by David Wright
I want to beg for her not to give up on me. To tell her that I’ll get help, that I’ll see any doctor she wants. Just please don’t lose hope. But some part of me won’t let me ask. I don’t want to be a burden. She’s already sacrificed so much for us, for me, ever since Kayla died. She had to put her own grief on hold to help me heal, and I can’t ask anything of her. It wouldn’t be fair.
She asks, “Do you really believe our daughter was there tonight?”
I stare at her, not sure what to say, or think. If I believe that Sam was there, why wouldn’t I believe that Kayla was, too? I can’t think of a reason for Sam to lie.
I shrug.
“I don’t know what I believe any more.”
She hugs me.
We stand, embracing in the pouring rain for a long time.
Both of us crying.
As the rain starts to die down, she looks up at me, and I think for a moment that she’s going to kiss me and that all is forgiven.
Instead, she says, “Let’s go home.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 12
I wake at 2:15 p.m.
My head is pounding. Beside me, on Meg’s pillow, is a pink envelope.
I open it, wiping my eyes, trying to get rid of the blur. Finally, words swim into focus.
“Staying with my sister for a few days to think about things.
I love you, Tom. Please get help.
If you need anything, call me.
Love,
Meg”
I stare at it, thinking that this is it.
The end of our marriage.
I’ve heard stories, some even in the grief meetings, of marriages falling apart after the loss of a child. Nothing is ever the same. Hell, it’s tough enough to stay married even in the best of situations.
People change.
Many people I went to school with who got married young are now on their second or third marriages. Rarely are we the same person we were ten or twenty years ago. Neither are our spouses. It’s almost impossible to know how these things will shake out. Will the us that got married still be as compatible years down the road? It takes more than love to stay together against the seas of change that want to tear us apart. It takes strength, and devotion.
I thought the worst was behind us, but I could never have predicted this.
I sit on the edge of my bed, wondering if there’s any way to save my marriage.
Gus comes over to my side and lays his head on my lap, brow furrowed as his eyes look up to mine. He lets out a soft, almost sympathetic whine.
“It’ll be OK, boy,” I say and pet his head. His tail immediately starts thumping on the floor.
I find myself smiling, and — oddly hopeful.
Meg’s right.
I need to get help.
I need to stop the pills.
Need to tell the doctor everything. Both the docs.
**
Twelve days later …
6:15 p.m.
I’m waiting for my microwave dinner to finish cooking so I can head back to my office, eat a bit, and catch up on some reader emails.
It’s been seven days since I’ve taken the pain pills.
It’s been ten days since I started taking these antidepressants.
It’s been eleven days since I came clean and told the shrink, Dr. Lavender, everything.
In that time, I’ve avoided the accidents. I haven’t gone back to the grief meetings, and I’ve been a good boy, staying in my office and writing from dawn to dusk, then going to bed at night and actually getting good sleep, thanks to sleeping pills and the daily exercise of walking twice a day, morning and evening, for an hour each time.
I’d love to say that I feel better, but I’m still in pain, though no horrible headaches lately, and my temper is short. Fortunately, Meg’s not around to suffer my mood swings.
She’s still at her sister’s. I told her about my progress, and she’s hopeful. But she’s helping Mallory through some stuff at the moment. It’s tough to tell if Mal truly needs her there or if she’s just not convinced that I’m really on the path to being better. I won’t push it, though. Maybe this time apart will do us both some good.
I’ll keep getting better and writing this damned book, while Meg does whatever it is she needs to do.
I’ll have faith: This isn’t the end of our marriage. We’ve been through too much shared history, and recently, mutual trauma, to be with anyone else.
But perhaps that’s also a reason to split.
Maybe she can’t look at me without thinking about all that we’ve lost together. Perhaps the only way to be happy is to start over, with someone else. Easier to avoid the past than have to keep living through it.
Dr. Lavender has helped me to discover that I may have been doing something similar. While Meg wasn’t a constant reminder of our loss, perhaps I’d seen the process of having another child as something I couldn’t bear pouring my hopes into. Perhaps that’s why we’ve failed in our attempts. The doctor seems to think that I buried myself in the busyness of photographing car crashes to avoid rebuilding a family — that I was afraid to have another child and lose it. And that everything else — the man in black, the ghosts, the visions of my daughter, and those things at the school — were all my mind wanting to avoid the real issue: my fear of loss.
At first, I rejected the idea as psychobabble. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. More than a supernatural explanation, anyway.
Lavender says that a normal schedule with established routines will help me rebuild my life. So I’m doing my best and trying to stay focused on my work.
**
1:16 a.m.
It’s hardest at night.
Harder to not take the pills.
Hard to be alone.
I’m lying in bed, my back aching, trying to sleep, watching the clock’s blue numbers in the dark as the six turns to a seven.
This is the latest I’ve been up in nearly two weeks.
I know what will put me to sleep. I know what will calm the incessant thoughts and worries, what will ease the pain: the pain pills.
I tell myself no, but it’s the same argument I’ve been having for the past four hours.
After a while, it becomes pointless to lie to oneself.
I know what I’m going to do even before my feet hit the carpet and carry me up the stairs to my writing room. I reach for the desk where I stashed the bottles, telling myself just this once. Only for sleep.
If everything else in my life is under control, then the pain pills can’t hurt anything, right? Millions of people around the world take pain pills without incident. Yeah, some are hooked and get in a terrible way, but they don’t see ghosts and hallucinate. I think the antidepressants may help keep me grounded, in reality.
I look at the bottle. My hand is shaking.
I tell myself to just put the bottle away, to go back to bed. But I can’t sleep if I don’t take them. And if I can’t sleep, things will get really bad. I tell myself that it’s in my best interest to take the pills. It wasn’t like the doctor said the pills were the problem. Both doctors said they weren’t an issue if well managed.
I think almost two weeks without them is well fucking managed.
I untwist the cap, take one, and swallow.
I chase it with a bottle of water on my desk and sit back in my chair, waiting for that good feeling to wash through me. Pain dulled, thoughts turned happy. It makes sleep so much easier.
I close my eyes and allow myself a smile, anticipating the coming bliss.
The pills’ only negative is that nobody’s yet found a way to divorce the opiates within them from the negative effects that come with relief. I researched heroin users for one of our characters in Dark Family and learned that they’re always chasing another high as good as the first, but as with many drugs, highs are harder to come by and you need to take more and more just to feel something close. Eventually, and here’s where opiates are most dangerou
s, you need them to feel normal.
I wonder how far down that road I am now.
I don’t think I’m an addict. Would an addict be able to go almost two weeks without taking a pill? I doubt it. But like heroin users, I do find that the bliss never lasts as long, and on days I don’t take pills I don’t feel the same. My mood is worse, and I’m quicker to anger.
I continue to wait for the feeling that the pill has kicked in. It’s like the warmth of happiness, which one moment I don’t feel and then the next I do.
Sometimes, it takes fifteen minutes. Other times, a half hour.
I open my eyes to see how long it’s been since I swallowed the pill and scream as I see the shape in front of my desk.
Sam.
Standing between my desk and the window looking out over the graveyard.
“No,” I say, shaking my head, “you are not here.”
“I am here, Tom. I’ve been here for the past twelve days, but you haven’t seen me.”
No, this is not how hallucinations work. A pill doesn’t make you hallucinate that quickly. Does it?
“I’m going to bed now.” I don’t know why I’m talking to my imagination. I get up, turn around, and head toward the door.
“Paige!” he calls out.
I turn back to him.
“What?”
“Your daughter’s middle name is Paige.”
I stare at Sam, a cold chill running through me. I can hear my heart pounding.
Of course Sam would know that, because I know her middle name.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
Sam looks to his left, talking, “You sure?”
Is he talking to her?
No, I can’t let myself fall for this.
I need my bed, and to put this behind me.
Sam says, “Percy.”
“Percy?” I ask, “What are you talking about?”
“The other question you asked Kayla. The porcupine’s name. It was Percy.”
He then says, “She’s next to me, too, Tom. Kayla is here.”
I stare, not at Sam, but at the space beside him.
Is she really here?
Sam asks, “Well? Is it Percy?”
“I don’t know. Meg didn’t tell me.”
“Come on, Mr. Tom, you have to believe me.”
“Wait a second,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I click on my computer and locate the network drive that Meg and I share.
I type in Percy and wait to see if anything comes up of a story she’s working on.
Nothing shows.
I look down at my cell phone, which I’d left on my desk earlier rather than taking it to bed.
I pick it up, find Meg’s name, and dial.
It’s 1:27 a.m.
I’m sure she’s sleeping, and even more certain she’ll be pissed. But what else am I going to do? She already hates me, already thinks I’m mental. The worse I can do is ruin the hope nursed through the past twelve days and go back to start — I hope that’s as bad as it can get.
“‘Ello?” she says, groggy.
“Hey, Meg, I have to ask you something.”
“Are you OK?” she asks, suddenly alert. “Did you black out again?”
“No, Meg, I just need to ask you something. If I’m wrong, just please hang up, and we can talk about it next time, or not.”
“What is it?” she asks, her voice laced with accusation that I’ve been taking pills, or gone off the ones I’m supposed to be taking.
“Percy,” I say. “Was that the name of the porcupine?”
She’s quiet on the other end. I think she’s crying.
“Is that it?” I ask again.
“I’m not doing this again, Tom. Please, just go to sleep.”
“Just answer the question!” I snap.
“Yes, his name was Percy.”
I turn, staring at Sam, and the space next to him. I see something, just slightly shifting. A shimmer in the air, a blur, which just as quickly vanishes.
I swallow, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Kayla?” I ask.
“What are you talking about, Tom?” Meg says in the phone, either scared or pissed, or more likely, both.
“She’s here,” I say. “She just told me Percy.”
“No, Tom, She’s not there. You probably heard her talking about it, and you just remembered it in a dream or something.”
“Ask me something else that only she would know.”
“Stop it, Tom!” she says. She’s definitely crying.
“Please,” I say, not disguising my tears, “just ask.”
“I can’t,” she says, and hangs up.
I stare at the phone, enraged.
How can she hang up now? When I can prove that I’m not crazy, that Kayla is here?
I hit redial and call, but it goes straight to voicemail.
“Dammit, Meg, pick up. Just one more question, something I won’t know. Please.”
I hang up and put the phone on the desk, certain that she won’t call back.
I turn back to Sam.
“She’s here, right now?”
“Yes, she’s standing right in front of you.”
I fall to my knees. “Kayla?” I’m not sure what I expect. Perhaps some warm touch, or maybe a cold one. An embrace. Her voice. I’d heard Kayla before, calling me in my sleep, unless that was a hallucination. Maybe she can reach me now.
Sam asks, “Can you hear her?”
“No,” I say, crying.
“She says that she loves you. She’s also hugging you.”
“I can’t feel it, honey,” I say, wiping tears from my face. “I can’t feel you or hear you.”
“I miss you so much, baby. Oh God, I wish you were here.”
“She says she misses you and Mommy, too. She says that she’s sorry that Mommy doesn’t believe you. She knows that Mommy wants to, but can’t.”
I nod my head yes. “Your mommy misses you every day,” I say, wishing I could look into her eyes. I ask, “Where are you? I mean when you’re not here? Are you in heaven?”
Sam says, “She can’t go to heaven.”
I look up at him, feeling like he just hit me in the face with a shovel. “What?”
“We can’t move on until we let go.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“The man in black told me that we can’t move on until we let go.”
“You saw him? The man in black? He’s real?”
“Yes, I saw him after the last time you came to the auditorium. He was helping the old man across the street to move on.”
“What do you mean? What is he?”
“He helps us move on after we die. Some of us are ready to go to wherever we’re supposed to go, but some of us have what he called ‘unfinished business.’ Like with me. Before I can move on, I need to let my mom know it wasn’t her fault, that I wasn’t really trying to kill myself.”
“What’s Kayla’s unfinished business?” I ask, unable to imagine something preventing her from moving on. It’s not like Sam’s situation. She died in a car accident, not due to an accidental overdose or something. What unfinished business could she have?
Sam says, “I’m sorry, Kayla, but I can’t tell him. Not until he helps me.”
“Damn it, Sam!” I yell. “Tell me what she said.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tom, but first I need you to give my mom the message.”
“Fine,” I say. “Should I call her now?”
“No,” Sam says, “go to our house.”
“Now? In the middle of the night?”
“She’s still up,” he says. “I was just there.”
“I tell her, and then you’ll help Kayla?”
“Yes,” he says. “And in turn, it will help your family.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 13
I drive to Kathy’s house alone. Apparently ghosts can’t ride in a car. But using the address Sam gave me, along with my phone’s
turn-by-turn navigation, I find it easily, a quarter mile from my own home.
I pull up. All the windows of the house are dark save for one on the second story, light bleeding through a gauzy white curtain.
I park on the street, along with the other cars lining the quiet suburban block of homes built in the fifties and sixties. It’s an older neighborhood, but even this late at night, I can see that the homes are well taken care of.
I get out of the car and see Sam standing in front of the house, eagerly waiting. He looks happy to see me, but also nervous. Does he think his mom won’t believe me? Or perhaps those things will show up and take him away?
“Thank you,” he says.
“I’m gonna tell her, but I can’t promise she’ll believe me. Either way, you’re going to tell me what Kayla said. You got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
I ring the doorbell.
While I wait on the doorstep, wondering if she’ll even acknowledge I’m here as I sure as hell wouldn’t answer the door in the middle of the night myself, I look at Sam, pacing back and forth nervously.
I ask if Kayla is here.
Sam says no, that she’s back at my house, waiting.
After a couple of minutes, I ring the bell again. Now I’m growing nervous.
The porch light comes on, and the curtain in the window beside the door is pulled back to reveal Kathy’s widening eyes.
“Mr. Witt?” she asks from the other side of the window.
“Yes, Mrs. Prescott, I need to talk to you.”
The curtain falls back into place, and a moment later the door locks tumble open.
She opens the door and looks me up and down. “Are you OK?”
“Yes,” I say. “I know it’s late, and I apologize, but I need to talk to you about Sam. May I come in?”
“Sam?” she asks, confused. “Yes,” she says, opening the door and letting me in.
Sam follows me inside.
Kathy leads me to the dining room in the rear of the house, and flicks on a light. “Can I get you a drink?”
