Proof of Life

by Sheila Lowe

  The homeless folk who frequented the area were nowhere to be found on this cheerless day. June gloom. That’s what Southern Californians called it when the hazy clouds formed a marine layer over the coast, hiding the sun until three o’clock in the afternoon. She had the promenade pretty much to herself.

  Going north, she walked past the Crowne Plaza and the short row of condos beyond it. Along with the pier, the playground in the sand was closed today, no children swinging or climbing. Even the ground squirrels that acted like they owned the place were in hiding, waiting for better weather before they popped out of their burrows to forage among the boulders for peanuts and other treats.

  Jessica began jogging toward Surfers Point. From time to time she paused for breath, leaning over the wall that separated the promenade from the beach. At high tide, the water rushed all the way up to the barrier, sending spray into the air. Lifting her face to meet the stinging drops that fell like rain, she took a perverse pleasure in the discomfort of the cold water on her hair and skin. Something to think about besides the whispers, and other thoughts she would sooner avoid.

  Jenna—older by a mere ten minutes—was fond of chiding her: “I know there’s nothing more painful, Jess. But you need to stop pretending it didn’t happen. If only you could face the truth, I know it would get easier.”

  Face what truth? That it’s been five years since my ex-husband’s drunken road rage stole my son’s life? Is that supposed to be some kind of milestone?

  It was, in fact, a truth Jessica had been facing every day for one-thousand, eight-hundred and twenty-five of them. She wasn’t pretending anything. What good did it do to memorialize the anniversary of the day Justin died—his birthday—when it was with her every minute of every day?

  Jessica had emerged from a coma with questions that nobody wanted to answer. Of course, she knew. Impossible for a mother bereft of her child not to know that he was no longer breathing the same air; that the atoms and molecules that made up his physical form had ceased to exist.

  Like too many drunks who cause fatal crashes, Justin’s father, Gregory Mack, had suffered no significant injury. He was arrested on a DUI—not his first. In California, the maximum sentence for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated was ten years. The trial judge, appalled by the reckless disregard for his family’s lives, had brought down the gavel expressing her wish that she had the power to double it.

  The day after she left the hospital, Jessica filed for divorce.

  He wrote to her every few months even now, but nothing Greg said could undo what he had done, give back the life he had taken with his rotten choices. If he expressed remorse or begged for her forgiveness, she did not know or care. She burned every jailhouse letter he sent, unopened.

  The anniversaries were never easy, but this one was even more agonizing than the four that preceded it. Five years. Yes, it was a milestone. A milestone reflecting the misery that still lived in the cold, hard lump where her heart used to be.

  She had given up trying to make Jenna understand, though it still galled her that her twin’s compassion seemed to have limits. A few months after the accident, Jenna herself had survived a violent kidnapping. It was Jessica’s belief that her sister was dead, compounded by the aftereffects of the head injury and coma, that had propelled Jessica into a terrifying period of retrograde amnesia. Over time, she regained most of her memory, but dying in the accident and coming back to life without her child had changed her fundamentally in ways that were beyond her ability to put into words.

  And then, there were the whispers.

  They had begun to plague her not long after she left the hospital. Brain scans and EEGs showed no abnormality, and until a few weeks ago, she had mostly succeeded in ignoring them. Millions of people with tinnitus heard strange noises day and night, she told herself. Maybe what she was hearing was a form of tinnitus. That the whispers were actual words and phrases, requests for help, which people with tinnitus did not hear, was beside the point.

  The sporadic syncope episodes had also become an annoying fact of life, and usually happened when she was under stress. She had learned to accept that when her vision started to fade and her ears filled with a high-pitched, shrieky whine, if she waited it out, it would stop. The one at Arial’s Gallery was different in quality and tone from what she was accustomed to. That shook her.

  By the time she had jogged the mile to Surfer’s Point, the tips of Jessica’s ears were burning with cold and her face felt as though she had lain face down in a snowbank. Sinking onto one of the benches that lined the promenade, she pulled the neck of her sweater up over her nose and mouth, breathing into the wool.

  Despite the foul weather, a dozen or so die-hard surfers were out riding their boards on the rough waves, looking like tasty shark snacks in their black wetsuits. The ocean, which on most days sparkled like diamonds on blue silk, was the color of a Brillo pad and matched Jessica’s mood. She had slept poorly the night before, which was not unusual. Her dreams had been haunted by Justin.

  This should have been his seventh birthday.

  She imagined him sitting beside her, bouncing up and down, excited by the surfers. She would have bought him a boogie board to get him started. He loved splashing in the ocean with her and Jen each taking a small hand and dangling him above the shoreline ripples, or paddling in a tide pool under their watchful eyes. She had been so careful to protect him from danger.

  She should have protected him from the biggest danger of all—his father.

  The perpetual self-recrimination was a bad habit. She knew it, but no one else was going to say that Justin’s death was her fault, even if they secretly believed it. Reminding herself was a form of penance. For once, though, she did not want to hear it.

  Jessica closed her eyes and listened to the soothing white noise of the ocean’s steady roar, the whoosh of waves coming in to the shore and going out again. The soothing in and out, in and out. The tension began to melt from her shoulders…

  …The sun is a brilliant disk in a sky the same blue as Justin’s eyes. Apart from one cottony puff that seems to follow two youngsters playing football, the day is cloudless. Shouting, kicking the ball to each other, having fun, they run down the field, coming closer. The taller of the two is an African American boy, the other is fair.

  The way the smaller boy moves, the way he laughs…She reaches out to him with her thoughts. Come over here. I need to see you.

  The boy turns and runs toward her. His eyes, the same blue as the sky, are alight with mischief, his grin achingly familiar. But he’s five years older now, growing up without her.

  He calls out, “I’m fine, Mom, you don’t have to worry about me,” then spins back around with a wave and kicks the ball to the other boy.

  Justin, come back.

  Her son dissolves like sugar in water, leaving the other boy alone with her and her mangled heart.

  She yearns for her child, but this other boy needs something from her. He drifts over and lifts his head for her to see…empty eye sockets, melting pink flesh, scarred and terrible like a creature from a horror film.

  A strangled scream burst from her throat.

  Jessica stared at the roiling ocean, dazed and confused. Where was the sunshine-drenched field? The two boys?

  “Hey, hey, lady. You okay?”

  She spun around. The man who had called out to her straddled his bicycle, untamed greying hair escaping from a short ponytail. No helmet. She noticed that. Despite the chilly temperature, he wore cargo shorts with a sweatshirt, and sandals. “Are you okay?” the man repeated.

  What did he think she was going to do? Climb over the railing into the water and drown herself? Probably. To an onlooker, she must seem unhinged, standing there screaming at nothing anyone else could see. Mortified, Jessica tried to shake loose the horrific image of the boy in her vision, or whatever it was.

  The man rested his bike on its kickstand and came around the bench to where she stood. “Want me to call 911
?”

  “Please don’t. I’m fine,” she lied. He did not need to know that her temples were throbbing, her stomach jumping summersaults.

  He shook his head. “I hate to say it, lady, but you don’t look fine. You ought to sit down, take it easy for a minute.”

  Wordlessly, Jessica followed his advice. Had she fallen asleep and had a nightmare? No. The boy with the melted face was real. He had died in a fire. Somehow, she knew it was true. Questions rolled like film credits:

  Who was he?

  Why was he with Justin?

  Why did he show himself that way?

  Will I see Justin again?

  The man took a seat on the bench beside her. She was conscious of him speaking but her mind had room for nothing but the two boys. The shock of that ruined young face had launched her out of the vision before he could give the message he wanted her to hear.

  How do you know there’s a message?

  I just do.

  The snarky voice inside her was different from the whispers. This one had lived with her for most of her life, criticizing, nitpicking without mercy, always when she was at her most vulnerable.

  Jessica turned to face the man whose kind, hazel eyes were worried.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. “I just need to eat.” As she said the words, she realized that they were true. She could not remember her last meal. Lunch, yesterday? Maybe. No wonder she was feeling spaced out.

  “If you say so,” the man said. He held out his hand. “I’m Jay,”

  “Jessica.”

  His big paw closed around hers, soft and warm. “Nice to meet you, Jessica. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No, nothing. But thank you for stopping. That was nice of you.”

  Jay gave her a friendly wink. “No problemo, senorita.” He rose from the bench. “I suggest you get something warm inside you, the sooner the better.”

  Jessica got up, too. “I will. Thanks again.”

  Thus dismissed, Jay climbed back on his bicycle and pedaled away with a cheery wave.

  Watching his broad back fade into the distance, tears welled in Jessica’s eyes. Tears for the burned boy. Tears for Justin, who had taken her heart with him to the Afterlife. Tears for her own pitiful self, a young woman whose head was crowded with unwelcome voices and visions.

  TWO

  Dammit.

  Jessica smacked the steering wheel with the side of her fist. She had forgotten the early morning text from Zach Smith, saying he would drop by after work. Now, fifteen minutes late, she was in no mood for company. Not that Zach exactly fit into that category.

  The emotional exhaustion of the day dragged on her. It would be so easy to lay the seat back and just check out for a while. But if she didn’t show up, he would come looking for her. She pulled around his silver Acura and parked on the driveway.

  Her rented cottage stood behind a grey and white Victorian replica. There, she hid from the world and made art. Jessica pushed through the wooden gate, her mood lifting at the sight of the pocket-sized garden she had created. Pineapple sage, mint, rosemary, anemone, carnation, amaryllis, running riot along the path.

  Therapy for the soul.

  Zach, who had a talent for blending into the scenery when he had a mind to, materialized from the shadows of the jasmine arbor next to the front door. He was holding a pizza box and a grocery bag. The garlicky aroma made Jessica’s stomach growl. Thanks to Zach, she was about to fulfill her promise to the man on the promenade and get something warm inside her. Maybe him coming over wasn’t such a bad idea.

  “I was gonna call out the cavalry,” Zach said.

  “You are the cavalry,” she said, referring to his FBI Special Agent status. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “You forgot me again, didn’t you?”

  “I went for a walk at the beach.”

  “I guess you forgot your phone.”

  She dug for it in her pocket and checked the screen. Three text messages and a voicemail from Zach, two voicemails from her sister, Jenna. “Left it in the car,” she said, unlocking the door.

  He followed her inside. “How convenient.”

  Her workspace claimed a generous amount of space in the cottage. The worktable bore the tools of a miniaturist—dental tools for carving away the extra bits of clay and creating fine detail lines, loop tools for creating texture, a small rolling pin and cutting board, a strong magnifying lamp. Art supplies. Floor-to-ceiling shelves for sculpting clay, stacks of fabric squares, plastic bins filled with spools of thread, buttons, doll heads and limbs. Armatures that supported sculptures in progress—human and animal—in various stages of completion.

  Zach unloaded a six-pack of Longboard Lager on the work top and flipped open the pizza box. “Extra cheese, olive and mushroom. No meat, the way you like it.”

  “Omigod, Zach, you are the best. Let me get some paper plates out.”

  “You look pretty wasted, little chick. You sit, I’ve got it handled.”

  Grateful to have him take over, Jessica plopped onto her favorite armchair, threw her legs over the side and watched him make himself at home. “You know what, Zach? You’d make some lucky woman a great wife.”

  He threw her the stink eye over his shoulder. “Why do I bother?” he said with feigned disgust.

  “Because you’re FBI Man to the rescue, and I’m starving.”

  He slapped a large slice of pizza on a paper plate and brought it over to her. “Here ya go.”

  She folded the slice in half and took a big bite, licking the melted cheese that dripped down with more enthusiasm than she had felt for food in weeks.

  As soon as her mouth was full, Zach said, “We arrested Randy Martin this morning.”

  Jessica froze mid-chew. For ten long seconds she did a fair imitation of a statue while the words hung between them like the smell of a rank piece of meat. She had relegated the Martin case to the back of her mind, not expecting it to come back and haunt her in a most literal way. The lump of pizza landed in her gut like a glutinous stone. She said nothing.

  “You were right, Jess,” Zach prompted. “It was the husband.”

  She didn’t want to be right. Didn’t want any part of it.

  Two months earlier, twenty-five-year-old Hailey Martin had gone missing from Carpinteria, a small town forty miles north. Before the disappearance was made public, she had witnessed the young mother’s death in a dream.

  Except that in the dream, Jessica was the victim.

  Jessica woke up choking and terrified. Like before, she was the passenger in a car, clinging to the armrest as they careened along a semi-rural road in the dark. This time, though, there were differences. No rain. No big rig ahead of them. And the car did not fly over the edge of a cliff.

  This time, the man driving pulled over to the side of the road and strangled the life out of her.

  For a while, Jessica convinced herself that she had conjured a nightmare about the accident; that her mind had constructed a symbol for what she had experienced five years ago. She dismissed the fact that the woman in the dream—younger, taller, round-faced, with short chestnut hair—looked nothing like her petite, slender, long blonde-haired self. That was the kind of thing that happened in dreams, she rationalized.

  But the woman soon made it clear that she was no mere symbol.

  She began to appear regularly, and with each appearance, showed more of her story and the brutal way it ended. Jessica would jerk awake, clutching her burning throat, gasping for air. And hovering near her bed, the apparition, not altogether material, a little hazy, would gaze at her, silently begging for justice.

  It took five nights in a row of that treatment before Jessica was ready to acknowledge the fact that, unlike her own short visit to the Afterlife, the woman in the dream was permanently dead. No coming back to life on Earth for her.

  After that, she did her best to stay awake and dodge the nightly visitations, sitting up, watching one TV show after another until darkness morphed into daw
n when, exhausted, she could no longer distinguish between whether she was dreaming or awake.

  On the sixth night, she was clicking through the channels, looking for a show that would keep her awake. She started to pass the flashing red and blue of a Breaking News Alert―they brought nothing but bad news―when something stopped her.

  The news anchor in her neat pink suit was saying something about a missing woman. But Jessica could not hear past the blah, blah, blah. Splashed across the screen was the face of her spectral visitor and her name was Hailey Martin.

  Jessica began to tremble. With every fiber of her being she wanted to be wrong. But more than simply believing that she was right, she knew she was.

  A clear image of Zach popped into her head, and an insistent whisper that she had to let him know what she had seen.

  No, I’m not going to call him.

  “Call him.”

  Zach was a pretty cool guy and a good friend, but he was an FBI agent. She could not count on him to take her seriously about something like this. Why should he? She had never had a predictive dream before. She wasn’t psychic.

  Was she?

  The urging from Hailey Martin’s spirit to call him went on and on until Jessica had no choice but to pick up the phone and tell him she could help locate the woman’s body.

  Zach laughed at her.

  “You’re screwing with me, right? When did you become psychic? Hey, how about giving me the winning lottery numbers?”

  After all the sleepless nights and the anguish over what she had witnessed, his mocking tone infuriated her. “Do you want me to tell you where she is, or don’t you?” she snapped.

  “What’s up with you, chick? I’m not going to use resources on some fool’s errand because you’re having nightmares. Are you okay?”

  “Tell him again. My kids need to know.”

  Leave me alone, Hailey! Can’t you see he won’t listen?

  “Tell him. Please. Tell him again.”