by Laura Lanni
The daunting notion that I may ponder and observe for all of eternity is also glorious. Infinite time to contemplate these mysteries should provide comfort to a soul like me who finds pleasure in thinking. Now I sound like Eddie. He could always play devil’s advocate and help me see the good side of a bad situation. He would always say I should try to relax and appreciate the wonders around me.
“I think you’re preparing to depart, Anna.”
“Excuse me?” Where did that voice come from?
“Departure is a choice that all newly dead must make at their own pace. You appear to be ready,” says the voice.
How did a voice reach me out here in nowhere? I’m all alone. It should be silent.
My hard-earned equilibrium is shattered.
“Did you call me ‘newly dead’?” I demand. “It seems to me that I’ve been dead for a very long time. I’ve been watching my family and having flashbacks, and I do miss my body.”
“You don’t need your body anymore, Anna. You have your soul.”
“Soul? Is that all I am now?”
“Soul is our human term for it. And it’s not all you are now; it’s all you have ever been.”
All I have ever been, my ass. I was a mom and wife and teacher. I had a life, and I’m useless here and dead. I need my damn molecules to be. When I’m greeted on the dead side, they tell me my soul is all I have ever been? Preparing to depart? Damn it, I don’t want to depart. I’m not ready!
“Calm down. There’s no hurry.”
“How are you hearing my thoughts? Stay the hell out of my head! Who are you anyway?”
“Are we having a full-blown mood swing here?” she answers with a question. She seems calm, cool, and collected, but I know that tone. There’s an edge to her voice that says, “Watch yourself, missy.”
I’m afraid to respond.
Finally, she says, “It’s me, Anna. It’s Mom. Latch on and let me drive for a while.”
Instantly, my resistance fades, and I’m drawn to her like a magnet and willing to follow her anywhere. For the first time since I crossed to the dead side, I’m not alone.
7
Bethany’s Birth
Eighteen years ago, at four in the morning, I listened to the sound of Eddie’s sleeping breath. Just short of a snore yet much deeper than his awake breathing, I let the rhythm of his effortless intake of oxygen lull me back to sleep for a few more precious minutes.
My water hadn’t yet broken, but with each contraction I wanted to wake Eddie and share my exhausted excitement. The baby had been quiet all night. He didn’t move or kick, hiccup or roll. Now I knew why. He was getting ready to be born. I missed his kicks. I’d become accustomed to our daily routines together. He, the passenger. Me, the vessel of life. Now, the core of this vessel was squeezing the breath out of me and the kick out of our baby.
I rolled like a whale from my back to my side, and my belly bumped Eddie. He grunted in his sleep. I knew that grunt like I knew our baby’s kicks. It was his sleepy hello. He wasn’t fully awake but was aware of me. I stroked his stubbly cheek and grunted back. He rubbed my belly. I stayed still while the next contraction wrapped me up, thinking I’d ride out a few more in my warm bed with my best friend by my side. The cold October wind whipped rain against our windows. It would’ve been a good morning to stay in bed and sleep late. Mom had warned me. Our four years of sleeping late on weekend mornings would soon end. We’d be at the service of an infant.
I burrowed into my pillow and relished the quiet. I’d been in labor for hours. What began as cramps in my back had developed into a periodic rubber band wrap, each wave ebbing soon after it started. Now, with Eddie’s warm hand on our baby, the next contraction was more intense. He felt it. His eyes opened wide and met mine. He raised his eyebrows. I could see them in the dark. Those eyebrows and the sleepy eyes under them asked me all the questions. I smiled back in response. He was fully awake by the end of the contraction and felt it leave me. For the first time all night, the baby kicked and bumped the hand of his daddy, the doctor, the anchor of our lives. The doctor, my friend, nuzzled my neck and pressed his face into my swollen breasts. He chuckled.
“Gonna have to share these soon, eh?” His hands caressed me territorially.
“’Fraid so, Doc.” I pushed up against his face as another contraction hit. This one was different, another order of magnitude on my Richter scale. I breathed like I’d been trained to in those ridiculous Lamaze classes. Eddie matched me breath for breath. I let my fingers linger in his thick hair while my mind wandered away from the pain and visited my normal early morning pregnant obsession: I wanted food. Maybe the breathing worked. A little.
When the contraction released me, I asked, “Can I eat, do you think?”
“Yeah. Let’s get me coffee and you and the wee one some eggs and juice.” Eddie swung his legs over the edge of the bed and his feet into his slippers, and then he came around to help me up. I was, lately, like a turtle on my back and required being levered out of bed.
“And bacon, please.” Eddie took my water-puffy hands in his strong ones and pulled me up into his arms. Still a perfect fit. My head on his chest. His arms around my weeble body. That’s when my water broke in a flood, all over the hardwood floor and Eddie’s favorite slippers.
Three hours later we checked into the hospital. I don’t remember much about that part. The labor pains lived up to their name after the great flood. I went into my head. Eddie took care of everything else.
My labor lasted all day long, but the delivery was quick. I pushed for less than an hour once they let me.
“Eddie, Eddie!” I gasped his name whenever I came up for air between the vice-grip contractions. He was right beside me. We were in constant contact. His hands were on me, holding me, supporting me, helping me bring our baby into the world. I had a vague memory of swearing at him and throwing a cup of ice at his head. No. Impossible. That couldn’t have happened. He was the center of my world.
“What? What do you need, Anna?” he whispered in my ear.
“Just don’t let go, okay?”
“I gotcha, girl. You know I do.”
And I was pulled again over the cliff, in the pain, in my head, all alone but gripping this strong hand that let me squeeze the blood out of it. The song in my head was a verse from Simon and Garfunkel’s “I Am a Rock.” Eddie sang along, off-key, in my ear. My baby tried to be born.
I tried to push him out. The doctor was doing something down there, stretching me, telling me to push.
NOW.
I did. I ripped in half with the pain of that push. Eddie stopped singing and said, “Open your eyes, Anna. Don’t miss it.” I opened my eyes and saw our baby’s head, bald and bloody, squished nose in profile.
The doctor said, “One or two more good pushes, Anna, and we’ll see if you have a son or daughter.”
Good idea, I thought. Let’s get this party started.
I pushed.
I pushed.
I pushed with all of the clenched muscles of my entire body. And it worked.
Our baby slipped out, and Eddie’s voice proclaimed to the world, “He’s a girl!”
“He is?” I looked for confirmation and saw it was true. We had a daughter. A tiny, six-pound wiggly girl whom we’d called “him” for nine months. We named her Bethany in homage to Eddie’s favorite grandmother Elizabeth.
It was love at first sight for both of us, but our sweet baby girl disrupted the equilibrium of the force field of our relationship. Instead of circling each other, Eddie and I orbited our daughter like planets around the sun.
8
My Sister
On a quiet country road, I was deep inside my own thoughts. A Sarah McLachlan song was playing on repeat in my mind to the thudding rhythm of my sneakers pounding the road. Half a year before I died, I was healthy and strong, happy and running my long loop. The cell phone Eddie made me carry was thudding against my hip and ringing in the hand-stitched pocket of my shorts.
“Anna! You all right? You’ve been gone a long time.” Eddie’s nagging, worried voice in my ear shattered my running zone. The man had a ridiculous fear for my safety. He carried all of our worry. I feared nothing.
“Eddie, huff, I’m fine—huff, huff—be home in twenty minutes.” Without breaking my stride, I squeezed the phone back into the tiny pocket.
It rang again.
“Eddie! I’m fine!” I yelled into it.
“Hi, Annabella!” Not Eddie this time. It was my sister.
“’Chelle—huff—I’ll call you later. Can’t talk now—huff—I’m running.”
“I’m running late, too. God, the traffic is horrible. I just got out of a stupid faculty meeting. You would not believe the things these teachers do! One guy wants help removing a picture of himself that a student posted online. Of course, they don’t tell us the whole story. After half an hour of complaining and whining, it finally comes out—from his principal—that he’s been working on retrieving the picture for more than a week and has failed. The teacher wants to take legal action.”
Huff. “Michelle?”
“Anyway, turns out the picture was taken at Field Day. To make a long story short, it was ninety-five degrees and humid as hell. This teacher is one giant man. He was dripping and sweated right through his clothes and underwear. And when he tried to change into a dry shirt and was bent over the trunk of his car, some smartass kid took his picture—plumber’s crack at full moon!” She takes a break to cackle.
Huff. “Michelle? I can’t hold my arm up while I’m running.” Huff.
“Yeah, I gotta run, too. There’s a cop. Can’t be on a cell phone while I’m driving and all that crap. Love you. ’Bye.” And she clicked off.
| | | |
Mom’s voice interrupts my thoughts and somehow magically redirects me from the past to the present. “Now your sister is on her way to your house. Look at her. She’s a mess.”
We watch together. Michelle is driving alone from Virginia, clothes and a pile of shampoo, shoes, and Pop-Tarts tossed into the backseat in her rush to leave. Wadded tissues form a heap on the passenger seat. My little sister is not looking good.
Gotta hurry. Gotta get there fast. Get to those kids.
Damn it, Anna. Why’d you go and die, girl? What will we do without you? Who can I call every other minute?
“Mom, are you still here? How can I hear Michelle and everyone when they’re thinking?”
“The same way you hear me thinking. You are linked. You can listen to the people you love.”
“Why don’t they hear me?”
“They don’t know they can.”
A Michelle snort. There’s a copper, hiding. Idiot thinks we can’t see the big butt of his car. She thumbs her nose at him as she hits her brakes. I’m not on my cell phone, copper. She starts to sob. I would be if I had a sister to call.
Damn it, Anna.
She grabs a wad of used tissues and blows her nose with a loud honk. She wipes her eyes and tosses the wet blob over her shoulder.
Something was up with them. Anna hasn’t been happy lately. Wouldn’t return my calls. Hadn’t told her funny Eddie stories that always hurt a little. Torturing her single sister with all her lovey-husband stories—you’d think a girl as smart as Anna would have a clue about anyone but herself.
The hell with the cop. She hits the gas. I’m speeding. I’m passing every car on this effing road. I need to hug Bethy and crawl under the bed with my Joey. Those poor kids. Eddie sounded bad. Probably nothing I can do for him, though.
| | | |
Joey hides under his bed again with his stuffed black bear, as old as he is and wearing thin. I’ve been dead twenty-four hours, and my house is still and hollow without me. The sound of the ignored television echoes up from downstairs.
“How’d we get here, Mom?” I ask.
“You did it this time,” she says.
“Not intentionally. That’s how it’s been for me so far. I just jump around.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll develop better control. Just focus on your son. If you brought us here, you need to be with him.”
Joey’s eyes are closed, but he’s not napping. His scrunched eyebrows give him away. His mouth is pulled firmly into a scowl. He is definitely thinking, and I can hear him.
I helped Daddy make a good list before he went to the store. I asked for Fruity Pebbles. Mommy always makes me eat Wheaties or Cheerios or a bagel, but Daddy might let me have good cereal for breakfast. He just nodded and wrote it on the list. I don’t know why Daddy even went to the store. Amy and Miss Evelyn and all the ladies from church, and even mean old Mrs. Smithers, all brought over pies and smelly casseroles today.
Daddy wanted Bethany to go with him. I’m the only one who knows where all the stuff is, and he didn’t even ask me to come. Daddy might get lost in that big store all alone.
Good thing Bethy didn’t go—her face is all red and blotchy, and her hair is all messy, too. If Mommy sees her like that she’ll make her brush her hair. Bethany told Daddy she had to finish cleaning up the kitchen. It was already clean, and now she’s sitting on the swing.
I think she just didn’t want to go. Mommy calls that making excuses.
Joey lies on his back in the semidarkness under the bed, eyes still closed in concentration. He’s thinking about food. Any food sounds good. His belly grumbles.
I hope Daddy hurries up with my Fruity Pebbles.
His eyes pop open when he hears noise outside. The thump of a car door. The front door squeaks and Michelle comes in, calling, “Joey!” He doesn’t come out from under the bed. Instead, he grins and waits. Aunt Michelle is almost as good as Fruity Pebbles.
My Joey loves my sister because she’s fun and funny. Knowing Michelle is with my family, in my place, gives me some relief. She’ll take over for Bethany, feed Eddie, and hug Joey. She’ll fill my empty spot for a while.
Michelle drops her pile of stuff in the foyer and takes the stairs two at a time and enters Joey’s bedroom humming Bette Midler’s “The Rose.” She lies down in a pile of crumbs by the bed and lifts the edge of the blanket to peek under. She spills a shaft of light under his bed, and Joey smiles at her, reaches out his hand to touch her face. Still humming, she lays a kiss on his palm and crawls under the bed with him. She pulls my boy into her arms.
As she kisses his soft, dirty cheeks, he giggles and offers her his last Oreo, which she stuffs in her mouth. After a few minutes of hugging, Michelle gets Joey to snuggle in the covers on the bed with her. She grabs the top book in the stack by his bed and finds the bookmark holding our page from the last night I ever read Joey to sleep—the night before I died. That was just two days ago, but is feels like a lifetime has passed. How long is a lifetime, anyway? Mine passed like a blink, just like the first day of my death.
While Michelle reads about the adventures of Bigwig, Hazel, and Fiver, Joey falls into a deep sleep in her arms. Michelle drops the book and cries while she cradles my sleeping son.
| | | |
“Better now, Anna?” my mother asks.
“I’m relieved that Michelle has my boy and he’s not all alone under that bed waiting for me anymore.”
“Good. Then you can start to consider your situation. Take some time. Look around on your own. Just call me if you get lost or need a nudge back.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Watch your life. Watch your family for as long as you like. Go back and remember the good and bad. There is no reason to hurry here on the dead side. Just relax and absorb as much as you can.”
As suddenly as my mom appeared, she leaves, and I know for certain I’m alone once again.
Look around. Watch my life. I can do that, I think, but I can’t control it. I don’t know how or why, but I’m pulled back to Eddie.
9
Running with the Dogs
“I wonder if the dogs took away a part of my mind,” I said to Eddie. He was driving the van. Behind us, six-month-old J
oey snoozed in his car seat. We were on our way, as a family, to pick up Bethany from her first middle school dance.
That morning when I ran, I was chased by a small but intense dog. I stopped running, but I wasn’t scared like when I was a little girl. My distress was comprised mainly of annoyance. I charged at the dog, and it backed away.
A woman was watching from her porch. I asked if it was her dog.
She said, “No, but you should report it. That dog’s a menace.”
I started jogging away, and the little rodent dog came barking at me again, nipping at my shoes. Then, out of nowhere, the owner was chasing her rat-dog. She was limping along with one shoe on. She swung her other shoe rather fruitlessly at her idiot dog.
The mutt ignored her and charged at me, so I stopped running and growled back at it.
The shoe-waving owner yelled, “You hear that, Nelly? You be nice!” Little Nelly turned on her and tried to eat her ankles.
“Is this your dog?” I demanded as the dog latched onto the cuff of her jeans. When she nodded, I said, “Well, it scared the shit out of me,” not because it did, but because I was so mad that it tried.
She said, real sweet, as she attempted to unclench her dog by spastically swinging the shoe at its flanks, “Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”
Well, that fixes everything, right? I was supposed to back off from being a jerk about her obnoxious dog. But the incident challenged my admittedly shrinking mental control, and I heard myself say, “Does your rat-dog stink up 113 or 115?” I pointed at the two houses behind her.
She managed to look offended and offered no further apology but did not admit to the crazy runner where she lived.
I heard my mouth say, “113? Right! Get a leash,” and away I ran with my mind somewhere off to my left.
I had relayed all of this to Eddie over the phone earlier that day while I stood guard on lunch duty in the cafeteria. He’d heard my complaints about dogs before. He listened patiently and then launched into his best rendition of Repairman Husband, earnest to fix every problem for me. “Why don’t you do what my mom always did?”