by Brenda Storm
I love pork chops. Got one for me?
Kev’s ghost communicated telepathically with me again. He did used to love pork chops, but I doubted if I would have recalled that fact on my own without him invading my thoughts. I couldn’t see him this time, but I sensed his strong, indomitable presence. He was definitely here! Then I rudely forgot the other Kevin that waited to discuss my new furniture with me in my kitchen. Tempted, I sent a thought-to-thought question to my first boyfriend I ever had in school.
You’re here with me, aren’t you, Kev?
What do you think?
You are! You’re really here! Oh, Kev, I’m so glad you’re still alive…so glad you came back…thrilled that you’re still here with me!
I’m not going anywhere this time. I’m here to stay.
Promise?
I promise, Belle.
Was I a fool to believe a ghost’s promise? Only time would tell.
Days later, I was hooked. My mind drifted to my first love, Kev, practically every minute of the day. My work suffered. Could Harry tell that he shared my heart with my old sweetheart’s phantom?
“We need to get away…break free of the winter blahs,” my husband suggested when the first major snowfall blanketed the ground in white. “Let’s go on a cruise to San Juan.”
And leave Kev? “I can’t!”
The bright, orange fire crackled and popped against the logs in the stone fireplace. Was it my imagination or did I really see green-brown eyes staring back at me from the fire?
“Can’t or won’t go? What’s wrong with you lately, Belle?”
“Do you really want to know?” Harry used to be my best friend. Was he still? Would he understand if I confessed that I felt haunted by my first love?
Harry paused, standing up to use the brass poker and pick at the dying fire. “I think I already know. You’ve been talking in your sleep.”
Oh, no! “What did I say?” Anxiously I held my breath, hoping I didn’t reveal too many of my dreams.
“You said, ‘I love you, Kev. Forever and always.’ My name’s Harry, not Kev. How cool is it to tell one guy you love him in your sleep while you’re in bed with your husband?”
“Not very cool.” Guilt washed over me and I lowered my head in shame. I’d never cheated on Harry, not even in my thoughts, but now Kev’s ghost made me do it.
“You don’t deny it? Do you love someone named Kev?” Harry’s voice was quiet, yet commanding.
If I tried to lie, I feared that Kev might know and feel betrayed and he’d never visit me again. Between the ghostly, romantic, timeless love of Kev and Harry’s earthly, more conditional love, I knew which one I had to have, even if it meant wrecking my comfortable home life to obtain it.
“Do you love someone named Kev?” Harry repeated, his blue eyes daring me to reply as his questioning gaze never left my face.
I’d never been good at lying, especially to Harry. “Yes. I love my old boyfriend, Kev.”
Silence. Finally Harry asked casually, “Which of us is going to be the one to file for a divorce?”
“I will.” Kev would want me to do it. I would. Then my ghost lover should be pleased whenever I was free and all his. A joyful reunion it would be…just Kev and me, together forever, finishing the great love we started when we were teenagers on fire for one another on a sultry night that seemed frozen in time.
Icicles snapped and dropped to the ground as I shivered, awaking alone in my bed close to 2 a.m. Instinctively, I felt Kev’s presence. The bottom of the bed sagged as if from a man’s weight, and then I felt his warm legs brush against my own beneath the sheets. We both laid on our sides and there was no doubt in my mind that I felt him, cuddling against my back as his hot breath tickled my nape.
Kev used telepathic powers to warn me, You’ll lose the house if you leave Harry.
“But won’t I lose you if I let Harry stay…if I remain married?” I spoke aloud.
Yes. You’d lose me. I have spiritual rules I must obey. I’m breaking a few already, taking chances to be with you and hoping you’ll choose me.
“Where were you all those years when none of us could locate you?”
You don’t want to know. It wasn’t pretty!
“You drank yourself to death, didn’t you?”
Yes.
“Why did you do it, Kev?”
You know why. There was nothing to live for after I lost you…lost my job…lost my first wife that I didn’t love in the first place. Without love, there’s nothing, plus my health was failing…the sharp pains from pancreatitis were miserable…I felt ravenously hungry all the time from diabetes, but couldn’t eat properly since I had no enzymes…on and on, the health problems kept building up until I could stand it no more! There’s more for me in the afterlife than I had on earth.
“I wanted you to be happy.”
But I’m happy now. You make me happy. You always did. Say you’ll stay with me forever!
“Yes! But how? You’re in one world. I live in another. I don’t believe in suicide like you apparently did. It’s not my time to go yet, but I can’t bear to be separated from you again!”
We’ll find a way.
A cold draft made me shiver and reach for my silky pink robe. Kev was gone. Was my mind gone as well? Was I crazy for loving a ghost and wanting to commit my heart, the rest of my life, to a dead man? Outside my window the wind howled fiercely as if to protest, but I’d made my choice. I wanted to divorce Harry and find a way to love Kev exclusively. It was a crazy idea—choosing a fantasy over reality…a ghost over a live husband in the flesh, but for once in my life, I was ready to take a chance on love and gamble.
The divorce sailed through peacefully and fairly. As Kev’s ghost predicted earlier, I lost the house; it had to be sold. Little money remained after legal fees, the realtor’s commission and other bills. I felt fine, though, because Kev’s spirit followed me to my new small wood A-frame home where sea-salted air surrounded me. The small beach town was a mecca for retirees, and one of them kindly rented the A-frame to me despite me being 30 years younger than most of my neighbors.
The most interesting of my new neighbors was Callie Jo, a psychic, an old “flower child” left over from the 1960s “hippie” scene. She still wore psychedelic tops and refused to surrender her multi-colored glass love beads that dangled around her skinny neck. Nor would she cut her long black hair that spilled loosely around her slender shoulders. What I loved about Callie Jo was that, besides me, she was the only one that could “see” Kev.
“A curly-haired, green-eyed ghostly male follows you everywhere,” she announced the first time I met Callie Jo at a clam bake along the sandy seashore. “He says he’s loved you since the beginning of time. He’s a very old spirit, despite his dying young as he was about to approach middle age.”
Confirmation that she noticed Kev’s ghost at my side made me happy. Even when I didn’t see or feel him nearby, Callie Jo assured me, “He’s still with you.”
One breezy, sweltering night after I hadn’t detected Kev’s presence for days, Callie Jo informed me, “Kev wants you to unscrew your bedroom window screen…remove it. He’s coming into that room to see you tonight.”
“That’s what he did…what he wanted me to do many years ago when we were young,” I recalled fondly.
Too glad to remove the window screen this time, I waited in the small bedroom bathed in silvery moon glow. A clock chimed each hour until I nearly fell asleep, ready to give up on Kev returning as drowsiness claimed me and I started to feel irritated. Where was he? Why didn’t he come? Disappointed, I drifted off to sleep, but Kev didn’t appear at all that night, not even in my dreams.
Desperate after there was no sign of Kev for two weeks, I began to feel silly. I gave up my nice home…my loving husband…my future…my career. To make ends meet, I had to take a crummy job now as a salesperson at a cheap furniture store when previously I designed expensive showcase rooms for elite clients. I gave up everything I cherished
for Kev, but where was he now? For the first time in my life, I wondered if I might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It wasn’t like me to gamble or to lose myself in fantasy when reality demanded my full attention. Harry and I needed a change even before thoughts of Kev stole my heart, so I didn’t regret losing Harry, but I missed my house and my easier work life. The worst thing was Harry took our “baby”—Tawnee, a long-haired, tawny-colored Persian cat, but she was more attached to him than me, so I couldn’t part those two soul mates. At least there were no children involved or other delicate issues, and Harry agreed to let me come visit Tawnee and play with her as long as I called first and he wasn’t busy.
Missing Tawnee, her gentle purr, the sweet, innocent, loving look in her kitty eyes, her silky fur, I started to cry. Then as a warm tear streamed down my cheek, I felt a tender, familiar touch wipe away my tear. “Kev!”
Yes, it’s me.
I still couldn’t audibly hear his voice, but I tuned in on his thoughts and feelings. Our old bond must be too intense to ever be broken, I concluded.
You need to quit being friendly with Callie Jo. Get rid of her. She’s trouble.
It wasn’t like my old Kev to boss me around. He’d never done that. A free spirit, he never issued orders any more than he liked to obey them.
Callie Jo needs to go.
He didn’t give me time to respond or ask questions. Already I felt his presence withdraw from me. Lonely and longing for him to stay, I cried another tear, but this time Kev never returned to wipe it away.
“This is the funnest time I’ve had all year,” I told Callie Jo, who had convinced me to accompany her on an Alaskan sea cruise around majestic mountains and huge, glistening glaciers that resembled a crystal fairyland. I gulped in cold, crisp, clean air and stood on the deck where I savored nature’s magnificent view when Callie Jo’s cheerful mood switched abruptly to fear.
“There’s a fire in the engine room,” she stated, but then reassured me, “but the captain has it under control. You won’t believe how the fire started, though!”
“How?” I inquired curiously.
“Kev started it.”
Doubt drew my eyes tighter so I squinted as I asked, “Why would he do something dangerous like that?”
Like a clever cat, Callie Jo licked her dry lips before explaining, “He’s becoming restless, tired of being earthbound. It’s time for him to cross over and stay on the other side, but he doesn’t want to leave you. Yet his time on earth is short. The clock is ticking. He doesn’t have much longer until he must go.”
Dread enveloped me like a wool blanket that wrapped snugly around my trembling body and left me feeling too warm. “What can I do so I don’t lose Kev? I can’t bear for his spirit to depart and never return to me again!”
“We can try to summon him in a séance and see if we can persuade his spirit to take over another unsuspecting male body.”
“That’s a crazy idea! And I never liked to dabble into the occult. It’s dangerous!”
Callie Jo eyed me suspiciously. “You’re sure you don’t want to try a séance?”
“I’m sure.”
“What if it means you never see him again, Belle?”
I shrugged. “What will be will be. Long ago, I made a promise to myself to never play with a Ouija board or participate in séances after my friend’s horse threw her and left her paralyzed for life. The accident occurred the next day after we girls held a séance and consulted a Ouija board at a slumber party when we were thirteen.”
“Suit yourself,” Callie Jo responded dryly, adding, “but if I were you, I’d prepare to say goodbye to Kev’s ghost.”
“That’s easier said than done. He was the only guy I could ever really be myself with and he always knew how to make me smile. Smart, funny, talented, kind, sensitive, sexy, popular, sweet, but sassy…there’ll never be another one like Kev!”
Callie Jo laughed as her long, bony fingers clenched the ship’s railing that was painted stark white. “I envy you. All my life I never met a guy like that, let alone knew the joy of receiving his love and adoration.”
“Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all,” I quipped, and then asked, “With your psychic abilities, how is it that you never found the love of your life yet?”
“That’s the one question I always asked myself,” she replied, “and I have no answer. Wish I did.” Somewhere out on the water a deep-sounding boat horn blared as Callie Jo continued, “It’s been really nice getting to know you and Kev, too. Belle, you’re the only person I ever met that let me feel all that you felt, like your emotions for Kev. Normally I can read people’s minds or foretell their future a little, not entirely, but with you, I saw into your past into your very soul. I actually zoomed in on your passion for Kev—and his for you—as if it were my own. Such a wonderful feeling!”
Laughing, I teased, “Just another day in the life of a psychic, right? But I’m glad you know Kev the way I do. He was a great guy.”
“Still is a great guy.”
“Yes, he still is…because he’s still alive, still living in my heart.”
“Not for long, though.”
Anger, like a volcano boiling over with deadly, hot lava, exploded inside me. “Oh, Callie Jo, quit being so negative. If I believe Kev won’t go, perhaps he won’t. I must have faith that he’ll stick around.”
No response followed from my friend, the fortune-teller. The haunting sounds of more boat horns echoed in the misty harbor. Kev seemed nowhere around now. I returned to my cabin and fell asleep.
She’s lying to you.
In my dream Kev complained again about my friendship with Callie Jo. Wearily I struggled to comprehend his meaning.
You can’t trust her!
“Shut up!” Callie Jo appeared, shoving Kev so that he fell down on the ground where the psychic had painted strange symbols, like pentagrams, squares and stars in a circle.
Damn it! I’m trapped! She tricked me…used her dark powers to imprison me in this magic trap she created, Kev accused, looking pitifully at me as he communicated clairvoyantly.
“Why are you interfering?” I demanded from Callie Jo, who felt more my enemy now than she did my friend, although I didn’t know why we were no longer close.
A bizarre coldness created wrinkle lines across her forehead, “You convinced me that Kev is one in a million. I want him. I want to enjoy his love for myself. I cast a love spell. He’s about to be mine, not yours.”
“You traitorous bitch!” I spat, kicking her and pulling at her long smoky black hair, but she cackled and taunted me.
“Too bad you knew not to trust in the occult, but you were stupid enough to trust a psychic when I told you from the start that I could feel what you feel, especially where Kev is concerned. I’ve never known a love like that. He’s worth stealing…worth chancing that I could have to pay a price later if I break spiritual laws, like by stealing your lover’s ghost and all his love he has for you.”
“He’ll never stay with you. He loves only me!” At least, I hoped this was true.
Callie Jo laughed cynically. “He’s bewitched. Spellbound. He’ll love me and only me soon.”
Kill her.
Kev’s urgent request astounded me. He had to know I’d never killed a living being in my life.
Kill her or she will have the power to do as she says.
Well, there comes a first time for everything. This was only an eerie dream, right? No police. No court system. No law. Somehow Kev tossed me a glistening silver knife that he plucked from his pants pocket. Not hesitating, I stabbed Callie Jo in the back as she let her guard down and stared solemnly at Kev instead of me. Blood spurted out onto the peculiar symbols she’d drawn and a noisy “pop” sounded as she cursed and screamed before she vanished in a puff of smoke.
Kev sighed, relieved as he stepped forward easily now as he escaped the odd symbols that earlier held him captive in some strange, supernatural way.
Sirens bla
red, but they didn’t come from my dream. Awake in the real world, I saw Callie Jo lying in a pool of red blood on my front sidewalk. A neighbor must have witnessed the murder and called the police. As the cruiser sped into my drive and stopped before a husky, short-haired officer approached me, I heard a female voice—my neighbor’s—proclaim, “Belle did it!
It hadn’t been a dream after all! Now it was a nightmare and evidently reality. Somehow the past, present and future—the after-life and the present world—all blended into one.
The police officer hand-cuffed me and forced me into the police cruiser that carried me off to jail. Dazed, I felt numb inside as I, like an emotionless zombie, stared in horror at the iron prison bars on my small window. Kev’s ghost appeared on the other side.
Unscrew the window and come outside…come let me love you beneath the weeping willow tree and out in the shimmering moonlight.
“I want to, but I can’t! You told me to kill Callie Jo. I did and now I’m in jail!”
Didn’t I warn you to get rid of her earlier? But you didn’t. You kept her around after I told you she was trouble. Now I’m free, but you aren’t…that is, unless you have faith in me. Believe in me, Belle. Believe hard the way you used to trust in the unknown when you were a child. Make a secret wish. Wish yourself straight out here with me.
“I don’t know if I can.”
Try, baby, try.
With every ounce of courage in me, I imagined the prison window was my old bedroom screen, the one that Kev often begged me to unscrew and remove. I envisioned myself with a giant’s physical strength and tried to break through the window. Nothing.
Not with physical strength. Let love do it for you. Remember how much you love me…how deeply I’ll always love you. Love can move mountains…and prison bars!
Focusing on our endless love, I used my mind to force open the window. Cautiously I crawled through the window, if only in my mind, but that’s where it all counts, right? We all live in our own peculiar, unique, twisted realities inside our minds, tortured by life that isn’t always fair and just. Sometimes the only answer is to escape from ourselves, from our private pain, anyway we can.