Midnight Diner 3

by Edoardo Albert

  A genuine smile crept up on Ginny. "You wouldn’t believe it, but people have said a lot worse. You’ll do fine today. The only thing you need to know about Stuart is he loved his wife and daughter more than life itself. That’s really the most important thing there is to say."

  "Then that’s exactly what I’ll say."

  ~

  Ginny sprawled across her bed and let her head and arms hang over the edge. Lizzie had been watching Nickelodeon in the next room since they got back from the funeral. Three hours of television might not be the worst thing in the world, but having a non-functioning, rum-filled mother probably wasn’t going to help Lizzie understand their new reality. But Ginny had finished off just enough of the Captain to blissfully ignore the needs of her daughter the rest of the evening. Besides, Ruth lurked around the house somewhere.

  "She’s probably sayin’ all the right stuff to Lizzie Bear right now." Ginny’s head popped up. "Who said that?"

  Her head fell back to the bed. "Oh, I did. I’m drunk and I’m talking to myself. Ruth probably hates me." She giggled. "Why would Stuart’s death change that?"

  She rolled off the bed onto the floor. She focused on the bedside table with the bottle but couldn’t muster up the determination to reach it. Through the bottle she saw Lizzie standing in the doorway of the bedroom, talking to herself. Actually, arguing with herself.

  Ginny, too drunk to chastise Lizzie for yelling at imaginary friends, stared at her daughter instead. "You’ve always been a little different, Lizzie."

  Lizzie shook her head. The walls around her buckled and twisted. A large crack echoed through the room. Lizzie reached her hands up to her face and pressed. "Why can’t I do it?" she screamed.

  Ginny reached her hand toward Lizzie, but it only hit the floor. When she reached again, her hand hung in front of her face seemingly separate from her body. "Gotta get up. Help Lizzie." Rolling onto her side, she steadied herself with the bed and pulled herself upright. She turned toward her daughter and saw an empty doorway. "See. No Lizzie, just your imagination."

  The room continued to sway until her eyes settled on the watch sitting on the dresser. "My own little Persistence of Memory."

  She grabbed the watch, fell back down on the bed and passed out.

  ~

  Stuart walked over to the table where Ginny was waiting and handed her a tacky melting watch.

  "A gift for you," he said with a smile. "Representing the perfect blend of our two worlds. A

  man of art and science."

  "Dali?" Ginny asked. "How are you going to claim him, Nerdboy? He belongs to the art world."

  "Now that just shows how little you know, Miss Artsy-fartsy. Dali was obsessed with science. Some even say his art was nothing but an attempt to put the fourth dimension on canvas. So, tell me I’m brilliant and accept my gift. And my proposal."

  Ginny jumped up and threw her arms around him. "I accept and you are brilliant." She’d never imagined she would be able to fall so deeply in love. And with a scientist.

  "I do have a ring, you know. You were supposed to act surprised and say, Proposal. What do you mean? And that was when I would reach into my pocket and pull out this." He pulled out the box she knew held the diamond ring she would accept.

  She pirouetted around the table. "Yes, yes, yes," she said like a giddy school girl. "A million times, in a million worlds, on a million canvases, yes."

  Ginny turned around to take the ring. As Stuart slipped the ring on her finger blood began pouring from his eye sockets. Then his nose, ears and mouth. Just as she realized he could never live and lose that much blood, she heard Pastor Mike saying he’s in a better place.

  Ginny cried. "There’s just so much blood."

  ~

  Ginny’s own voice woke her. It took a moment to realize where she was, then the memory of the services crashed into her with the same force of the semi that hit Stuart. Thanks to her vivid dream, the smell of blood hung thick in her bedroom, reminding her of the night she’d gotten that dreadful visit.

  The moment she had opened the door and seen their ashen faces she’d known. "No," Ginny screamed and she tried to shut the door on the officers.

  One of them gently stuck his foot in the door. "I’m Officer Johnson and this is my partner, Officer Clarke. I’m so sorry, ma’am. Are you Ginny Pearson?"

  She nodded her head. "Yes, but you must be mistaken. You’re not supposed to be here. Not here."

  "Are you the wife of Stuart Pearson? I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident and we are looking for your husband. Is he home?"

  Ginny shook her head and gently floated outside herself. Accident. Deep down where you intuit something has been bad all along, she knew. Something had nagged at her all day and she’d brushed the feeling to the side. One minute the feeling would come into focus and then it would just flit away, like fall leaves on her driveway. The cops standing in front of her, brought all the tiny moments into full clarity. All day she’d known and ignored. All day.

  "Excuse me," she interrupted, returning her focus to the conversation. "Did you say missing body?"

  "This is difficult, ma’am. The body appears to have, well...." Officer Johnson started the sentence but could not seem to find the words to fill in. He stared at her.

  They all stood on her front porch, momentarily caught in the hopeless position of needing the right words.

  "What he’s trying to say, Mrs. Pearson, is that...." Officer Clarke also came up with nothing. Johnson took his hat off with one hand and ran his fingers through his hair with the other.

  "For Pete’s sake, what we’re trying to say is that the body seems to have disintegrated. There’s nothing but blood. Lots of blood, ma’am." He backed away further from the door, embarrassed to have surrendered the end of the sentence.

  Clarke looked up from the ground. "What he means to say is, we found your husband’s clothes and identification amongst the blood. But there’s no actual body. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years on the force. It’s like his entire body just faded away, leaving his blood. I’m sorry, Mrs. Pearson. We’ve never been in a position of delivering this kind of message before and I’m afraid we’ve done a piss poor job."

  "I don’t understand what you’re trying to say."

  Clarke grabbed one of her hands somewhat uncomfortably. "What we’re doing a shitty job of telling you is that if your husband was in that car, he is dead. There’s no way he could survive that kind of blood loss. He didn’t wander away from the scene because there’s no way anyone got out of that car. The doors are pinned shut between a tree and a semi. But there’s no body to be found. Eyewitnesses at the scene saw the driver get hit by the semi but there’s simply no body in the car. And his clothes. They were laying right in the driver’s seat. There doesn’t appear to be any kind of logical explanation for what happened. Your husband most likely died in a car accident. But there’s no body to be found to prove it."

  Officer Johnson stepped forward, laying his hand on her shoulder. "I’m so sorry. So sorry." Tears rimmed his eyes and Ginny wondered if the response was uncharacteristic.

  "I’m going inside now. Thank you."

  She went in the house, stranding them on the porch. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Invite them in for tea? Thanks for delivering the news of my husband’s odd death, how’d you like some coffee?

  Despondent, Ginny sat on the sofa with her face in her hands. "Mommy?"

  Ginny bolted upright and pulled her hands down. "Yes, baby?" "Is everything okay?"

  "Not really, sweetie. Why do you ask?"

  Lizzie’s head turned to the side and she scrunched up her face. "I think Daddy’s lost." "What do you mean, Lizzie? Were you listening to me and the people at the door?" "No, Mommy. I was talking to Daddy."

  "No, honey. Daddy’s not here. He’s not here." An unreasonable fear reached in and grabbed her heart. Lizzie would go crazy if her daddy died. Absolutely crazy. How would she tell her daughter?

&
nbsp; How did you tell your child that her father was probably dead?

  ~

  Knowing she had to eventually get out of bed and face the rest of her life, Ginny rolled out of bed holding her head tightly. Every step reminded her of why she wasn’t a big drinker. Her mouth felt like driveway grit and her body’s program was set on delayed reaction. Most disturbing of all was the distinct smell of blood still clinging to her nostrils. A left over present from her terrible dream.

  Stepping out into the hallway, her mind rallied to the aroma of coffee and bacon wafting down the corridor. Ruth keeping everything together, as usual.

  Ginny headed straight for the coffee pot. The bright kitchen usually irked her. At one time, she and Stuart had planned a big remodel job to get rid of the jarring yellow. Now she wondered if she would change anything that connected her to him. "Good morning, Ruth."

  Ruth looked up from the pan she was tending. "Oh, Ginny. Good morning. Rough night, I see."

  Sarcastic retorts sauntered to the tip of Ginny’s tongue, but she pushed them back to the playground of her mind. "Unhuh."

  "I’m sorry your night was rough. This has been horrible for all of us, most especially Lizzie. All night she kept going on about Stuart being lost. She’s so adamant that we help him. It was very...disconcerting."

  "Believe me, I know. She’s been doing that ever since I explained that he was in an accident. I

  told you, she’s still denying he’s gone."

  "Well, I wanted to give you your space last night, but now we have to move forward. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye on everything, Ginny, but I want to help. I loved my son very much and I’d like us to get through this." Ruth paused, turned back to the stove and wiped a tear. The first tear Ginny had seen her shed. "I love you and Lizzie, too."

  Ginny had not heard those words from Ruth in all the years she’d been married to Stuart. She’d longed to hear them, but had given up after the first several years of trying to be the perfect daughter-in-law. Years of resentment lurked like hazy images on the horizon of a foggy morning, but she couldn’t think of any valid reason not to latch onto Ruth’s statement and cling.

  Ginny walked over to the stove and put her hand on Ruth’s shoulder. They turned toward one another, Ruth opened her arms and Ginny fell into them. More tender than the warm bottle on her dresser, Ruth caressed Ginny’s hair as she cried.

  Ginny’s tears finally slowed. "I don’t know how I’m going to go on without him."

  Ruth wiped her eyes and pulled back from the embrace, turning attention back to the bacon. "We’re going to figure that out but the first thing we’re going to do is help Lizzie." Looking up from the stove, she hesitantly added, " Together."

  As if on cue, Lizzie wandered into the kitchen with paper and crayons. "I’ll do my best." Ginny pulled Lizzie onto her lap. "Morning, sweet girl. Whatcha doing there?"

  " Talking to Daddy."

  Ruth and Ginny both took deep breaths and exchanged glances.

  Ruth put down her spatula and wiped her hands. "We all wish we could talk to your daddy, sweetheart. We loved him very much. But it’s very hard for Mommy and Granma Ruth when you say things like that."

  Lizzie looked up from the drawing she had started. "Say things like what?"

  "Things like, you’re talking to Daddy. Sweetie, we’ve talked about this a million times. Daddy was in an accident. You can’t talk to him anymore."

  Lizzie scribbled harder on the paper. "I told you they won’t believe me."

  Ginny stood up, dropping Lizzie back into her chair. "Lizzie, that’s enough. I know it’s hard but we have to try and get through this. The only way we’re going to do that is for you to under- stand what’s happened."

  Lizzie’s eyes shined. "Daddy doesn’t even understand. How am I going to? I’m only five." "None of us understand, sweetheart. Sometimes bad things happen. Even when you try real

  hard to make sure they don’t."

  "If you would just listen to me, Mommy."

  "I am listening, Lizzie. I promise. And what I hear is a little girl trying to hold on to her

  Daddy and that’s okay. We’re all going to be all right."

  "I am all right, Mommy. What I’m trying to tell you is I can see Daddy. And he can hear me, but I can’t hear him. I can just see him and he keeps holding a dolly like he wants me to tell you about it, but I can’t figure out why and it’s all very frustrating."

  Ginny dreaded these conversations with Lizzie. Maybe Ruth would know what to say. She looked over to her mother-in-law for help, but the look on Ruth’s face told her a bail out wasn’t coming.

  "Are you dreaming a lot about Daddy?"

  Lizzie’s eyes widened as if an idea just occurred to her. "Yes, I am." "Me, too."

  "How about if I tell you what Daddy says and say it’s from my dreams? Will that be better? Will you like it more if I pretend to dream about Daddy instead of telling you when I see him?" "You don’t have to pretend anything, Lizzie. Just try to understand that it’s hard for Mommy

  when you say you see Daddy, when you can’t see Daddy."

  Tears fell from Lizzie’s cheeks onto Ginny’s hands. "But I can. I see him right now and he’s holding up a dolly and pointing at a watch." She turned to an empty side of the room. "I’m trying to understand. Dolly, watch, dolly, watch. I don’t know what to do."

  Lizzie ran out of the room. Something danced around the edges of Ginny’s memory and mushroomed. A bizarre sensation surged inside of her, making her hopeful and nauseous at the same time.

  She ran after Lizzie into her bedroom. Ruth followed closely. "Ginny, what is it?" Ginny grabbed Lizzie and spun her around. "Did you say Dali watch?"

  "Yeah, but I don’t know what it means. I’m not going to talk about it anymore, don’t worry." Ginny sat on the edge of the bed, astounded. Ruth was looking at her as if she’d lost every bit of sense she’d ever had. She got up and ran to her room searching for the watch she’d reached for in her drunken stupor. She looked under the pillows on her bed, the clothes on her dresser and searched the floor. Just when she thought it had disappeared, much like her husband’s body, she saw its face distorted through the bottle of rum.

  She grabbed it and ran back to Lizzie’s room. "Dali watch, Lizzie. Is this what Daddy’s saying to you?"

  Ruth ran over and snatched the watch from Ginny’s hands. "Ginny. Stop it. You’re not going to help her if you feed into what she’s saying."

  "Yes, Mommy. Yes. Daddy’s nodding his head and jumping up and down. That’s the watch!"

  Ginny turned to Ruth and took back the watch. "She has no way of knowing that’s a watch made from a Salvador Dali painting, Ruth. No way of knowing. That watch has been in a jewelry box for years. How did she know about it?"

  Ruth raised her voice and Ginny thought it must be the first time she’d ever witnessed Ruth out of control. "What are you saying, Ginny? Your husband’s ghost is communicating to you about an old watch? Think about what you’re saying. You’re only making things worse."

  "You’re not gonna let Granma Ruth make you not believe me, are you?" Ginny took Lizzie in her arms and squeezed. "No, sweetie."

  Ruth came over and gently shook Ginny’s shoulders. "You just need more sleep. You’re not thinking straight. I’ll stay all day. You just need rest."

  Ginny pulled away. "Think about it, Ruth. Something has always been wrong about this whole thing. Let’s just hear what Lizzie says, okay? Let’s just hear her out."

  Lizzie jumped up on the bed and spoke to empty space. "Mommy believes me. Granma Ruth doesn’t yet, but Mommy does."

  Ruth sat on the edge of the bed. "This isn’t right, Ginny. You’re making her worse. How much longer can you let her talk to someone that isn’t there? Middle school? High school? When will you finally help her realize her Daddy is gone?"

  Ginny ignored Ruth, even though every ounce of her sanity screamed that Ruth’s logic tethered her to reality, that when she entered Lizzie’s fantasy, her ow
n grip on the world would loosen and she’d never make her way back.

  But how could she know about Dali?

  Lizzie ran out of the room and returned a few seconds later with her crayons and paper. "Now, you, Granma. Daddy’s holding up a black book like I saw at that place we went for his funeral."

  Ruth shook her head and walked over to Lizzie. "I’m sorry, sweetheart, but ..." Ruth stopped mid-sentence. "Are you talking about a Bible?"

  Lizzie shrugged her shoulders."He’s opening it up to the back of the book and pointing at the top of the page." She looked into the air quizzically for a moment. "Hey! I know that letter. That word starts with ‘H’ and I learned that at school."

  "Ginny, get me a Bible. She’s talking about the book of Hebrews."

  Ginny laughed again. "Ruth, we don’t even own a Bible. You’ll have to use yours. Unless, of course, you’ve memorized the whole thing."

  Ginny and Lizzie followed Ruth to the living room and watched her dig through her purse. She pulled out a tattered, small black book and turned the pages.

  "Do you see big numbers on the page, sweetie?"

  Lizzie stared into empty space once more. "Daddy’s pointing at two ones and then number three. I already knew lots of numbers before I even went to school."

  Ruth sat on the chair and read, then let the book fall from her hands.

  Ginny took the book from Ruth’s lap. "What does it say?" She scanned the page and found the right place. "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible."

  Ruth spoke kindly, but firmly, as if trying to convince herself that she wasn’t entertaining the thought that Stuart was invisibly communicating through Lizzie. "This doesn’t mean anything, Ginny. It just doesn’t."

  "Ruth, listen to yourself. Stuart is trying to tell us something. He used the watch with me and the Bible with you because those are things we’ll connect to. I don’t care if you believe in communicating with the dead or not, but he’s trying to tell us something."

  Lizzie stomped her foot in the doorway. "I told you. Daddy’s not dead, he’s lost."