The Dearly Departed Dating Service

by Rae Renzi

  A flock of sparrows landed in the tree above us, squabbling and fluttering noisily for a few seconds before they took to the air again and were gone. The baby cooed and reached toward the departing birds. Her squeal of laughter dispelled the tension between Sam and Annette. When Sam continued, his voice was a little more conversational, a little less intense.

  “When you were pregnant, I bet you took care to eat the right food and to get enough sleep and to not do anything to harm yourself, because if you did, you’d harm the baby, too.”

  Annette nodded. “She didn’t like it when I ate chocolate. The caffeine, I guess. She’d kick and fuss like crazy.”

  “So you knew when the baby was inside you, that everything that happened to you, also happened to her?”

  “Yes.” Annette looked down at her folded hands. “I guess… it’s the same now.”

  “Yes, ma’am. She’s not inside you, but nothing else changes. Whatever affects you, affects her, and in exactly the same way. You need to remember that.”

  Annette looked into the distance, her eyes filling with tears. “I miss my husband.”

  “So does Janey.” Sam took the baby off his shoulder and looked at me inquiringly. I nodded briefly. It wasn’t like we could actually keep the baby away from her. Even if Sam had found evidence for serious abuse, the best he could do was to call Child Protective Services and report his suspicions. I was glad it hadn’t come to that, but I was still uneasy. The momentary concern of two strangers did nothing to change Annette’s circumstances.

  “I know you’re sad, Annette, but we need to know the baby will be safe, that you’ll take care of her,” I said as softly and kindly as I could. I was talking as much to Tony as to Annette.

  Tony looked at me. “Tell her I’ll stay with her until she’s okay. Tell her I’ll be close by until she’s ready.”

  I glanced at Sam and considered. By his own admission, he already found me disturbing, though I hadn’t yet found out why. Still, there was no better time for him to discover the full range of just how disturbing I could be.

  “Annette, this will sound strange, but I’m going to ask you to listen carefully. Tony said to tell you he loves you. Before you ask, yes, he’s right here. I can see him and hear him, and no, I don’t know why I can and you can’t. It’s just the way it is.” This last I rattled out quickly, and darted a look at Sam.

  His eyes flew open with shock. Just as abruptly, his face shut down. Annette just looked confused. I kept talking. “The TV remote you lost—it’s between the pillows and the back of the blue—” I turned to Tony. “Blue, right?” He nodded. “Yes, the new blue sofa. Tony says it got squished in there somehow.”

  The look of surprise on Sam’s face mirrored Annette’s.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “How do you know about the blue sofa? How do you know Tony? Wait. How did you know my name, and my baby’s?”

  “I don’t know Tony,” I said, feeling a little helpless. This whole thing depended on her believing me. “That is, I didn’t know him when he was alive. But he’s right here. He told me Janey’s name and yours because he thought I could help. He also says he saved some money—it was supposed to be for your vacation. It’s in his toolbox.”

  “What—” Annette started, but I held up my hand to forestall her. Tony had raised his hand, like a schoolboy.

  “What is it, Tony?”

  “Tell her Joe—that’s my brother—is coming by to get the toolbox tonight. I almost forgot.” He gave me a rather detailed description of the toolbox—obviously a treasure to him.

  I glanced at Sam. A frown marred his face, whether disapproval or confusion, I couldn’t tell. There wasn’t much I could do about it in any case—he’d either believe me or think I was crazy. I turned back to Annette and said, “Right. He says his brother Joe is coming by this evening to get the toolbox, so you have to get the money out before then. The toolbox is the red one with the green peace symbol on top. Do you know where it is?”

  Annette looked amazed. “Yes, in the garage, I think.”

  “No, I moved it. It’s in the cabinet in the laundry room,” Tony said.

  I relayed this information to Annette. “Okay, one last thing. Tony will stay right by you. You won’t be able to see him, but he’ll be there with you every minute for as long as you need him. If you need help, ask him and he’ll come find me. He says all of him is in this baby, and you need to fill her up with love, because you have to do it for him, too. He has the love, but you have to fill Janey up with it. Okay?” This last part was pure fabrication on my part, but it should do the trick.

  Sam had been looking more and more like a thunderstorm about to break, but after I finished this last bit, his face suddenly cleared. A spark of hope fizzed inside me. Maybe, maybe he believed me.

  Annette tucked the baby back into her stroller. Sam gave her instructions for dealing with the teething and further suggestions about getting help with her grief. He sat beside me on the picnic table and watched her push the stroller toward the parking lot. She turned and gave us a feeble wave and disappeared around the corner.

  Tony, still with us, said, “Thanks. She seems calmer now. Maybe she needed to feel less alone?”

  “It might work,” I said, with a shrug. “I hope so.”

  Tony nodded. “Me, too.” He disappeared.

  “Me, too,” Sam said, and settled in beside me.

  Chapter 33

  Sam was silent as we sat on the table, side by side. The earthy smell of his sweat mixed pleasantly with the scent of the pine needles scattered on the ground, and the combination calmed me for some reason. I wondered what was going through his mind. He’d have questions, I was sure.

  The air suddenly became cool as the sun fell behind the tall trees. Streaks of pink and gold stretched across the sky, backlighting the flocks of starlings that settled in the trees with the whoosh of wings and the clatter of chirping beaks. The lamps around the running trail started to glow dimly, and car headlights traced the roadway out of the park as weary athletes radiating virtue made their way home. I suddenly realized Craig had disappeared sometime during the drama. I tried to recall when I had last seen him.

  I was roused from my reverie by Sam reaching behind me to grab his shirt and pull it on. His skin was pebbled with goose bumps, and he rubbed his arms briefly to warm them.

  He glanced at me and said, “I notice you had no objection to saving that baby’s life.”

  The observation was so conspicuous I knew he was bringing up something other than my heroics, but I couldn’t think what. I was drained from the whole episode.

  He continued, sounding a bit like he was talking to himself, rather than me. “So, I guess you’re not opposed to saving lives in general. You don’t believe any intervention is intrusive? No, no, you couldn’t.”

  “Of course not. Why on earth would I believe that? I did go to medical school, exactly to learn intervention.”

  “But you quit. And became a mortician.”

  “Yes, I did. That’s beside the point.” A tiny wave of discomfort brushed over me. It was the who-should-live-and-who-should-die question. There seemed to be no good answer, at least not one that could be applied generally. That was why I had quit.

  Sam shot a sideways glance at me and chuckled deep in his throat. He reached around and pulled me close to him. “Never mind. You did the right thing.”

  Sam’s gentle chiding, or maybe his arm around my shoulders, had a mollifying effect on me. My tension began to sift away with the last of the afternoon light. We were silent for a while, sitting together, legs touching, barely moving, warming each other with our mere presence. It was twilight, the time of transformation, when fact faded into mystery, and the disappointments of the day began their perilous journey toward hope. I suppose, too, it was the time when disillusionment snaked into vulnerable souls.

  Eddies and currents of the cool night air flirted with the trees, shaking from them a shushing noise. I shivered slightly and the pr
ickle of goose bumps rose on my leg. Sitting in such close proximity to Sam, with his undeniably solid arm around me, I wondered when, exactly, I had lost my armor against him. I also began to feel a little uncomfortable about our physical closeness. I had been sweating during my run and didn’t exactly smell like a rose, or any other flower. I wiggled a little to surreptitiously put space between us.

  Misreading my uneasiness, Sam tightened his one-armed embrace. “Are you cold?” His other hand reached toward me. I could read his intention as if it were written on his forehead: he meant to grasp my legs and pull me into his lap.

  That wouldn’t work. I wasn’t ready for that level of intimacy. After one sniff of me, I was pretty sure Sam wouldn’t be either.

  I swung my legs out of his reach and grabbed my sweatshirt from the table behind him. “It is a little cool, isn’t it?” I pulled the sweatshirt on, hoping the extra layer between us would quell my whiffiness, and returned to Sam’s warm embrace, though with a little less confidence than I would have liked.

  The moment had made clear at least one advantage of having a dead boyfriend.

  A discordant gong sounded in my head. If I had a boyfriend—and I did—what was I doing with another man’s arm draped across my shoulder?

  And where was Craig?

  As if in response to my mental panic, Craig slowly materialized a few feet away. Anxiety shot through me. How could I explain this situation with Sam? I hadn’t even explained the kiss yet. A dozen excuses reflexively whistled through my mind, though I discarded them instantly, and only the truth would do. But what was the truth of this situation?

  I opened my mouth to speak to Craig—after all, Sam now knew I communicated with the Departed—but Craig held up his hand to stop me.

  “You aren’t going?” I asked him, as panic start to well up inside me. “Promise me you’re not going.” I couldn’t stand the thought of Craig disappearing from my life forever.

  “No, not unless you’re ready.” Sam tightened his arm around me.

  “Only when you’re ready. But you don’t need me now, you know,” Craig said. Oddly, I heard a note of relief in his voice. With a last wistful smile at me, he scintillated away, mixing with the myriad stars in the night sky.

  I sat there, stunned. Craig intended to leave me? I started to shake. “I need—”

  “To go—yeah, I can see that. You’re shivering—you need to get out of this night air,” Sam said. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  I was numb. Emotionally and physically. I stood and let Sam lead me to the parking lot. After he spotted my vintage vehicle—it was painfully distinct—he guided me in its direction. By the time we got there, I had regained enough control to attempt to act normal, whatever that was. At times, and this was surely one of them, I doubted the whole concept of normal.

  “There’s one thing that bothers me,” Sam said, as I fumbled my car key out of the pocket of my running shorts. He leaned against the hood of the car.

  “What’s that?” I asked, distractedly. If Craig left for good, would he come for a visit every now and then? Or was that even possible once he gave up his form? Was it a function of memory? If he went away for long, would he forget how to come back? Would I ever see him again? A dark cloud shadowed my heart.

  “I can understand why you did it—but how did you know all those details?”

  “Tony told me, of course.”

  Sam’s face tightened. “I see. You and Tony were… together?”

  The stress of the past hour must have gotten to me, because it took a minute for me to understand. I took a step back and drilled Sam with a stare. “You think I slept with Tony. A married man. With a new baby.”

  “I didn’t say that, but you had to find out about it somehow.” He seemed to have a second thought. “How did you know about Annette and the baby? At that exact minute? How did you know the baby was in danger?”

  A bucket of ice-cold water could not have quenched the newly sparked embers of our relationship more completely.

  I should have known. He was too deep into the earthly world, too attached to his self-imposed mandate to save lives, justified by an implicit belief that life—material life—was all we had.

  I turned away from him. “I’d tell you, Sam, but I don’t think you can hear it. If, in the face of the evidence, you interpret my words as either lies or the product of an illicit affair, then you are most definitely not ready to hear it. And you’re not ready for me.”

  “Joy…” he said, but I was finished with him.

  Chapter 34

  All night I hoped to hear from Craig, and all night, I didn’t. My sleep was fitful when I slept at all. The idea of Craig leaving me invaded my dreams, and left me prickly and sad. Of Sam, well, he didn’t deserve my thoughts, but typical of him, he bulled his way through my mind anyway. The effort to contain him was exhausting.

  And that was only half of it. With less than a month before my own personal fiscal cliff, I was facing the mounting evidence that although I was pretty good at helping the Bereaved, I was dismal at making that endeavor pay. My prospects for salvation appeared to be dwindling as quickly as my time.

  Needless to say, the next morning. I wasn’t at my best.

  I was simultaneously trying to hold an umbrella and gently cajole Alice into the car when Ruby popped up in the passenger seat. It didn’t seem right that she, who was immune from getting wet, was inside the car, while I stood in the drizzle. I reconsidered my relationship with the dog and bodily picked her up to toss her into the back.

  After slipping into the driver’s seat, I glanced at Ruby. She looked glum, even considering the weather. “What is it, Ruby? Is Luke making a nuisance of himself?”

  “Luke? Naw. He’s a cute kid. It’s just I’m kinda getting worried about Clydes. He’s not coming out of it as far as I can see.”

  “Don’t worry, Ruby. These things take a while for some people. He’ll come around in time. We have to wait and see.” My mind was elsewhere—fretting about Craig. Not fretting about Sam.

  “Yeah, that’s just it—I’m worried he won’t.”

  Ruby’s words pierced my concentration. “He won’t what?” Her meaning suddenly became clear. “Oh. Oh, dear. You’re afraid he’ll… take his own life so he can join you? Good heavens. Would he do that?”

  “He never was too good at seeing ahead. Lived in the moment. Right now, seems like his moment’s not too good. Not sure he’s gonna see his way out of this.”

  That put a new spin on things. Perhaps the time was right for Madam Mystique to step in—desperate times called for desperate measures. “Don’t worry, Ruby. We’ll bring him along. Let’s talk to Marybob tonight and see what we can arrange. Can you keep Clydes steady for a day or two?”

  “Maybe.” She looked thoughtful. “Yeah, I have an idea.”

  Ruby’s plan seemed perfect to me, but not everyone involved agreed.

  “Are you crazy? I am so not going in there!”

  “C’mon, Donnie. It’ll be fine.” Ronnie punched his twin on the shoulder. Symbolically.

  “Fine for you, maybe—you’re already dead.”

  The twins stood with Ruby, Luke, and me—or rather, Ronnie, Ruby, and Luke stood (or hovered, to be accurate) on the sidewalk outside a small house in North Houston near 34th and Durham while Donnie and I hid behind a giant live oak. It wasn’t raining, but it was overcast, which made the night seem darker than usual. No moon, no stars. Just the occasional street lamp. Clydes’s house was a brick dwelling that aspired to ranch style, with a long, narrow driveway and a detached garage. It wasn’t fancy, but it was neat and tidy. No landscaping graced the home, but it was saved from looking bare by a flowering crepe myrtle to the left of the front walk and two enormous trees—the live oak in whose deep shadows we hid and a pecan tree on the other side of the yard, under which stood three burly motorcycles gleaming in the amber light spilling from a lone fixture on the front porch.

  “Never mind, Ronnie. If Donnie doesn’t
want to save this poor man’s life, we shouldn’t force him. I can do it.” I braced my shoulders and marched forward, fully prepared to carry out Ruby’s ingenious ploy to delay Clydesdale’s imminent self-departure from the mortal world.

  Her plan was simple. He was obsessive about his motorcycle and wouldn’t leave it in a less-than-perfect state of repair. Our mission was to tweak the machine so it ran rough, whatever that meant, in order to compel Clydes to fix it. In the meanwhile, we’d find him a romantic partner, someone to take up where Ruby had left off.

  “You don’t know squat about engines, I’m guessing,” Ruby said unhelpfully as she stepped in front of me. “You’re here to distract him, in case of an emergency.”

  Logically, I should have marched right through her—it wasn’t as though her body actually stopped me.

  I couldn’t do it. I faltered and came to a halt, nose to nose with her, then took a step back. “How difficult can it be? I’m sure Ronnie or Luke can tell me which deelybob to twist or turn. Or pull off. They’re in no danger, as Donnie pointed out.”

  Donnie slapped his head. “Oh, jeez. With your luck, you’ll accidentally trash the whole bike. That’d send him to the nearest overpass to take a flying leap. Okay. Okay, I’ll do it. Do me a favor?” He glanced at the three motorcycles. “Make sure his friends are occupied, or whatever?”

  “I knew you’d do it.” Ronnie gave his brother another non-physical punch in the arm. “We’ll check to make sure the bike is in the garage. C’mon, Ruby. Luke, you want to keep watch with Joy?”

  “Wait. Remember to find a way for Donnie to get in, too. He, unlike you, can’t float through walls.”

  “Oh. Right. Will do.”

  They sauntered across the yard, chatting like old friends, and walked into the garage, through—literally—the overhead door. Luke leaned against the tree, thoughtfully regarding Donnie. He was quiet but seemed cheerful. No doubt he thought this was fun.