I imagine a ghost slipping through my dress’s sleeves, the fabric filling on its own and levitating around the room. Maybe my phantom dress can go to the memorial without me. Everyone will believe it’s me: my invisible self, floating between Tobias and Amara, flipping through the program while listening to every scripture reading and piano solo. My dress can endure all the memories recounted by old high school buds, hear distant cousins share their personal stories of how Silas changed their lives. He was such a good boy…He lived his life to the fullest…He seized the day, you know?
I wonder if my dress can step up to the podium and share one of our memories. Maybe it will tell everyone about the time Silas and I broke into the Richmond Public Library. The woefully underpaid security guard didn’t notice the two of us tucked under the table in the research room. We held our breath and tried hard not to snicker as he flipped on the lights, surveyed the room, then turned them back off, leaving us in the dark. The library was all ours. We slipped through the aisles to unearth whatever book Silas was hunting for. He was always on the prowl for some dusty tome, yet another out-of-print edition to add to his collection.
Will his family appreciate my dress telling that story? How the two of us tiptoed through the rows? How we spent the night curled up together on the floor, flipping through the book’s yellowed pages until the custodian rolled in? Would Silas’s sister laugh like we laughed as we burst through the emergency exit, sounding the library’s fire alarm, racing out into the early morning light and waking up the rest of Richmond, Silas’s new book in hand?
Silas never saw me in this dress. I don’t know if he’ll recognize me. But who’ll recognize him in his funeral suit? That isn’t Silas—not the Silas I know. That’s just some silly boy in his Sunday best. Silas despised the idea of going to church.
I imagine my dress draping itself over his casket. The fabric is thin enough to slip between its hinges. My dress will wrap around his suit and we’ll lie there. I’ll be his funeral shroud. We can be buried in the ground together.
I blink back to my room, my dress still empty on the bed. He’s gone, I think. He’s really gone. Silas is never coming back. Not this time. What were the last words I said to him?
Dead to me.
I can’t be around others who are ready to move on. I can’t let him go. I can’t let go of the here and now and the breaths in between. Opening the front door would let the air—let him—escape and I just can’t do that. Not yet. I keep coming up on recollections of him as I wander through the living room, like loose change buried in the couch cushions: That’s where Silas crashed last week and there’s the coffee mug he would drink red wine from and there’s the T-shirt that still smells like him and there’s…there’s…
So I decide to have my own memorial service, right here in my apartment, populated by all the memories of Silas I can muster. It’s a low-key affair—just me in my job interview dress, now a funeral dress. I’m the first to speak. Growing up, I imagine myself saying, I always wondered if what I looked like on the outside didn’t match up with what I was on the inside. Silas was the first person to see me for who I wanted to be. Not the person everyone saw me as, but what I felt like. Silas wasn’t afraid of what he saw. He saw to the very center of me.
During my imagined memorial, my phone chimes with a text. It’s Tanner.
Thinking bout u.
I haven’t thought about him since our date, to be honest. That night feels like eons ago—so much so, it takes me a moment to even remember who Tanner is. I don’t text back.
I notice I have a voicemail. I can’t remember hearing my phone ring.
Hi, this is Lorraine Watkins at the McMartin Agency. Just reaching out to follow up on a few things before you start on Monday. Work. Right. There’s a life waiting for me out there.
When my phone rings again—I hear it this time—Silas’s name manifests itself on my caller ID and I swear all the air in my lungs evaporates. He’s calling me. How is he calling me?
“Silas?”
“Where were you?” Callie asks, her voice dulled from grief. No preamble; she just launches right in. Of course she’d have his phone. She must’ve inherited his personal affects—what little there was. And I’ve been calling and calling. “Why didn’t you come today?”
Ever since Silas’s rehab breakout I’ve become persona non fuckoff for her. I enabled him. I absconded with him—then kicked him right out into the street.
“I wanted to be there, but…” I don’t have an answer. Everyone else was capable of mustering the strength to show up. Why couldn’t I?
“You were his friend. He loved you so much. Why? Why weren’t you there for him?”
She means the memorial, but in my mind, the question cuts deeper than that—Why weren’t you there for him when he needed you? How could you abandon him like that?
“Callie, please, let me explain—”
“He’s gone and you weren’t there. He’s never coming back.”
I open my mouth to say something, but the thought evaporates before I can give it voice. There’s nothing I can say that will help her heal. Callie’s breath catches on the other end of the line, wet and jagged. I have nothing to offer, nothing that will help take her pain away.
“Callie, I—”
“You’ll never be happy,” she says. “You’ve always gotten everything you ever wanted, but you’re so fucking empty and my brother is dead because of you.” She hangs up.
I glance around my apartment, phone still in hand, even though I can’t feel it anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I—” Who am I apologizing to? Maybe it’s Callie. Maybe Silas. Is there anyone else I should atone to? Who else’s karmic shit list am I on? I haven’t spoken with Tobias or Amara since we found out. I know I’ve broken some unspoken contract between the three of us, abandoned my post by not going to the service. How can I tell them I can’t leave my apartment? That this is my life now?
Mom calls and I can’t keep myself from picking up. I just need to talk to someone. We go through the motions of our weekly conversation, repeating the same script we always do.
“Just checking in,” she starts. “We haven’t heard from you lately.”
“I’m fine,” I say, staring at my laptop as I pretend to pay attention.
“You certainly don’t sound fine.”
I can’t bring myself to tell her he passed away. I can’t tell anyone. Maybe, just maybe, if I keep it to myself—keep silent—it didn’t happen. Maybe I can take his death back.
Silas says don’t forget me.
Silas says don’t let me go.
Silas says…
Find me. On the voicemail he said find me. What did he mean by that? Find him where?
“Your father’s birthday is coming up next week. You know how much it means to him.”
I ignore her and pull up Facebook. I’ve intentionally kept off social media, avoided all the posts about Silas. Another thing that would make it feel too real. You can look at his page once, I say to myself. Just once, I promise. Just to see the photos of him still lingering online.
It’s such a shoddy excuse for a profile. He was always a self-professed Luddite. I had to drag his ass into the twenty-first century and finally sign him up like the rest of world. I even picked out his profile picture—a photo I’d taken myself. He barely paid attention as I plugged all the pertinent details into his newly digitized life. He probably forgot his own password.
I shouldn’t be surprised that his wall is filled with bite-sized eulogies from distant acquaintances; people from college sharing their condolences with a goddamn algorithm.
Miss U…Gone but not forgotten…Where’d you go, bro? Always in our hearts.
Then I see a reply from Silas. Missing u 2!
“…Erin? Erin, are you there?”
Someone’s writing as Silas. Not for him, as him.
You’re not getting rid of me that easily!
“Are you listening to me? The celebration is on Monday.”
Death is not the end, trust me!
“I gotta go, Mom.” I end the call before she can protest. Scrolling through, I can see that someone has hacked Silas’s account and is commenting on all the condolence posts.
I’ll be baaack!
Who the hell is doing this? Who has access to his account other than me? This is disgusting. They don’t even sound remotely like Silas. He’d never write See you soon!!!