by Adam Zorzi
“Pretty much. I know where I am, who everybody is even if I don't remember their name, and that I'm taking medications and seeing doctors and therapists. I remember Jill is dead. Did they find her killer yet?”
Rob shook his head. “The police haven't kept in touch, but no arrest has been made.”
“How's Katie?”
“She misses you. She's happy that Mom is there. I think she's eager for school to be over. She said you promised you'd get a dog from the shelter the day after school ended.”
Dan nodded. “I remember.”
“Elizabeth's not too happy she found out from Kaitlyn that you're in the hospital.”
Dan just nodded. “Elizabeth. She took the ugly furniture.”
Rob finished his burger and wiped his greasy fingers on coarse brown napkins the size of paper towels. “Dan, I think that's not all she wants to take. I think she wants custody of Kaitlyn.”
That was the next wave.
“She can't. I'm her father,” he stated emphatically.
“Dan, I'm just telling you so you can discuss it here with the doctors. Elizabeth's willing to go to court and say you're an unfit father because of your mental health problems. Kaitlyn's mother is dead and her father is in a psych hospital. That doesn't look good.”
Dan didn't feel angry. He kept eating. He felt like someone had thrown another punch and he was used to it. He didn't hit back. He'd be a terrible boxer.
“I won't be here forever. I'll be out once my medications are fully effective.”
“She'll argue about not having a job, either.”
“Even if I don't get a job, I have enough savings to live off and I can take my pension early. Katie's education is paid. We don't have financial problems.”
Rob threw up his hands in surrender. “I'm not here to argue. I just want you to know what Elizabeth is planning.”
Dan filled Rob in on the therapy dogs he saw twice a day. He spoke with enthusiasm. “I can't believe they're called therapy dogs. All they do is visit. It's great. I wish one could stay all the time. The Pet Therapist said all the dogs have to pass a test that they won't bite or startle easily to become certified. Maybe when Katie and I get our new dog, we can get him or her to be a therapy dog. Katie would like that.”
“Yeah,” said Rob. He picked up the paper plates, cups, and bag and balled them up for the trash. As they were walking out of the solarium, Rob asked “Do they ask you about Bella?”
“Sometimes.”
“What kind of things do they ask?”
“I have to cop to the affair for the millionth time and tell them the last time I spoke to her was that wretched day in December before she killed herself.”
“That's what you tell them?” Rob asked looking wide eyed at Dan.
“Sure, what else would I say?” Dan wondered if he should say something different.
“Nothing. I guess they need to keep making sure you're telling the truth. See 'ya.”
***
“High Life, what's with the pacing?”
Dan was on the fourth of his five nightly circuits around the floor. A young woman was sitting at the door to her room handcuffed to a chair. Dan kept walking. Keeping the same pace was good for him. He felt better. The meds were kicking in.
On his final round, the young woman repeated herself. He stopped and looked at her. Thin, stringy blonde hair, tattoos all over the body. He was old enough to be her father. He hoped Katie didn't want tattoos yet. Or piercings. He was pretty sure St. Margaret's didn't allow such body adornments.
“I'm Lou,” she said.
“Why do you call me High Life?” He didn't want to engage her, but she was strangely attractive. Familiar. Not sexy. Interesting.
“Your shirt.” She pointed one long forefinger with chipped blue polish at his chest.
He looked down. Miller High Life beer.
“My brother brought me a bunch of tee shirts. I've never paid attention to the slogans.”
“Your brother dresses you? Guy like you must have a wife.”
“Dead,” he said. He'd become good at monosyllabic answers.
“Girlfriend?”
“Dead,” he repeated.
“Man, you're going to be on the market for a long time. You're a jinx.” She licked her lips with her pierced tongue. “What's a nice cubicle farmer like you doing in a place like this?”
“Grief.” There wasn't another word for what he felt. “You?” He tried to practice conversational skills.
“Schizo. I went off my meds. Did some crazy stuff. Have to go back to Petersburg until my meds kick in so I can have a trial.”
“You mean Commonwealth Psychiatric?”
“Where else?” she said defiantly.
“Have you been there before?” He didn't want to be nosy, but he was curious.
“This will be my third time. It's okay. It's like this only dirtier with less supervision. I mean like one nurse per unit. I met some cool people there.”
“You mean patients?”
She gave him the same exasperated look Katie did. “Sure, the smokers go outside more. We hang. We BS. There's nothing else to do. It's not like they actually treat you. I just chill until the meds kick in. Why, you thinking of going?”
“No. Just wondered.” He wanted to seem off handed. “Were you ever afraid? There was a murder there not too long ago.”
“The one where the girl said a ghost killed her nurse? She was cool,” she said in tone of admiration. “It's no scarier than jail. The building's like five hundred years old. It's creepy in a good way.”
He didn't know what to say. Jail wasn't a comparison for him. Creepy didn't seem like a positive.
“Don't you think the patient was hallucinating about the ghost?”
She tried to move her hands, but one was handcuffed. “Doubt it. A girl did die that way there.”
So this Lou person believed in ghosts. Probably a good idea for her to go to Petersburg.
“My bus leaves tomorrow so don't look for me.”
“You're taking the bus?” Everything people did seemed screwy to him. Would she be alone? Would she be handcuffed to the bus somehow?
She cackled until it dissolved into a fit of coughing. “Ambulance, man. Or cop car. Either one's cool.” She started coughing again, and then gave him a piece of advice. “Chill man, the blues leave slow.”
CHAPTER
SIXTY-ONE
He wasn't at all what Dan expected—not that he had specific expectations.
His mother had dropped him off at a storefront in a half-empty strip shopping center that housed a used book store, a lamp repair shop, and a weight loss center situated at an angle to a vacant grocery store and pharmacy along US Route 1 northeast of Henrico. The abandoned grocery store parking area had weeds and dandelions growing between cracks in the pavement. In the angled strip center, white parking lines had faded to grey or disappeared entirely.
“This doesn't look like a psychologist's office,” his mom had said.
“It's the address I have. I'll call if there's a problem.”
Ten minutes later, he had been seated in a serviceable office with a grey metal desk, two blue sofas, and a variety of plants. The walls were painted pale green. Ambient lighting completed the soothing effect. Dan didn't smell any incense. No trickling water soundtrack played. No candles burned. It seemed normal enough.
The young man, dressed in a grey business suit, white shirt and no tie with a well-maintained five o'clock shadow, sat serenely on one of the blue sofas.
“Is what we discuss confidential?” Dan was cautious. Everything he did now could be used against him in court.
“No, but I don't keep records of any sessions that are outside my LMFC practice, including names. I don't know your name. I'm not charging you for this session. It's part of how the paranormal community works.” He went on to provide credentials. “I'm a Sensitive, which means I'm unusually receptive to multiple layers of energies in the world. As a child, it set me a
part after the age of having imaginary friends passed. I learned to manage my sensitivity and studied psychology and the paranormal.”
Dan didn't know if that meant he was an expert, but he seemed reassuring and willing to help him.
“I don't think your story should be dismissed,” he said after Dan recounted everything about his relationship with Bella. “You've had a long and highly emotionally charged connection with Bella since your teens. There's no reason that would end should one of you die.”
At least this guy wasn't telling Dan he was crazy. The guy might be crazy, but he was also a Licensed Marriage and Family Counselor who had experience with the paranormal. Dan had found him through an internet search that meandered through ghost hunters, psychic mediums, and religious cults. Dan was desperate to reconcile his knowledge of Bella with the police insistence that she was dead and refusal to entertain alternatives. They were satisfied. Period. End of story.
He got right to the point.
“Is Bella dead?”
“I don't know. I'm not a medium. I can only comment on what I feel in my surroundings. If Bella were here, I would be able to tell you.”
Great. He couldn't conjure Bella on demand. This wasn't helping.
“Have you tried to reach Bella?” he asked reasonably.
“No. I promised my wife I wouldn't after she found out about the affair.”
“That hardly seems relevant now.” Again, reasonable psych speak.
“As I said, things ended badly.”
The guy closed his eyes and seemed to be in a trance as though he were trying to formulate a response. When he opened his eyes he looked at Dan intensely. “I can feel that you and Bella have a strong, if not impenetrable, bond. The energy around you when you speak of Bella whether you're loving or angry is the most powerful I've encountered. I've used all my abilities to retain control of myself in the face of this force. It fills the room. It consumes you.”
“You feel that?”
“Absolutely. It's an amicable force. It's not threatening, but it's potent. The two of you together are formidable. You had a high life. You would've given new meaning to the term power couple had you remained together.
“I suspect your father was a Sensitive, but unaware of it. Your description of his reactions to you and Bella and yours to him are much stronger than what is considered to be a normal father-son bond. He mistook his awareness of your bond with Bella as a warning rather than mere information. “
“You believe me, then?”
“Yes. It's exceptional that you and Bella made love. How did it feel?” The question didn't sound prurient. It sounded as a request for additional information.
“Fantastic. Like we were seventeen again.” No one made him feel the way she did.
“Did anything seem unusual or especially remarkable?”
Images of the two of them flashed through his mind. Bella was so sensuous. She had soft, womanly curves with a beautiful mouth and hands. She wasn't a hard-bodied athlete. Sensuous. Loving. Generous.
“Weightless. Bella seemed almost weightless at times.” She'd felt like air.
He nodded. “Truly remarkable.”
“So, what do you think? “
“Based on what you've told me and the conclusions investigators have drawn from physical evidence such as fingerprints, I would say Bella is no longer living in human form. You may call her a ghost if that's the most comfortable term for you. Everything that happened between you was real.”
“She's not a hallucination?”
“That's the term psychiatrists apply. It's their training and experience. It's a label.”
“A label that could put me in prison.” He threw out his arms.
“Correct. The legal system doesn't welcome anything other than evidence-based science. My observations are considered anecdotes not evidence.
“When you and Bella reunited, did she mention how the physical separation affected her? You were unable to fulfill your career expectations. What about Bella?”
A ridiculous question. Dan started to laugh and stopped to think. She was accomplished, but the Bella he knew wouldn't have settled for being a lawyer, even if she did write books, make speeches, and advise corporations and governments. Analyzing The Securities Act of 1934 and The Dodd-Frank Act must have been painfully boring. She had loads of opportunities after the Sorbonne and could've done something about which she was passionate. Maybe life with her husband satisfied her need to live loud.
“Maybe not.” He wasn't here to talk about Bella's needs. He needed perspective. “What's your advice?”
“I can only validate that your encounters occurred. You experienced them, but you hurt Bella deeply. You dismissed her. You threatened her. You were cruel. My advice is to apologize to her.”
“I don't want to ever see her again.”
“Is that true? Your wife is dead. There's no impediment for you and Bella continuing your relationship unconventional as that may be. Even if you don't feel you can resume a romantic relationship, you owe her an apology. If you want to restore good will, you must woo her.”
“I can't.” He stood. He'd gotten what he came for. He wasn't crazy. One person on the planet believed his story.
“Sir, Bella could help you.”
Intrigued, he sat. “Help me how?”
“Bella in her current form—let's call her a ghost—can see and do things humans can't. She could do things that might help the police identify Jill's killer and prove your innocence. Assuming you are innocent, of course.”
Dan knew he belonged in a psych hospital. Or a research lab as a test subject. He sat in a seedy shopping center with a legitimate licensed therapist calmly discussing the advisability of adding a ghost to his defense team. His head was going to explode any second. What could it hurt to play along?
“What things might she be able to see or do to help?”
The therapist leaned forward. “I'm not an expert on ghost behavior, but their primary advantages to living in human form are invisibility and fluidity. Bella would be able access places—locked places—as well as eavesdrop under her cloak of invisibility. She could find answers for at least some of your questions.”
“Bella can eavesdrop? She's invisible? She could sit invisibly in my den and listen to every conversation I have? She could invade my privacy?” He wasn't safe in his own home.
The therapist re-adjusted his position on the sofa and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he spoke as though he were summoning all his patience to speak to a deliberately slow learner
“Yes, Bella could do that among any number of more helpful activities. I doubt Bella has been in your house if she was as adamant as you say about not entering the space you occupied with your wife and child. I doubt she's interested in you at all. You angered and hurt her. You haven't asked for forgiveness much less help. No doubt, she's doing something she enjoys in a place she likes with people who are much kinder to her than you.”
Ouch. Starting with Dr. Spellman, everyone with whom he'd discussed Bella in the psych community had taken Bella's side. They pointed out his unjustifiably bad behavior. Not one of them sympathized with him.
“Sir,” the LMFC looked at him with a neutral expression. “Think about whether you want to leave things this badly between you and Bella. Her emotions are human. She can hurt you as easily as help you. You know whether you're innocent in the death of your wife. I don't.
“Don't reconcile because you want her help or to avoid recriminations. She won't accept that. Do it because you have this rare bond. It's exceptional. It's a gift very few have in this or any other life.”
No friggin' way.
CHAPTER
SIXTY-TWO
The clock read one forty-five AM. Dan was awake and sprawled in the middle of the king sized bed with three pillows around him and tangled sheets. The room was black. The drawn drapes didn't allow even a sliver of light into the room. He might as well have been in a coal mine.
He untan
gled himself from the sheets, got up, and opened the drapes. Moonlight flooded the room. If anyone was out there ready to catch him lying awake after his wife's murder, let them. He hadn't been granted the sleep of the just. He padded into the bathroom. One look in the mirror reflected the battery of losses he'd suffered in the past few months. His face bordered on gaunt. His cheekbones were not quite prominent but close. His hair had turned completely white during his most recent hospitalization. He didn't recognize the man staring back at him. He splashed water on his face and put a cold wet towel around his neck.
Back in the bedroom, Dan slipped on sweatpants and the soft suede mocs he wore around the house. He went quietly down the stairs and headed into the den, open the single locked door of the media cabinet, and felt blindly on the bottom shelve. His hands touched a fold of worn leather He pulled until he held his photo album from college in his hands. It was time to face some truths about himself.
Dan poured himself a Scotch, sat in his favorite chair, and turned on a dim light. He intended to go through what was essentially his memory book of life with Bella. He'd found it in his childhood bedroom when he cleaned it out before his parents' estate sale almost two years ago and stored in the cabinet with a false bottom. Jill wouldn't have cared, but he wanted to have one private thing. He was pretty sure she kept mementoes of life before she'd met him in a jewelry box or carton of things she was keeping for Katie.
The first page was a picture of a seventeen year-old Bella at the beach behind her parents' oceanfront home in Virginia Beach. She wore a blue sundress that complemented her tan, beautiful curves, and long blonde hair. Her blue eyes, the color of which was indescribable, shone with happiness. When they’d met, the empty part of his heart was filled. He was his best self with Bella. Tears rolled down his face as looked at the dazzling girl who changed his life.
The first few pages of the book were of their early times at the University of Virginia. Him at lacrosse practice, Bella seated at an ebony concert grand piano, and the two of them slow-dancing at a party. The next pages were his first Christmas at her parents' villa in St. John which became his favorite place in the world.