Talking to the Dead

by Bonnie Grove

  “Stop. This is crazy. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I stood very still, listening. Nothing. No yelling, no voice, no Kevin. I shrugged. “I got some bad news today. Let’s go back inside.”

  I could feel his frustration as he followed me into the kitchen. “Thirsty?” I said.

  Blair’s face flushed crimson. He swore under his breath. “No. What’s going on?”

  I opened the fridge door and peered in. “So you just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

  He pawed at his face with both hands. “I drive by your house every day. I have been for weeks. To check on you, I guess.”

  I took a long gulp from an orange juice carton, then studied Blair. He was breathing hard, like he’d just finished jogging around the block. His eyes were wide with concern or annoyance. I swallowed the juice and it burned down my throat. “I didn’t know you did that.”

  Blair exploded. “Tell me why your front lawn is covered with broken furniture.”

  I shrugged. “I did that.”

  “You? Why?”

  I was tired, despite my nap. Maybe even delirious. “I went to the bank this morning to empty Kevin’s safe-deposit box. I found that.” I pointed to the camera sitting on the table.

  His gaze followed my finger. I expected him to shrug or say “So what?” Instead he stared at the camera with a look of utter collapse. He closed his eyes, inhaling sharply, like he’d just been stabbed.

  “Oh, no,” he whispered.

  I stared at him in disbelief, nearly dropping the carton. Did he know about the camera? How could he? He stood pale-faced, staring at it. He knew. He’d always known.

  With tear-filled eyes he said, “I’m so sorry.”

  I put the orange juice back in the fridge, then picked up the camera and clicked it on. Blair made no move to stop me. I ignored the video, clicking past it to the next shot. One after another I viewed the shots, mostly of Donna in various poses, smiling, and thankfully, fully clothed.

  The date appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of each picture, and the order of the pictures took me back in time. I scrolled and scrolled, mentally blocking the many pictures of Kevin and Donna together, until I came to the picture I was afraid I’d find. In it Blair’s arm was stretched out in front, obviously holding the camera. He was sitting on a couch, Donna on one side of him, Kevin on the other. They were squeezed tight, cheeks pressed together. It was a photo booth sort of picture, one you’d expect to see drop from the slot along with three other equally goofy shots. No one was serious. They were just having fun.

  I didn’t look up from the camera. “Where was it taken?”

  Blair sighed. “My apartment.”

  “I hate you.” I opened the back door. “Get out.”

  He stood still for a moment, then walked out the door. I watched him cross the yard and pull the back gate closed with a soft click. When he was gone, I stepped outside and walked toward the garage. I noticed the lawn had recently been mowed and the flower beds watered. The bleeding hearts were in full bloom, the hollyhock nearly as high at the roof. Someone had been taking care of my yard.

  I stopped about ten feet from the garage, then hefted the camera like a baseball. I pulled my arm back and then hurled it at the garage. Pieces flew in all directions. I went back inside, and closed the door firmly behind me.

  30

  The elevators opened with a sharp bing sound. I hurried down the hall, my sandals making a thwick-thwack sound as I walked. I pushed open the door of Suite 3106 and rushed to Sally’s desk. It was nearly five o’clock, but she smiled as if she’d been expecting me.

  I glanced at the massive door that led to Dr. Alexander’s inner office. “Is there a chance—?”

  Sally gestured to the chairs that lined the wall. “Take a seat.”

  I sat, tapping my right foot like a jackhammer. I watched Sally’s back as she talked on the phone. I couldn’t hear a word.

  She hung up the phone and turned to face me. “Dr. Alexander can see you now.”

  My head snapped back in surprise. “Right now?”

  Sally got up and stood beside Dr. Alexander’s office door. “Right now.” I followed her into the office. She dropped a file on the doctor’s desk and then left me alone in the room. I moved to the couch, my usual place, then got up and paced the room. I walked over to Dr. Alexander’s desk and sat in one of the two chairs in front of it. Another door opened, and Dr. Alexander appeared, straightening his tie and jacket. He sat across from me and opened the folder on his desk. “Nice to see you again, Kate.” He said this while reading from the folder.

  I said nothing.

  He looked at me. “I was wondering if you were going to show up today. I’m glad you did.”

  Show up? What was he talking about?

  He glanced at his wristwatch. “Late, but here nonetheless.”

  Late? I tried to remember. Laura-Lea. She had told me last night Dr. Alexander wanted to meet with me. Was it only last night? I opened my eyes and saw Dr. Alexander watching me closely. “Your right leg has a rather violent tremor.”

  I looked down; my leg jerked like Thumper. I pushed it down with my hand, to still it. “I guess I’m wound up. This morning I found out Kevin had been cheating on me.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “That is terrible news. I can see how that would upset you.” He watched me for a long moment, then opened a drawer and pulled out a prescription pad. He scribbled on the pad, ripped the page off, and slid it across the desk. “It’s mild, but I think it’s all you need right now. You drove in yourself?”

  I stared at the prescription on the desk. “Yes. Mild what?”

  Dr. Alexander leaned back in his chair. “Sedative. It’ll help you relax.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to relax.”

  “You need to.”

  I held my palm up in a stop-right-there gesture. “Have you ever gone hiking? Kevin and I went hiking on a trip to the Rockies not long after we were married. He took me on this long path way up high on the mountain. He said I’d love it, but I didn’t. We got off the marked trail and Kevin couldn’t find it again. He lost the bear bells—the ones you’re supposed to shake while you walk so you don’t sneak up on a bear and get eaten. The day turned cold and we weren’t dressed for cooler temperatures. I twisted my ankle and it swelled up bigger than my head.” Dr. Alexander opened his mouth to interrupt me, so I raised my voice. “The point is, as miserable as the hike was, as painful as it was to walk on my sprained ankle, I needed to do it. I had to get back to our campsite—to safety.

  “That’s what I need to do now, Dr. Alexander. I need to keep walking; press on so I can get through this.”

  His chair squeaked. “Kate, I want to help you, but it seems you won’t let me. You miss appointments, you won’t follow the medicine regime I set out, and now you’re refusing a second prescription. You say you want my help, but you ignore my advice. It makes me wonder if you really want to get better.”

  My face flushed hot. “Of course I do. But did you hear what I said? What I just found out? You can’t expect me to be relaxed.”

  He pressed his palms flat on the desk. “I understand, Kate. And I’m sorry about your news. But still, you’re hearing voices, Kate. No amount of talk therapy is going to cure that symptom.”

  “One voice,” I screamed. “Not voices. Just one. Just Kevin’s rotten, lying, cheating voice.” I balled my fists by my side. Why couldn’t anyone get it right?

  Dr. Alexander sat in silence as I bawled on his desk. After a moment he pushed a box of tissues at me. I took one and blew my nose. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled.”

  He nodded once. “S’okay.”

  I looked up at him through wet lashes. “I want you to listen to me, to believe me.”

  “I do believe you, K
ate.”

  I blinked at him, deflated. “And if I don’t take the medication …?”

  Dr. Alexander folded his hands in front of him. “Then it would be best for you to seek a new doctor.”

  A shock ran up my spine. “New doctor?”

  His expression was blank, unreadable. “If you refuse to follow my treatment regime, I don’t see how I can help you.”

  The sunlight assaulted my eyes as I stepped out of Dr. Alexander’s high-rise building. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt my thoughts, like ticking bombs, circling me.

  Mobs of people rushed around, moving as if with a single heartbeat, in and out of buildings, on and off buses. Downtown pulsed and throbbed. A woman yelled into a cell phone, a man with a briefcase bumped shoulders hard with another man and hurried on. A hot-dog stand manned by a grubby-looking guy who may or may not have been homeless. But I was alone in the throng. Alone with my contemplations, my musings, my stupidity.

  After Dr. Alexander’s ultimatum I was disorientated, unable to adjust to the reality that I wasn’t the only person left on earth. That I wasn’t the only thing that mattered.

  Dr. Alexander’s warning—threat?—hung on me like a damp towel. There were requirements, expectations I had to fulfill if I ever wanted to be considered well. It seemed what constituted “well” was a process best left to the professionals. So many rules I hadn’t learned. What had Kevin’s requirements been? What had he expected of me in order to keep him from having an affair?

  I stood on the bustling street corner and gulped in a lungful of air. Across the courtyard the hot-dog vendor dropped a wiener on the sidewalk and, as he bent to retrieve it, his customer walked away, shaking her head. He straightened up and looked around, bun in one hand, frankfurter wobbling on the end of his tongs in the other. His expression said, “Where’d she go?” He looked across the courtyard and we accidentally locked eyes. He shrugged. I shrugged back. Sometimes it’s a small thing that causes someone to walk away from you.

  That evening I drove out of the city, turned down exit twenty, and noticed a billboard. A man’s face, fat and smiling, filled more than half the board. He pointed Uncle Sam–style at the traffic below. Beside the gigantic head was his name, Reverend J. D. Slater, and a slogan, Miracle Working Power—Today! Under that, a phone number. I chanted the number, memorizing it as I took the turnoff to Greenfield. I could use a miracle today.

  Back at home I stood on the front sidewalk and surveyed my lawn. A riot of silk shirts waved in the breeze. The lawn covered in bits of bedroom debris that I would have to clean up. My only regret was I had lacked the strength to hurl them farther.

  I pushed into the house, dragging my feet as if I suddenly weighed five hundred pounds. I’d have to clean up the mess sooner or later. I shut the door behind me, blocking the view to my front yard. Later. I sloughed to the kitchen, found the prescription for the antihallucinogen on the counter, and shoved it in my purse, a germ of an idea forming.

  “Kevin?” I called his name in a loud voice, and then waited. Silence pulsed back at me. I walked to the living room. “Kevin? Are you really gone, or just hiding?”

  I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. I crawled onto the bare mattress, rolled onto my side, and stared through the open window. I had expunged all obvious traces of Kevin from the room, had flung them from a great height. Now I stretched out on the bed and closed my eyes. As I fell asleep, two things were clear. My soul had been swept clean of Kevin. And I wasn’t happy about it.

  The next morning I stuffed Kevin’s ruined belongings into large green garbage bags. At one point a shard of plastic or wood bit into my hand and pierced my palm. I swore at it and kept going.

  As I worked, I weighed the two theories of mental health. On the one hand Dr. Alexander believed a regimen of medication and talk therapy would, in time, cure me. Well, he’d never used the word cure. Improve? I kicked at a bit of smashed dresser drawer. Did Dr. Alexander believe I could be cured? That the pills would right the chemistry of my brain for good, solving all my … delusions, he called them delusions. And what had caused these delusions in the first place? Memory loss, Kevin’s voice blistering with rage, then soothing with sexual advances.

  On the second scale was the question Eliza Campbell had introduced, that my issue was a spiritual one and had a spiritual cause. That the voice had more to do with a plugged connection to the eternal than it did with faulty wiring in my brain. But if that were the cause, what was the cure? What did spiritual people do when their pipes rusted out? Chant? Drink herbal tea?

  On the one scale sat a regimen of pills and therapy that promised a cure, but offered no clue of the cause. On the other scale the cause was faulty connection, crossed spiritual wires, but I had no idea how to proceed toward a cure.

  I shoved three shoes into the overflowing green garbage bag. It wasn’t simply that Eliza Campbell’s spiritual theory offered me a cause, it was the idea that I could fix my problem myself, without relying on medications. All I had to do was find someone who knew how to clean out people’s spiritual causeways. I recalled Rev. J. D. Slater’s phone number. Miracle Working Power—Today! I dragged a garbage bag into the back alley and tossed it on the pile. I went inside to call Rev. J. D. Slater and make an appointment for my miracle.

  Two days later I turned into the parking lot of Rev. J. D. Slater’s church. It was a massive building that from the street resembled a concert hall more than a church. I drove through a huge parking lot. A smattering of cars huddled near the front door. I parked beside a green Jaguar, wondering when I’d last seen a Jaguar. No one I knew could afford one. I got out of my Ford Focus and walked toward the main entrance. A large banner above the doors read Welcome to Rhema Word Victory Church.

  I tried all three sets of double-glass doors, but they were all locked. I checked my watch. Was I early? No, I was right on time.

  I stepped back and surveyed the doors. Maybe these were Sunday morning doors and there was some other entrance people used on weekdays.

  I was about to walk around the building in search of another door when I spotted a doorbell set into the brick wall beside one of the doors. I punched it with my finger. Nothing. I pushed it again, holding it for several seconds. Still nothing. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through one of the glass doors.

  It was like glimpsing paradise. Gleaming white marble pillars and floors blinked in the sunlight. The foyer was as large as the gym at Glen Hills Community Center. A tiny figure came into view—a woman with a pixie haircut gone terribly wrong. Her mouth formed what looked like a permanently etched frown. She unlocked the door and poked her head out. “Yes?”

  I handed over the paper with Rev. Slater’s name and phone number on it. “Hi there. I have an appointment with, uh, The Reverend?”

  Pixie Woman pushed the door open and stepped back as I entered. She closed the door and locked it again. With military precision she spun on her heels and marched back into the church, waving an arm at me, indicating I should follow.

  If she hadn’t been walking at a breakneck pace, I would have taken time to ogle the surroundings. The lobby was expansive, with ceilings that soared, trying to reach God Himself. Light from the glass doors, as well as from a dozen or so skylights, poured in from every angle. I suppressed the urge to touch the leaves of one of the several massive trees that dotted the lobby. Each one was planted in its own dirt hole carved into the marble floor. The air was cool, almost chilly, despite the soaring temperature outside. Pixie Woman’s low heels made a loud clacking sound as she strode toward our destination. The word palatial drifted through my mind.

  Ms. Pixie ushered me into a waiting room and pointed to a chair. “I’ll let The Reverend know you’re here.” She disappeared down a hallway.

  I sat and scanned the magazines on the table in front of me. Charisma, Spirit Led Woman, Pray!, Prophecy in the News. I crossed my arms
and sat back in the chair. After a long moment Pixie Woman clomped back into the room and took a seat behind a teeny desk. She turned to a computer screen and began typing.

  I stared at her profile. “Excuse me—”

  She spun in her chair. “The Reverend is praying and will see you when he’s done.” She indicated the phone by her elbow. Apparently he would call. She returned to her typing.

  Huh. Praying. Maybe I should try praying too? This was a church, after all. God could be lurking around any corner. I shifted in my chair and lowered my head like I’d been taught as a child in Sunday school. I searched my memory for a prayer. There was one that started, Now I lay me down to sleep. Not helpful. I searched further: God is good, God is great …

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to dredge up the rest of the prayer. Let us thank Him for this food. I sighed and opened my eyes. How, exactly, does one pray? How do you know if it’s a good time to talk to God? Maybe it’s like a university lecture hall and you have to raise your hand and wait your turn until the professor points to you. I lifted my eyes to the heavens—actually to the soaring ceilings of the church, they must have been twenty feet high, and pictured God pointing down at me, a gigantic finger in the sky, and a loud voice like an earthquake booming out, “Your turn, Kate Davis.”

  The idea made me moderately hysterical. Calm down, Kate. Of course it didn’t work like that. Get a grip. Besides, who was I to think I could just prance up to God and start talking? Like, hey, God, I know we haven’t talked much in the past twenty years, but I sure could use a favor.

  I chewed my fingernail. Better to wait for The Reverend. He could introduce us, God and me. Like a mutual acquaintance at a party. He would chat us up until we were both comfortable, and then he’d leave God and me alone for a while.