This entry is dated in July because that is where I need to start to finish things up. I’m going to go back and finish this. And then move on. Frankly, I don’t have time to write in my diary right now. There’s a life to be lived.
But, anyway, back in July, a few days after my last entry, I am still in the hospital. I’m getting frequent visits from everyone that was in the waiting room. Billy and some of his family (the twins tag along quite a bit, much to Billy’s dismay), Pastor West, and, of course, Helena. She doesn’t have that catatonic look in her eyes anymore, and she always holds my hand when she sits with me.
It’s become this thing for us. Just the simplest of human contact, but I love it. There are things we haven’t said yet, I think we’re both waiting for me to be a bit better, but our hands seem to bridge that gap. It may not have been said, but we both know it.
It’s late, Helena just got off work from La Familia and is sitting in a chair next to my bed, my hand in hers. She’s got warm hands, and they are bigger than mine. Her being taller than me doesn’t bother me anymore. She’s here, and such “manly” concerns about being dominant physically are ridiculous now.
The lights are off and we’ve lapsed into silence. It’s way past visiting hours, but everyone knows me and they always let Helena in no matter what time it is.
I’m still weak as a newborn bird, hooked to an IV, but I’m getting better. I’ve also got a private room, which is another luxury of having your mother and her boyfriend work at the hospital.
I’ve got my eyes closed and I see him. Big Ed Lopez. I haven’t seen or heard from a ghost since Lionel tried to sever my silver cord.
“How you doin’, son?” he asks, a smile on his kind face.
“It’s Big Ed,” I tell Helena. I had told her everything as my memory came back. She sits up straight and looks around.
“I’m good,” I say. I keep my voice low, I don’t want to attract any attention. “I’m alive. I think I have you to thank for that.”
He shrugs and shakes his head. “We did what we could.”
“That wonderful warm sensation. That was you?”
He nods. “It was us, all us ghosts.”
“Thank you. I… I…” I try to speak but am overcome with a wash of emotion. I’m so grateful to be back, to have time with my family. I blink back tears and I feel Helena squeeze my hand.
“Thank you, Big Ed,” Helena says. “Thank you for giving Aaron back to us.”
The smile on Big Ed’s face is huge. Helena’s charms extend even beyond the shuffling off of the mortal coil. “Tell your young lady that it was our pleasure, and that it wasn’t just us. It was your efforts, the doctors and nurses, and especially her giving you somethin’ to fight for.”
I convey his message and she blushes. We haven’t done anything but hold hands at this point. We haven’t said words like “boyfriend” or “girlfriend.” But she is my girl and that doesn’t really capture it after what we’ve been through in the last six weeks. Words fall short.
“How is Lionel?” I ask.
Big Ed sighs, his eyes briefly downcast. “That boy, he’s in a mighty bad place. We are doin’ our best for him.” Big Ed must have seen the distressed look on my face because he adds, “Don’t you worry, son. He won’t be bothering you again.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
Helena squeezes my hand and gives me a questioning look so I catch her up on the conversation.
“And now it’s time for me to get my old hide outta here,” Big Ed says.
“Will I see you again?” I ask.
He purses his lips and shakes his head. “I don’t think so, son. We’ll be keeping our distance. I feel like it’s time for you to be in the land of the livin’.”
And it was. I haven’t seen or heard from a ghost since.
42
Tuesday August 9, 1977
I’m finally home, back in my own bed with the sloped roof and the glow-in-the-dark stars. I can’t tell you how good it feels to be surrounded by my own books, have my own bathroom, to be in my own pajamas.
I’m weak, very weak, and I’ve lost a ton of weight (weight I didn’t need to lose), but I am alive and that is no small thing. I got a look at myself in the bathroom mirror as I was getting ready to get in the shower this morning. My ribs stick out, my shoulders are sharp and bony, and my hair is all gone. What little there was started falling out while I was in the hospital and I had Mom get the clippers and do a Telly Savalas on me. Better to look like Kojak all at once than to slowly watch my hair fall out and deal with it being everywhere like a dog shedding.
It’s shocking. I look like one of those pictures of holocaust survivors. Not quite that bad, but it’s freaky. Seeing my body makes it clear just how close things got. The human body is a miracle, it can take an unbelievable amount of punishment and survive. But it can’t take an unlimited amount and I know we were right there, on the hairy edge of that limit.
I stare a little more and worry about Helena seeing me like this. I know I was a “pipsqueak” and now I’m something even worse. She’s healthy, with curves in all the right places. I’m a bag of bones.
After I get out of the shower, my parents are sitting on my bed waiting for me. At first I’m a little mad, I had to fight with my mother to let me take a shower alone, and I think they’re there making sure I don’t fall or something. But when I see their faces, I know that’s not it.
My mother has this clenched look, her brow furrowed, and her arms crossed. My father looks even more serious than usual.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Sit down, son,” Dad says, patting my bed next to him.
“What is it?” I’m starting to freak. I seriously can’t take any more bad news.
“It’s about the Edwards,” my mother says, with an unconvincing smile. Mom looks better than when I was in the hospital, but she still looks so very tired. I worry about her.
At Helena’s urging, I told them everything. They know about Ann really being Lionel’s murderer.
“Did… Did Ann do something?” I ask, afraid she’s had another psychological break, like the one she had when she buried a knife in Lionel’s back.
“She’s in jail,” my father says.
Back in the hospital, when I told them what I knew, we were all stumped on how to act on it. Sheriff Thompson wouldn’t buy “a ghost told me” as evidence. We couldn’t think of a way to get real evidence. “What happened?”
“She confessed to Lionel’s murder,” Dad says.
“What… How….”
“It was your father’s plan,” Mom says. “We were able to convince Sheriff Thompson that Lionel and Ann were having an affair. That Joe Edwards had motive to kill Lionel because of the affair. It took some doing, but your father convinced him to bring both the Edwards in and question them together.”
I’m confused at this point. They convinced the sheriff that Joe did it, which I certainly believed when I found out about the affair. How did that get a confession from Ann? And why were they so serious? That Ann was in jail seemed like a good thing.
“Ann cracked,” Dad says. “When it all came out, when the sheriff made it clear that Joe had motive and a serious investigation of him was going to happen, she cracked and confessed.”
“That was your plan?” I ask.
Mom nods. “We knew that she cared for Joe and wouldn’t want to see him take the blame for her actions.”
I let out a huge sigh and smile, but the smile is not reflected on my parents’ faces. “This is good, isn’t it?” I ask. And then I think about it a bit and my smile erases. “What about Silvia?” I feel for Ann’s niece suddenly having another home ripped away. I know that I couldn’t have survived to this point without my family.
My mom is blinking and my dad is suddenly studying his fingernails.
“What happened?”
Mom purses her lips. “It’s… We… Henry, you tell him.”
“I wasn’t quite hones
t with you,” Dad says, still looking at his hands. “Ann isn’t in jail anymore.”
“What!” I look around, afraid that she’s here. That she wants revenge. That she will hurt us, or worse yet, Helena. I stand up and my father grabs my hand.
“She’s in the morgue,” he says.
I blink and slowly sit back down.
“She hanged herself with the belt she was wearing the same night she confessed.”
The words hang in the air like a physical presence. I know that Ann was mentally ill. But I don’t understand mental illness. It makes people irrational and unpredictable. Ann took her own life once her deed was discovered and that seems so foreign to me given how hard I just had to fight to live.
I take a deep breath and slump against my father. He puts his arm around me in a gentle hug. I am suddenly feeling beyond exhausted.
“What about Silvia?” I ask.
“We don’t know,” my mother quietly says.
After that, they leave me so I can take a nap. I lie there in my bed for a long time. It’s still light outside and I can’t see the glow of the stars on my ceiling, but I stare at them nonetheless.
I think about the ghosts, Big Ed and Lionel, and wonder how Lionel is doing. I wonder if Ann is with him now, if they can finally be happy. But then I think of Joe Edwards and Silvia and then I am sad. Even if Ann and Lionel are happy, Joe and Silvia still have a long road in front of them.
I don’t understand this world. I don’t. It’s illogical, capricious, and confusing. Later when Helena comes over, we talk about it for a long time while we hold hands.
We come to the conclusion that it’s not the kind of thing you can understand. I find that both comforting and disquieting at the same time. Comforting, because I can give up trying to figure it out. Disquieting because this life is so far out of our control.
43
Wednesday August 31, 1977
A more normal routine has been established. I resumed chemo last Friday, which is good in as much as it means I am healthy enough to take it. I’ve gained a few pounds and am tolerating the nausea better than before the near-death thing. Not that I’m any less nauseous, it’s that I’m still riding the high of being alive. And since you can’t feel nauseous if you’re dead, I’m much more willing to make friends with it.
Don’t get me wrong, it still sucks, but because of my attitude, my suffering around it is less. School’s been back in session and Helena has been bringing me homework to do every day. There’s hope that after chemo ends everything will look good and I can spend most of my junior year actually in high school.
But that’s all small stuff. Tonight is the night Helena and I finally go out. I wake up early (like 5 a.m.) and having nothing better to do, I go through a few of my assignments (English and history, putting math off), do my homework, and then clean my room.
I am just a mess of nerves and keep myself busy. My mom comes in to check on me at 6:30. She’s in her pink robe with her fuzzy bunny slippers yawning.
“What’s going on, Aaron?”
“Date,” I say. “First Date.” I’m dusting my books—for the second time this week. They don’t need it, but I do.
She walks over, yawning again, and takes the blue feather duster out of my hand and puts her hand on my back, guiding me to the bed. She sits down and pats the bedspread (which was perfectly made until she sat—I’ll have to remake it).
I sigh and sit down.
“Don’t wear yourself out today,” she says slowly.
I look into her blue eyes. Is she in mom mode or friend mode? I can’t quite tell, but I decide to assume it’s a friend.
“I’ve never been on date,” I whisper, my head down.
She chuckles quietly and whispers back, “This isn’t a normal date.”
I look up and she has a bemused smile playing on her lips. I still can’t tell if she’s Mom or Friend. Maybe it’s gotten to the point that in most circumstances, she is a bit of both.
“What?” I ask, still not following.
She chuckles again. “In the history of boys and girls going out, has there ever been a lead up like this?”
I ponder it briefly. Meeting in a graveyard. Proving to her I can see ghosts. Becoming friends. Her taking me to see her mother when I was freaked out about my parents. Trying to find a murderer. Almost dying and waking up with her by my side. I smile and nod, her right eyebrow arching up.
“If you think about it,” she says. “This is hardly your first date.”
After Mom leaves, I do calm down some. I pull out my diaries and read all the parts I’ve written about Helena. I’m trying to understand her better. I don’t think it helps much, but I do enjoy it.
“You look good, kid,” Dad says from the door to the bathroom. I’m straightening my tie in front of the mirror, trying to find if there is a configuration that looks good and doesn’t feel like it’s choking me.
I’ve got on my best tan corduroys, a white button-down dress shirt, and a thin black tie (my only tie).
I look at my watch. It’s just after six… It’s not time to leave yet. My mom did help to calm me down, but now that it’s time for the “DATE” (capitalized, in quotes, and underlined) I am nervous again. My mom is right, it’s not really our first date, but it is our first “DATE.”
“I’m early,” he says. “We haven’t had that talk yet.”
My dad is dressed in his usual tan slacks and button-down shirt. School is back for him full-time and he’s there a lot more.
“Talk?”
“Yeah,” he says, his smile turning nervous. “Back when you were grounded, it was one of the conditions of the date. That you and I have a talk about women.”
I groan, step away from the mirror, and say, “Where are we having this talk?” Something about my father’s nervousness makes me suspect it’s not here.
“You ready?”
I take another look at the mirror. My tie being straight won’t hide my lack of hair, my pale complexion, or that I am a serious pipsqueak, so I nod and we leave.
He drives me to the Lutheran Church, Pastor West’s church. It’s Wednesday so there is no one here. He gets out of the Chevelle and walks in without a word or a glance back at me. I’m seriously puzzled. My dad doesn’t go to church. My dad doesn’t believe in god.
The door is open, which I’m a little surprised by, and he walks right down to the front of the church and starts pacing in front of the pews.
It’s not a big church, a rather plain rectangle, with wooden pews, an aisle in the middle, a podium up front, and a large, rather plain cross hanging on the wall behind it.
“What are we doing here, Dad?”
“Why is this a holy place?” he asks.
I shrug. I didn’t think he thought it was.
“Come on, Aaron. What makes it holy?” He stops his pacing and stares at me, his hands shoved deep into his pocket.
I look around at the cross, the single stained-glass window over the entrance that shows the crucifixion. Pews stuffed with hymnals. I turn slowly around taking it all in. “It’s not any of this,” I say, referring to what I see.
“What is it, then? What makes this a holy spot?”
I take a deep breath and let it slowly out. This is a test. I know it. But, I know from experience that what my father is looking for isn’t a particular answer, he wants me to think.
I bite my lip and stop my turning when I’m facing him. He’s an atheist and so am I, for us god doesn’t make this place holy. That only leaves one thing. “The people that come here. The way everyone treats this place.”
He smiles and nods. His skin crinkles around his eyes as he smiles, accentuating the crow’s feet growing there. My dad looks older than he did at the start of summer. Really, we all do. “Exactly. It’s how we approach something, how we treat it that makes it holy. Makes it sacred.”
I nod. It makes sense. Holy or profane, the way we interact with something makes it that way. In a profane way, Barbara Bach is h
oly to Billy. That thought makes me smile.
He takes my hand and pulls me to the front pew, sitting down. I sit next to him, but he doesn’t let go of my hand.
“When it comes to women,” he says, his voice hushed. “We men must treat them as holy, as sacred.”
I’m confused and I’m sure it shows.
“Two things you need to keep in mind,” he continues. “First, that women are miracles. We men provide a little genetic material, but they are able to form another life in their womb. Sacred, no?”
I nod, not really enjoying all this talk about reproduction and wombs.
“Second, for most of the history of this planet, and way too often even now, men treat women poorly. As objects to do with as they please.”
I lick my lips and tug at my tie. It’s suddenly feeling very hot in here.
“So, it is your mission,” he says, his hand on my shoulder, “to treat Helena with the respect she deserves. To not take her for granted. To not assume you can take what you want. To let her take the lead as your relationship progresses. And to always, always respect her.”
I blink. My homosexual father just gave me a lecture on how to treat women. At first that feels discordant, as if he has no right to lecture on the topic. But then I think of my mother, who is still married to him despite of his sexual orientation. And then I wonder if he’s had a lack of respect in his life because of who he is. Things that I don’t see, and he’s certainly not going to talk about.
“She is sacred to me, Dad.”
He nods. “I know. I just didn’t want to let this go unsaid.”
His hand is on the back of my neck and he pulls me close, kissing me on my bald head. He’s done that more since I lost all my hair. I like it.
“I sure hope I don’t screw this date up,” I say.
“Just be honest, treat her with respect, and listen carefully,” he says. “That’s all you need to do.”
A Boy a Girl and a Ghost Page 30