The Waiting

by Hunter Shea

  She drove away, watching him watching her in the rearview mirror until she turned at the end of the street and he faded out of sight.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Alice surprised him that night by making his favorite, pasta fagioli. The smell of simmering onions and spices perfumed every corner of the house.

  Ever since his talk with Louisa, he’d been wrapped in his own thoughts, trying to puzzle out why this ghost boy, or bhoot, was in his home and fixated on Cassandra. Alice mistook his consternation for depression and announced she was going to do something that would cheer him up.

  The beans were tender and the pasta al dente.

  He slurped down a spoonful and said, “MIL, you’ve outdone yourself. I could eat five bowls.”

  “It’s great to see your appetite is back. If you want six bowls, I’ll fill it each time for you. Just eat.” She smiled, barely touching her own bowl. Like all good Italian mothers, she was always on the alert, waiting to see if there was anything else she could get to make him happy. He suspected this was how most Italian moms stayed so thin.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant, especially today,” Brian said. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

  “No apologies. You have more on your plate than any boy your age should have. I’m just glad I can help a little bit.”

  A large, fast-moving shadow raced past the kitchen doorway and down the hall.

  They both saw it. Alice’s spoon clattered into her bowl.

  Brian pushed back from the table, the chair scraping against the tile floor.

  “What was that?” Alice asked.

  “I don’t know.” He walked to the hall and wasn’t surprised this time to find it empty. He’d left the door to the bedroom open and saw that Cassandra’s bedside was devoid of visitors.

  “Maybe someone walked past the kitchen window and the shadow came in here,” Alice said behind him. He noticed how reticent she was to join him in the hall.

  He looked at the kitchen window and shook his head. The white shade was pulled all the way down and patterned curtains blocked out anything that could seep in through the sides.

  Alice looked frightened, so he said, “That’s probably it. You see that big Doberman the people in the three-family house own? Maybe he got off his leash and is running around.”

  That seemed to put her at ease, though there was still a glimmer of doubt in her eyes. “That thing needs a saddle, not a leash,” she said.

  They finished dinner in silence.

  Alice took a quick run to the small grocery store on Katonah Avenue. Since coming here, she’d become addicted to the sweet Irish butter and scones. It seemed she was the one woman in the store without an Irish brogue. She felt alien. But all that really mattered was that she had something to snack on for the afternoon.

  Back in the house, she slathered a scone with butter, poured a cup of coffee and decided she’d read to Cassandra. She’d been reading a Harlan Coben book to her the past week and was already on chapter sixteen. Alice liked to think they were both hooked on the story.

  “Now where did I put my glasses?” She’d last been reading the paper in the living room earlier, but they weren’t on the table.

  Things had been moving to places they didn’t belong almost from the moment she’d walked in the house. At first she’d assumed it was just her and Brian being forgetful because they had more pressing things occupying their thoughts.

  After seeing the boy and talking to Father McKenzie, she was convinced that Cassandra’s diminutive guardian angel was misplacing items to get their attention. In fact, since acknowledging him, everything had been in its proper place.

  She checked her room, then the bathroom to cover her bases. Walking to the landing so she could look in Cassandra and Brian’s room, the sound of heavy, quick footsteps coming up the stairs made her jump back. Her hands flew to her mouth and she stifled a scream.

  Someone’s in the house!

  They’re coming and I can’t even make myself move!

  Any second, a strange man, a thief, a murderer, was going to pop up the stairs, see her in her helpless state of rigidity, and make her pay for being a witness to his crime.

  The footsteps continued, but no one emerged from the stairway.

  Suddenly, it stopped. The top step creaked under the weight of an invisible presence, then went silent.

  Alice held her breath. Her heart went into arrhythmia and she had to exhale to settle it down.

  No one was there.

  “Hello?” Her voice shook. The muscles in her legs turned to jelly.

  “Hello.” This time louder. Her periphery grew dark and fuzzy.

  “Hello!”

  Only the sound of Cassandra’s life support machine answered.

  Chapter Twenty

  When Alice told him about the phantom footsteps, he asked, “Do you think it was Cass’s guardian angel?” It took a lot to not sound condescending.

  “I’ve been praying on it all day. If it was, why would it want to scare me like that?”

  Brian sat in the love seat opposite her. It had been a long day and all he wanted to do was eat and turn in early. The lack of sleep and food was catching up with him. He stayed late to work with the kids who would be on the baseball team in the spring. Showing them warm-up exercises had left him winded, and worried.

  Seeing Alice in such a state made him realize it was time to come clean.

  He chose his next words with care. “Have you considered that the boy you saw wasn’t a guardian angel?”

  She shook her head, then leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes. “Not until today, no.”

  “Would it make you feel better if I told you I’ve been seeing him, too?”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I have plenty of reasons, one of them being that I didn’t want you or anyone else to think I’d lost it. I have to be strong for Cassandra.” He got up and paced around the area rug. “I didn’t say a word when you proclaimed it to be Cass’s guardian angel because I saw how much faith it gave you that she would be all right. Even though what I felt when I saw him wasn’t close to comforting.”

  “How many times have you seen him?”

  “More than I wanted to. And that’s not including the noises, the shadows, the whispering.”

  “Whispering?” Alice clutched a throw pillow against her chest.

  “That started recently, since Cass’s port was changed. One night, I swear I thought I heard my name. It scared the shit out of me. But what can I do? This is my house. I won’t let some ghost boy chase me out. Louisa even told me to talk to it. She called it a bhoot. She said it was some kind of trapped, tortured soul. Maybe if I talk to it, I can find out why it’s here and help set it free. Can you imagine me talking to a fucking ghost?”

  “How…how does Louisa know?”

  It felt like a dam had burst inside him and there was no stopping the flow. He was going to let everything out until he was empty.

  “She saw it, too. Of course, she’s not afraid of it because she’s not living with it. In India, she says these things are common. Well, this sure as hell isn’t India. So now I have a bhoot that’s obsessed with my wife. My wife who gets worse and worse every day and who I would kill to talk to for just five minutes, a job with no sick or vacation days left, bills up my ass and a future in bankruptcy court. When I thought the boy was a product of my imagination, I was fine with it. Insanity I can understand. It can be fixed. But this, whatever the fuck it is. I…I…”

  The words piled up in a tangled jumble and he couldn’t force them out. Instead, he grabbed a vase full of carnations and smashed it against the front door.

  Alice looked at him not with horror or anger, but consolation. She moved the pillow aside and got up from the couch. He was breathing heavy and cords of tension twisted at the base of his neck. Without saying a word, she pulled him to her. At first, he was so riled and knotted with anger that he was afraid to put his
arms around her; worried that he might crush her.

  Her warmth and comfort helped bleed off his frustration. He settled down and returned her embrace.

  “We’ll face it together,” she said, her face pressed against his chest. “It’ll be two versus one from now on, you hear me?”

  Brian could smell the fading scent of shampoo in her hair. “Yeah.”

  They squeezed each other when the house shook with the sound of a slamming door.

  “What was that?” Alice said, breaking away from him.

  He looked down the hallway, saw that the door to his bedroom was shut.

  “That was my door. I think someone didn’t like what we just said.”

  He ran down the hall and pulled the door open. Alice was close behind.

  Cassandra was the only one in the room. At least the only one they could see. The slamming of the door hadn’t disturbed her at all.

  Brian looked around the room, felt the anger rising in him again. For weeks, he’d thought if he could just punch someone, break something, it would release the pressure. It was finally coming out, and it felt good.

  “You want to play games?” he said, turning in a tight circle to address the four corners of the room. “I don’t know who or what you are, but I want you to leave us the hell alone. I didn’t invite you here. I don’t care about your suffering. My wife is suffering. We’re suffering. The whole goddamn world suffers!”

  His voice rose until he was shouting. He felt Alice tug on his arm.

  “Why don’t you get the fuck out of here, huh? I don’t believe you’re some lost little boy. I think that’s what you want us to see. Leave…my wife…alone! You’re not welcome. Go find someplace else to haunt.”

  When he felt like there was nothing left to say, no epithets to hurl, he stopped to catch his breath.

  He and Alice looked down the hall, listening for any odd sounds above the hum of Cassandra’s life support machine.

  The house remained silent.

  But Brian would swear on his grandmother’s grave that it was far from empty.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As Brian dragged the heavy plastic garbage pail to the curb, he thought he heard someone call out to him. He looked over at Bill/Bob’s house and didn’t see anyone.

  “Great, you’re following me out here, too?” he said, low enough so no one nearby would realize he was talking to himself.

  He was stunned to see the old woman, Edith his neighbor had said was her name, sitting on the porch, motioning to him.

  He pointed at his chest. Who, me?

  She nodded, the great mane of gray hair blocking much of her face.

  Can’t wait to tell Bill/Bob about this one, he thought.

  Flipping the metal latch on her front gate, he walked to the bottom of her wood steps.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” he aked.

  She wagged a gnarled, arthritic finger. Up close he could see the deep lines on her face, the weariness in her eyes. Her jowls hung loosely off her skull. She looked far older than her eighty plus years.

  “Are you all right, son?” she asked with a voice as thin as a reed.

  The question took him by surprise. “Yes, I’m fine. How are you?”

  “I heard shouting the other night. I don’t like shouting. I thought it might have been you. Angry with someone?”

  Fantastic. Now the neighbors could hear me screaming at our ghost. She must have heard the vase explode, too. That would be enough to frighten a lonely old woman.

  “Just blowing off a little steam. Nothing to worry about. By the way, my name’s Brian.”

  She ignored his outstretched hand and instead said, “Is everything okay with the house?”

  It seemed an innocuous, neighborly kind of question, but coming from a woman who never spoke, Brian felt there had to be more to it.

  “Yes…it’s fine. Still settling in. We have a long way to go.”

  “Is your wife the sick one?”

  It pained him to have her labeled like that. The sick one. “Yes. She’s home recovering. Hopefully you can meet her soon.”

  “I see ambulances and people come and go.”

  He didn’t know how to respond to that other than to nod his head.

  It was a long while before she spoke again. Brian turned to go, uncomfortable and assuming she was finished with him, but she raised a finger, keeping his feet planted on the steps.

  She said, “Why don’t you make yourself useful and help me out of this chair. My knees have a tendency to lock.”

  He reached out to hold her leathery hands and she pulled them back. “What do you want to do, pull my arms out of their sockets? If you’re going to help, you have to lift me.”

  This close, he could smell the sharp tang of her body odor, as well as the overpowering scent of, for lack of a better word, old. If sepia had a smell, this would be it. It was the odor of a life coming full circle, of memories and regrets, of a body preparing to go home. Placing his arms around her waist, he locked his hands together behind her back and lifted. She felt light as a puppy in his arms. Edith in turn placed her arms around him and grunted as he got her to her feet. He handed the cane by the chair to her.

  “All set?” he asked.

  Her heavy lids drooped over her wet, rheumy eyes, and she turned to shuffle into the house.

  I’ll take that as a ‘yes, and thanks for the help, young man’, Brian thought.

  When Brian came back inside, Alice was sitting on the couch doing her crossword. Like him, she looked tired, but also like him, she needed to keep her hands and mind busy, lest she let the dark tendrils of fear and doubt overtake her. Brian thought of the way they felt in terms of a line from an old Aerosmith song: “Tap dancing on a land mine.”

  They went through their daily motions: getting ready, going to work, caring for Cass, cleaning the house, shopping, and on and on. Each moment was pregnant with expectation.

  Is the boy just around the corner?

  Is he behind me?

  What was that sound? Was it a whisper? Did something move?

  What’s that thing that just moved out of the corner of my eye? A trick of light? My eyes are tired?

  Or worse.

  Throughout each day, little things happened in every corner of the house. Brian and Alice had been on high alert, hearts jumping into their throats at the slightest sound.

  It’s playing with us, Brian said to himself one night when three footsteps tapped outside the closed bedroom door. It knows it has us right on the edge.

  Alice looked up from her puzzle and said, “I just checked on Cassie and lasagna’s in the oven.”

  Brian hung his coat on the hook by the door. “Thanks. I just spoke to our neighbor.” He pointed with his thumb over his right shoulder.

  “The old lady?”

  “The one and only Edith. She heard me shouting at you-know-what the other night. Apparently, she doesn’t like loud noises.”

  “Well, maybe that broke the ice.”

  “I doubt it. She asked me a couple of questions, then clammed up. I think she exhausted her word count for the year.”

  Brian headed upstairs but stopped when he saw Alice’s stunned expression. He turned to see what she was looking at.

  Beside the front door was a window looking out onto the porch. Cassandra had said she was going to buy a small table to put by the window so she could display fresh flowers every day. The lone thing under the window now was a pile of unpacked cardboard boxes, filled with books and summer clothes.

  The narrow, plastic knob that controlled the blinds moved counterclockwise. The blinds slowly closed, shutting out the dying light of the day.

  “That’s a new one,” Brian said. “Saved me from having to do it myself.” He was too tired to be scared. He hoped mocking the ghost’s actions would piss it off. Maybe if they showed it they weren’t afraid, it would move on.

  A steady murmur caught his attention, but it was only Alice. Her hands were clas
ped together on her lap. A succession of Hail Marys tumbled from her lips.

  The house groaned like an old, ocean-battered schooner.

  It’s pulling everything out of its bag of tricks.

  He said, “MIL, why don’t you come upstairs with me?”

  She stopped her prayers and nearly leapt off the couch.

  He caught her frightened eyes and said, “Look, you don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. I understand. If you want to take Cassandra to your house, I’m fine with that. Maybe that would be best, so we know she’s safe.”

  Alice clutched the newel post and scanned the room. “No matter where we take Cassie, it’ll follow her.”

  He knew she was right. He’d been mulling the truth over the past several weeks, but it didn’t hit home until Alice said it aloud. It wasn’t the house that was haunted. It was Cassandra. All the other theatrics were meant to chase him and Alice away, so the bhoot could have her to itself.

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The weather report on 1010WINS was dire. What was at first a nor’easter heading their way had picked up strength from another storm off the coast of North Carolina and turned into a sizeable hurricane.

  Every borough of the city was on alert. It would make landfall late the next day.

  “It’s kind of late in the season to have a hurricane,” Alice said over toast and coffee.

  Brian had been kind enough to move her mattress into his and Cassie’s bedroom after the incident with the blinds. It gave her some level of comfort, not being upstairs, alone, but she still got very little sleep.

  “I can’t remember the last time we had a hurricane warning in the Bronx,” Brian said. “Strange weather. I’m going to head over to Home Depot after work to pick up a generator. If it hits, I don’t want to be without power for longer than the battery life in the infusion pump.”

  “I’ll call Louisa and make sure she stops by to check on Cassie.”

  Brian put his dish and coffee mug in the sink. “I don’t even know what the hell I’m supposed to do to prepare for a hurricane. I live in the Bronx so I don’t have to worry about this kind of stuff.”