ALICE
Morning, this morning, tastes like ashes and rosebuds. Minna and Caroline both fell asleep together on the air mattress, a single blanket bundled around them. Caroline snores into her pillow, and a bit of drool is clotting Minna’s hair. The room smells like whiskey, and wind from the open window stirs the cigarette ashes scattered across the leather ottoman. Outside smells gray today, like rain.
Today is Richard Walker’s memorial, a Saturday. What did Saturdays used to taste like? Like eggs and fried ham and the bitter smell of hair in heavy rollers. Like long quiet hours and making up after a fight. Like ointment and bruising. Like waiting, especially, for something—anything—to happen.
Thomas was going to come for me on a Friday night. He had last-minute things to take care of, and the letter still to write to his fiancée, breaking off their engagement. He told me not to expect him before dinnertime, and I avoided eating, even though I was hungry. I was too nervous, too excited, and I imagined we’d have our first dinner together as a real couple on the road. We’d pull off a no-name highway, miles away from anywhere, when the darkness was pulled tight over the whole world and even the stars seemed remote and unconcerned. We’d find a little restaurant where the food was cheap and awful and we would laugh about it later.
It was nearly ten p.m. by the time I started to worry. I called his house. No answer. Then I was reassured again. He must be on his way to meet me. But another hour passed, and he didn’t come. It was a warm night, a perfect spring night, but I thought maybe the roads had been closed—a sudden flash flood, though it hadn’t rained more than usual, a portion of the steep hillside by Hayes’ farm giving way. Those things happened, back then.
But I would have heard. He would have called. Surely, someone would have called.
Hour after hour, I waited in the sitting room with the suitcase at my feet, while the darkness deepened and spread out around me, like an endless well closing in over my head. For a long time every sound—a coyote crying out, a sudden change in the wind—brought hope again. I imagined the crickets were an engine, drawing closer. I imagined the shush of the wind through the grass was his footstep.
Finally, the darkness began to ebb. The room began to assert itself: the sofa, the suitcase, the lamp, and the telephone all floated out of the deep purple shadows like objects thrown up on a tide, somehow—suddenly—unfamiliar. Deep inside my belly, the baby kicked, restless.
We had names already picked out: Thomas, for a boy; Penelope, for a girl.
That Saturday, too, tasted like ashes.
TRENTON
“It doesn’t hurt,” she said. By now her voice was even quieter than a whisper; it was like the memory of a voice, like a shadow falling across Trenton’s mind.
“How do you know? I thought you didn’t remember anything.” In the living room, the guests were already assembling. Trenton could hear the soft pressure of dozens of feet beyond the bathroom door, and the murmur of quiet conversation. How many of them had really known, or liked, his dad? None of them, probably.
His suit itched.
“The worst part is being scared . . . before,” the ghost said. “After that, you just let go.”
Thirteen pills and a bottle of vodka. Would that do it? He’d brought in a carton of orange juice, too. He didn’t think he could take even a few shots of vodka without puking. And what was the point of that?
He heard Minna say, “Thank you for coming,” her voice higher pitched than usual. He had a brief moment of regret, for her and for Amy. He’d loved Minna once, and she’d loved him. He remembered Christmases when she’d heaved him, kicking, into the air, so he could be the one to put the star on the top of the tree.
He wondered whether his memorial service would be full of assholes pretending to be sad and secretly filling up on free booze and deli sandwiches. He wondered whether his mom would have him cremated, and what kind of urn style she’d pick out for his remains—hair, nails, toes, pimples, singed to fine dust. A plain style, probably, for a plain, nothing-life.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to die. But he didn’t think he wanted to live, either.
He measured half a glass of vodka, then topped it with orange juice. The first sip almost made him gag. He hated vodka, didn’t understand how his mom could drink it plain. He forced himself to take three big swallows, then washed down two Valium. He fought the urge to puke.
In the living room, Minna was saying, “Thank you so much for your flowers, and we’re sure that’s what he would have chosen.” Her voice sounded very faint, as though he were hearing her from the bottom of an ocean.
“I’ll be here,” the ghost said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
Her voice was close. He was hot. His shirt was itchier than ever. He unbuttoned the collar. When he reached for the glass, for a moment his hand was water and broke apart; he saw the sink beyond it, the hard lines of porcelain, the lingering brown silhouette of a cup that had been packed away or discarded—the things that would outlast him, outlast his body and his life. What was the point of trying at all, if in the end you were no better, no longer, no more real than a bathroom sink and a rust stain?
“Where’s Trenton?” That was his mother’s voice. “Has anyone seen Trenton?”
He shook another pill into his palm. It was very blue. It looked like a breath mint, which struck him as funny. A deadly breath mint.
Was there anything he would miss? Anything at all? Would anyone miss him?
“I’m happy,” the new ghost said. At least, he thought she said it. He couldn’t tell, anymore. Her voice was an echo, like voices he had heard before but forgotten. “I’m happy you’re coming.”
He brought the pill to his mouth. He put it on his tongue. There was a faint vibration in his pants, and for a moment he thought he might be having some kind of predeath experience, a just-before-dying erection, a final humiliation; and then he realized that his phone was buzzing, and he had a message. He worked his phone out of his pocket clumsily with one hand, spitting the pill into his other, and placing it carefully on the edge of the kitchen sink.
He was dizzy. He leaned back against the wall, blinked, made the words come into focus.
The text was from an unknown number.
“Don’t read it,” the ghost said, speaking directly into the darkest corners of his mind, speaking like a footfall that isn’t heard, but felt or intuited. He could feel her, still, even though he couldn’t see her anymore. Even though every part of her was fading. “It doesn’t matter.”
It’s Katie, the words read. They kept blinking and re-forming, disappearing and reappearing, and he had to hold the phone very steady with both hands. Where are you? I’m coming. I need to explain.
“Please don’t leave me alone, Trenton,” the ghost said; but he was reading the text again and again, feeling the words in his fingers, already imagining the smell of menthol and tobacco and wildflowers, and his head was rising out of the shadows, and he didn’t hear her.
I’m at home, he typed back, very carefully, with very clumsy fingers. I’ll wait.
Then he took another long sip of his drink, and as the guests continued flowing into the living room for his father’s memorial, he ran the faucets, bent over the toilet, and let it all come up.