been adorable on a child of five. But the women loved her, ate up her homegrown wisdom, laughed, asked questions, followed her like a row of ducks, and devoured an enormous amount of veggies and dip.

  Malcolm, Richard, and Bobby stood near the door, a triangle of manhood, murmuring about whatever it is men talk about at parties like this: golf, or baseball, prostates, or politics. Maybe fine dining. They stood far apart and leaned their heads in close, and from where I sat above on the stairs, they resembled synchronized swimmers from a 1940s musical.

  The doorbell chimed. Mom looked around and then got up to answer it. I stayed where I was, watching from above. At the door Jack entered, followed by Lester. I was surprised to see Lester, but I shouldn’t have been. It was Jack’s nature to want to share a good time with as many people as possible.

  Lester looked bright and freshly scrubbed. His clean-shaven face gleamed pink and childlike, his hair slicked back. Jack looked around—for me, I supposed—and then handed Mom a bouquet of flowers wrapped in brown paper and said something that made her smile and then laugh. She turned to Lester and he ducked his head in a semi-bow.

  Mom stepped away toward the kitchen, no doubt to find something to put the flowers in. The boys from Glen Hills sauntered over to Jack and Lester, a
bandoning Heather, who now looked strange and forsaken, still leaning against the wall like a forgotten statue. The boys slapped high fives with Jack, calls of “Dude!” all around. Then Jack looked straight up at me, as if he knew he’d find me lurking high above the party.

  He excused himself from the group and made his way up the stairs, a smile playing around his lips. It struck me how handsome he was—his angular face, broad shoulders, the combination of dark hair and blue eyes. The image of me, head tipped back, neck stretched, ready to receive an imaginary kiss from him, filled my mind. My face flushed hot.

  He sat beside me on the step. “Hiding out, I see.”

  I shook my head, smiling but embarrassed, as if he could read my thoughts. “Nope. I just came up to get a sweater and got caught up with the view.” I pointed to the party below.

  He looked down. “You’ll have to introduce me to everyone. I met your mom.” He nudged me. “And I plan on having a long talk with her tonight—so many questions about her daughter.” His grin spread across his face and he stood. “I’m going to find me some punch. This party does have punch, right?” He clumped down the stairs, not waiting for a response.

  “In the kitchen,” I said, calling after him.

  Before his foot hit the bottom step, Maggie appeared from nowhere and wrapped him in a bear hug. “Hello, handsome,” she exclaimed. She turned to the gaggle of women gathered behind her. “Everyone, this is Pastor Jack, Kate’s dear friend and plumber.” The three girls from Glen Hills squirreled up their faces and laughed at Maggie, or Jack, or both. Maggie hitched her arm through Jack’s and paraded him through the room like a long-lost son. “Look at him,” she hollered to the room. “Isn’t he lovely?”

  Jack posed iron-man style, hamming it up for the crowd. The women erupted with laughter. I stood and looked down for one last moment before joining the party. I’d finally decided what to do with my past. For the first time, I’d chosen to throw open the doors of my life and allow all the pieces to mingle together. No hiding, no avoiding people. I had introduced the parts of myself to each other with this party. From above they almost resembled one large organism, pulsing with life, combining parts to create one whole living thing. Even the walls of the house itself seemed to breathe, to expand, and make room for everyone.