by ML Gardner
I tried to reason with him, shouting above the others who had clustered in a vibrating hive of excitement behind him. I screamed at them to stop, begged the doctor to stop as he made his slow steady march toward the edge.
He closed his eyes. He heard me, I thought. The others kept following him, chanting whispers of encouragement, and he neatly walked off the edge of the building.
I yelled as the others howled in victory.
I looked down where he lay, twisted and broken, on the front steps of the hospital in the bright glow of the winter moon. Everything was silent again. The others dissipated to wherever it is that murderous spirits go to while I went down to the front steps. I stood by his body, staring at his relaxed face. I did hate him, but not this much. Hearing a noise behind me, I turned quickly.
The Doctor looked down on his body, his face frozen in surprise. I watched it relax after a moment, and he appeared deep in thought. He sat down hard on the steps next to his body and nodded calmly.
“I deserved it,” he said finally.
“No, no one deserves this. You didn’t even choose to do this, you were driven to it.”
“I thought I was going crazy,” he said with a rough laugh. “But they really were talking to me.” His mind now free from pills and booze, he saw everything clearly for what it was. “I always thought I was doing the right thing. I really thought I was helping. It’s what all the books, all the schools, all the great doctors told us to do.” He shrugged helplessly.
I stared at the ground in front of me, unsure of what to say.
After a moment, he looked up at me.
“I’m sorry for what I did to you. I shouldn’t have shocked you with that hematoma on your head. I should have known better.” His eyes begged forgiveness, but I wasn’t entirely prepared to give it to him. After all, I was still separated from my Elizabeth. The thin veil of life kept us apart, and it wouldn’t be until she died that I could truly hold her again.
“What happens now?” he asked with a curious expression, giving up on my forgiveness. “I always thought that when you died -poof- you’re in heaven or hell.”
“You can choose to go or stay. It’s up to you.”
“And if I choose to go?”
“You can. At midnight.”
He nodded, deliberating. As if on cue, a chime echoed twelve times from somewhere distant, and the wide wooden doors behind him began to dissolve and swirl.
He heard the low noise, like wind and water quietly churning, and turned toward the open portal gleaming with pearly streaks of bright light ringed in gold.
“What if I don’t go right now? What happens to me?” he asked.
“You have the choice at every stroke of midnight,” I told him. He looked relieved. “I’ll stay. Just for a bit then,” he said and the gateway collapsed, suddenly yet gracefully.
“Why?” I asked him when he finally turned away from it.
“I need to make amends,” he said quietly as he stood, turning away from his body and walking back into the hospital.
To say that the spirit world wasn’t upset by the doctor’s decision to stay would be a massive understatement. In fact, the hospital had become loud. Very loud. So disturbed by his presence, two had even chosen to go on. One, the one with burnt temples, ran from him. Only the young man with the foreign accent talked to him. Anna chose to leave and follow Matthew, still pining for him. I had only one objective and that was to see Elizabeth home.
Her release was delayed by the new doctor’s need to review all of the files and meet with each patient a few times before writing up a new treatment plan and approving discharges.
He was young with black hair and brown eyes. His mind was strong; when I tried to talk to him, I quickly realized he couldn’t hear me at all. His heart seemed to be in the right place, though; he seemed kind. I overheard him telling the nurses that he had much more humane treatment options in mind for the patients. Elizabeth was finally allowed to leave the end of the first week of February.
David had returned from a bout of severe pneumonia and walked Elizabeth, small bag in tow, out of the ward to the front of the hospital where her father waited. I talked to David, though he couldn’t answer me.
“I’ll come back and see you,” I said. He blinked.
“Take care of Loretta,” I added. Small nod. He looked at me, and to the others it looked as if he stared at the picture on the wall behind me.
“You take care of yourselves,” he said.
Her father ended a long relieved hug with Elizabeth and nodded.
“We will. C’mon Beth, let’s get home,” he said, a wide smile revealing several missing side teeth. Throwing one last glance at David over my shoulder, I gave him a nod and then followed them out.
Elizabeth said little on the ride to her house. Her father talked up a storm, though; overjoyed at having his daughter home again. As we rounded the tight curve in the dirt road before her parents’ home came into view, her father broached the subject of her mother.
“You’re not mad at her, are you, Beth? She didn’t mean no harm. She thought she was helping you.”
Cold eyes turned on him with a glare that made him uncomfortable. He pulled up to the house and cut the engine. Digging under the seat, he pulled out a small bottle.
“Here, Beth. Have some of this,” he said, holding it out to her.
“Your medicine?” she said, eyes gone soft.
“It helps, Beth. I think it will make things easier, just at first,” he said.
She took it, stared at it and then spoke to her father, eyes still on the bottle. “This keeps your other one away, right?” He nodded, looking away as if ashamed. “And it might do the same for me?” she asked hopefully.
“Maybe. I don’t see why not. You can at least try it.”
“Does Mother know?”
“No. It would make her awfully angry if she did. She hates the stuff. You know that,” he said in a low voice. She smiled and drank from the bottle. She wavered slightly as she took the stairs, her father babbling on about cleaning her room and the fact that everything was just as it was when she had left.
The bedroom door swung open, and she stood on the threshold, gazing slowly from right to left. It smelled heavily of cleanser, and the billowy curtains and antique quilt gleamed white.
“I don’t want this room anymore,” she said firmly. She stared at her father with a neutral glassy-eyed expression.
“Why not, Beth? It’s all nice and clean, just for you. And I bought you this new vanity, so you can sit and brush your pretty hair.” He glanced from it to her, waiting for her appreciation. She turned away and walked down the hall.
“So much has happened, I’m just not the same person anymore, Daddy. Besides, that room has too many memories. I want this room,” she said as she opened the door to an old bedroom full of stored items from years gone by.
“This old dusty room?” he asked, running a wrinkled hand through his thin white hair. “Well, if that’s what my Beth wants.”
“Yes, Daddy. It’s what your Beth wants.”
He smiled, nodded, and turned to go downstairs. “I’ll just go clear a space in the barn for all that old stuff,” he said. She watched him until he was out of sight and then walked back into her old room. She pulled something out of her bag and took it to the new vanity. I stood beside her as she placed the clay heart I had given her near her hairbrush. She touched it with her fingertips and sighed lightly before leaving, closing the door behind her.
I waited for Elizabeth, my Elizabeth, to return. I followed her around the house and whispered to her of our memories. When she slept, I talked to her, hoping she would dream of me, and it would help bring my Elizabeth to the surface. Occasionally, she talked in her sleep, and, once, she said my name. When her eyes opened, however, it was always the strong one with her chilly disposition and arrogant insistence in getting her way.
After a few weeks I began to wonder if it would ever happen. If she was ever going to
surface or stay trapped in her own mind beneath the stronger one, under its control.
I watched her father bring her medicine morning and night. She slept a lot and ate little. When she was awake, she dealt mostly with her father, who had begun to teach her the business of tanning cowhides. Her mother avoided her, and when close proximity to each other was unavoidable, Elizabeth would simply stop talking and glare at her. Elizabeth grew distant and more hostile; her mother grew introverted and more fearful.
She walked around with glassy eyes, speaking with a slight slur. Her behavior became odd and erratic. One minute she was soft-spoken and gentle. The next she would fly into a rage, cursing and throwing things in a violent display of her fragile temper. She would change into her father’s clothes, and write letters at the vanity in her old room. She would return later, having changed back into a dress with freshly washed hair, and sit and read the letters and cry.
She needed the medicine now, and her body would revolt whenever dosed weakly or late.
It was on a night like this that I watched her pace nervously alongside her father, both sweating and twitching as they waited for a delivery.
I recognized Jan from Elizabeth’s description. The one who claimed herself a healer. She wore charms and Indian feathers around her neck and dressed oddly, sort of like an old world gypsy. She would only deal with Elizabeth’s mother, however, when she made her monthly rounds to make her deliveries, she would never step inside. She stood on the porch with nervous eyes swaying sideways and chanting something in another language. A package wrapped in brown paper and secured with twine exchanged hands on the front porch for cash and leather. Elizabeth’s mother closed the door and held out the package to her husband without looking him in the eyes. He grabbed it and took it quickly to the kitchen where he opened the package and poured out a small pile of pills onto a plate. He showed Elizabeth how to grind the tablets and mix them with water over heat to make a syrup. He made a weaker mixture for her and a much stronger one for himself.
When it was finished, they anxiously self-medicated. Elizabeth measured and her father gulped. I watched as her eyes dulled and her pupils contracted. She smiled in relief and stood slowly, turning to the doorway where I stood.
“Has it been helping you, Beth? Does the other one stay away?” her father asked, slumped in the chair as the opiate mixture eased his pains. I could have sworn she was looking right at me. That she could see me. I held my imagined breath.
“She’s never coming back,” she said with a cold smile. My heart sank and I knew she was right.
I sat beside her bed for a long time, deciding. I didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t stay and watch her do this to herself. I wanted to stay and protect her, but what she needed protection from was herself, and I was powerless against both the stronger one and the opiates. Between the two of them, my Elizabeth was lost.
I stood and turned away before I could change my mind. I left and didn’t look back.
I had resolved to leave her, but hadn’t yet decided whether I would leave it all behind and cross to the other side. Staying here, but staying away, I could console myself with the fact that I could always look in on her if it became too painful to stay away. Once I crossed, however, I would be separated from her until she died. At least that’s what I thought, and I hadn’t heard otherwise.
I don’t know how long I walked, but as the afternoon sun began to sink low on the horizon, I could smell the heavy salt air as the calls of the seagulls grew closer. I heard the low roar of the ocean in the distance. I turned, drawn towards it and walked along the breakers, wrestling between guilt and relief. I already missed her and had the sudden urge to turn back. I stopped and thought for a moment. I loved her enough to stay and wait. I wanted to help her in whatever way I might. And I selfishly needed to be near her. But it isn’t really her, I reminded myself. I began walking again with a heavy heart. I ended up walking along the edge of a small town. Feeling the need for some kind of human contact, I ventured into the town.
The whole town seemed to be congregating at a little chapel near the ocean. Black model-T Fords, old and new, lined the street and filled the small parking lot. I stood across the street from the Pigeon Cove Chapel and watched as what appeared to be half the town filed in, dressed in black with heads hung low in grief, holding onto each other, giving and needing support. Glancing to my right I saw a man standing with his back to the chapel, staring out toward the open ocean.
He wore a thick, yellow-tinted sweater and rugged, black wool pants. The black knit cap pulled low over his ears matched the scarf wrapped under the round neck of his sweater. His shoulders shrugged with a deep sigh as he gazed out over the open blue.
“Is this for you?” I asked, somewhat awkwardly, interrupting his private reflection.
He nodded and scratched his chin through his thick beard, brown sprinkled with white.
“I was in there for a bit, but I couldn’t see them so sad. I’ll wait here,” he said.
“What are you waiting for?” He knew he was dead, obviously, but I wondered if he knew what he was waiting for.
“There’s someone I haven’t seen in awhile. I wanted to see him one more time before I go. I think he’ll come,” he said as he looked over his shoulder. The chapel door was open to accommodate the overflow.
“You were well liked,” I said, impressed by the number of friends and family at his memorial.
“I suppose.” He shrugged and gave a rough laugh. He turned to face the chapel, and I turned with him, hearing the distant echo of the pastor’s voice from inside.
‘Aryl Sullivan was loved by many.’
“I thought I’d stay for the whole thing.” A shiver ran through his chest and shoulders. “It’s sort of creepy, you know? Standing there at your own memorial,” he said with a smile, his brown eyes twinkling. He looked to me for confirmation.
“I went to mine,” I offered. “And yes, it was strange. It was only my dad and a priest, though.” It suddenly made me sad that I had been laid to rest with only two people to witness and one to grieve as the plain pine box was lowered into the ground. This man was liked and loved. He would be missed. I wondered if Elizabeth missed me, somewhere deep in her mind? He turned back to the ocean and stared intently. “Is your wife in there?” I asked. “Or has she gone on ahead?”
“Don’t have a wife.”
With so many bodies in the chapel, I found it hard to believe this man with the mischievous grin had never found someone special. “You never fell in love?” I asked.
“Oh, I did. A few times.” He laughed as his eyes scanned the horizon. “But none held the power that she did.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Her,” he said with a nod to the sea. “That’s the only place I want to be. I have no idea what’s on the other side, but I hope it’s big and blue with an endless horizon.”
We were quiet for a few moments and listened to different voices echoing from the chapel, dotted with reverent laughter. He glanced back, slightly amused. “I wonder what they’re saying about me.”
“How long ago?” I asked.
“Four days. Ticker gave out,” he said with a thump of his fist on his broad chest. “Always thought I would die at sea. I was on the pier. Close enough, I guess.”
“Have you decided to go?”
“Tonight, I think. After I see him.”
“Who?” I felt I was being nosey now, but I enjoyed talking to him. My soul was beginning to feel lighter for the contact.
“Him,” he said with a backward nod of his head.
A young man stepped up beside him just then, and standing with an identical posture, shoved his hands into his pockets and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “He’s my nephew. They named him after me. A good boy. We did a lot of fishing together when he was younger. He’s been off in the big city for awhile now.” He spoke to me, but watched the young man. We were quiet for a few moments and let the ocean have her say in the distance.
“I’m sorry we never got to go to Madeira,” he said softly to his nephew. Whether he heard him or not, I didn’t know. He didn’t look weak of mind, but then, he was grieving. He blinked quickly and focused on the hypnotic rolling ocean waves. The old sailor pulled off his cap, and I noticed the family resemblance in the longer, curly brown hair, as well as the eyes. But I noticed something more and it startled me. The younger one. I knew him. I stared, trying to place the face.
“I want you to go,” he said. “Go and take Claire with you. Do everything we talked about doing when you were young. You can tell me all about it when you talk to the stars at night, alright?”
The nephew sighed, glanced up at the sky, then down at the sandy shore, and that’s when it hit me.
With his head down and the curls of hair resting on his forehead, I recognized him as the man I had seen in some of my visions; the ones that held no meaning or reason.
After old sailor had said everything he needed to say, there was a look of peace about him. A woman stepped up beside the nephew.
“It’s over,” she said quietly. He put an arm around her and they turned away.
Old sailor watched them as they got into a car and pulled away, watched until they were out of sight.
“I’ll go tonight. After they put my ashes to the sea,” he said aloud. I couldn’t tell if he was enlightening me to his plans or confirming them to himself. “What about you?” he asked, turning to face me. “You going?”
I shook my head. “I won’t go, not just now. But I can’t stay where I was.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t watch her. It’s complicated.”
He smiled and turned toward the beach. I followed, and we walked for a while in silence before he spoke.
“When my nephew came to me and told me he had fallen in love and was going to be married, I have to admit, I was saddened. We had made many plans to travel the world together, and a wife wouldn’t fit into those plans. I told him that if this woman called his heart stronger and louder than the adventure, the freedom of the sea, more than anything else in the world, to go to her and never look back. He did and I’m glad for him. I never found what he has. But then again, he never found what I have. My adventures and memories, my heart and soul lost to the sea.” He stopped and smiled at me. “Aryl will never be lost to the sea like me. His heart will always beat for Claire, and not even all this,” he paused, swept his arm across where the ocean met blue sky on the horizon and said, “could ever keep them apart.” He looked at me with amused suspicion. “But you knew that,” he said. “You’re more of the angel type, aren’t you?” His eyes narrowed, looking me up and down.