This was the course of their evening, time with a friend, trying to pretend things were actually good even though they both knew there was a huge lie hiding underneath that particular surface.
Katie just wanted to make her friend feel better while Mandy was determined to wallow. So Mandy watched a few seconds of everything on television while Katie sat at her computer. The two best friends passed their evening in this manner and neither of them thought less of the other for allowing it to be so uneventful.
By the time they realized how late it had gotten, Mandy said she’d just sleep on the couch, that she didn’t trust her eyes to drive home. Katie agreed. So much for a girls’ night of fun.
In the morning, Mandy was woken by a bird pecking outside. The sound rang through her head and made her bones ache with its grating rapid fire tattoo. She stretched and turned over, only momentarily confused where she was, then the previous night came back to her.
And with that, everything else came back as well, the fight, the breakup, the job, the new life. She pulled her phone from her purse on the floor and looked at the display, hoping for the first time Sam hadn’t tried to call or text; if she didn’t reply, she didn’t want him to think she was out with someone else. If he didn’t get an answer, she didn’t want him to drive by the apartment and not see her car. Please, she thought, just this once, let him not be there.
There was nothing from him. That’s good, she thought, but immediately after she regretted it because, obviously, she did hope he called.
She climbed off the couch and wandered into the bathroom, peed and came back out, wondering where Katie was. She sent a text, “Where u at?”, then made a cup of coffee while she sat on the couch watching out the front window. A few minutes later, her phone beeped.
“Got called in for half day. Fuck work.”
I hear ya, Mandy thought, then remembered she would be starting work tomorrow and was glad. She liked her days off, but she needed money.
She sent a text back to Katie, “K. Gimme a call later,” and she finished her coffee, grabbed her purse and her new lunchbox, and locked Katie’s door behind her.
She walked out into the bright sunshine and that bird was still at it. She spotted it on a light pole across the street. The sound was grating, and getting into the car didn’t muffle it at all. As she drove away, it finally faded and she was relieved.
She stopped at a gas station and put another twenty dollars in her tank, the most Mandy was ever able to convince herself to spend on gas, even though her Jeep took at least forty to fill it up. She’d bought it used several years ago and didn’t think she’d ever seen it with a full tank since the day she took possession. And until she started making a whole lot more money than she ever had before, she never would see it filled. Instead of an extra gallon in the tank, she spent another few bucks on a pack of chocolate donuts and a Coke, then had her breakfast while she pumped the gas and drove home.
She pulled up outside, knowing this was the last place she wanted to be, but it was where she lived, where all of her stuff was, so what choice did she have until she could afford to move and get a place that wasn’t full of Sam’s memory?
She didn’t get out right away, instead she sat staring at the building, looking into her living room window, wondering if he might be in there. Then she decided I have to stop this. I can’t keep living every fucking second in mourning for someone who doesn’t want to be with me. It’s been weeks now, he’s not coming back, and if he does, great, but he’s not here now and I’ve got to put this shit behind me and live.
She felt her resolve grow in those moments and she promised if she felt herself getting sad again or dwelling once more on that last fight, she’d do something to take her mind off it. She’d pinch herself or start wearing a rubber band on her wrist and snap it every time those bad thoughts came in. She’d get a pet and lavish all of her attention on it. Better yet, she’d throw herself into this new job and be the best damn caregiver the Home had ever seen. And in the hours she wasn’t working . . . maybe a second job, maybe a hobby. She’d always wondered what the big deal was over a lot of canceled TV shows she’d never seen. She’d never seen an episode of “Firefly” or “Arrested Development.” Maybe even “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” That show was on forever, it could take a while to work through all of those episodes. Whatever it was, she’d find something to occupy her mind and eventually all of this would be a bad memory she was able to successfully keep at bay.
Jesus, she thought, it’s not like I’ve never broken up with a boyfriend before. I always get over them in the end.
She took a deep breath, trying to maintain her resolve in this moment, then she got out and went into the building. She walked up the steps to her second floor, walked the hall and stopped outside her door.
This is my home, she thought. I had good times and bad times here, but it’s just where I live and those memories can’t hurt me unless I let them. And I’m not going to do that anymore. Life is too short for that.
She unlocked the door, stepped inside, and froze.
Sam had been here in the night.
She couldn’t see the evidence, but she knew her apartment well enough to sense it. Something was out of place. Something was new. He’d left something. What was it? Where was it? She looked all over the living room, over the coffee table, the book shelf, by the TV. Into the kitchen, nothing on the counter, or the table. Nothing was missing from the fridge.
Maybe she was wrong, maybe he hadn’t been here.
No, she thought. It feels wrong, the air in the apartment was different. She sensed his smell. He had been here, dammit, and she hadn’t. She’d chickened out and spent the night at Katie’s instead of being here, and now she’d missed him. What if he’d wanted to apologize? What if he’d wanted to make up and put things back like they were? And she’d missed it.
She wanted to call him, to ask him what he’d wanted, but she couldn’t do it. For one, she didn’t find anything to say he had definitely been here, even though she knew in her heart he had. And when he came over and saw she still wasn’t home, he’d probably assumed she was either with Katie or, worse, out with someone else, and since he hadn’t bothered to call or text last night to find out, Sam had probably assumed the worst and had left, pissed off and having second thoughts.
This was the worst case scenario, she realized.
And all her resolve from only a few minutes before was gone. She wanted to cry. She wanted to have Sam in front of her and beg him to tell her what she’d done wrong, why couldn’t they put everything behind them and pretend it never happened and just be happy again?
But she knew, even as the thought formed, it would never happen. If he walked in the door right then, there was so much pain, pretending it never happened wasn’t possible. They could, hopefully, work through it together, but forgetting it? No.
Then she spotted it, lying on the floor next to the couch, under the end table they’d picked up at a garage sale shortly after moving in together. There was Sam’s cap.
He must have come in last night, tossed it on the table, where it fell on the floor, and he’d left again, forgetting to pick it up. The sight of that stupid, dirty hat lying forgotten under the table summed up everything she felt and Mandy collapsed in tears onto the couch and had the last good cry she was ever going to have over this stupid business. She was in the middle of sobbing her eyes out when she determined this was really it. She thought of how happy she would be if she could just pretend they’d never met and she could start her life again from this moment. She would be happy again. She would find a way to fill that hole, because as she cried herself raw that morning she knew she would always miss her best friend, that they shared something she’d never felt with anything else in all her life, a connection she knew had been the most real she’d ever been with anyone, and it sucked that she couldn’t get that back, and maybe one day she would, maybe one day Sam would miss her too and want to put things back together, but she knew i
n that moment that this was no way to live and if she kept up like this, she would only kill herself with grief, so this was it, she decided. This was the last cry. And she let it all out.
She cried for a very long time, alternating between heavy, soul-crushing sobs that left her unable to breathe, and quiet whimpers as all those good, quiet times went through her head. She thought of their secret language, the shorthand all couples develop. She thought of their mental connection, the way one could ask the simplest question ever, not even a complete question, like the last time they watched a movie together and one of the actresses had been in a reality game show they’d seen just a few months before and Mandy asked simply, “Is that…?” not remembering the woman’s name or what show she’d been on, but Sam knew what she meant and he’d answered with a prompt, confident, “Yep.”
She would miss those moments. She already missed the feel of him in bed with her, the heat from his body on a chilly night, and she wondered if she’d ever get used to sleeping alone again. But that was how things were, so she figured she’d have to get used to it, wouldn’t she? She cried every last tear she had until she was still heaving her shoulder-slumping cries through dry eyes, but she didn’t let herself stop even then because, she told herself, this is fucking it right here. After this, no more, never again, so get it while the getting’s good and let’s put this shit behind us once and for all.
The relationship was over. Sam was gone. That was now, that was real. She had a job to start tomorrow, that was now and real also. She needed the job to be able to support herself, and she couldn’t do the job if she was an emotional wreck checking her phone every five minutes for a message that wasn’t coming. So this, dammit, was it.
She cried until she fell asleep on the couch. When she woke up an hour later, she stumbled into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Mandy’s usually-porcelain skin didn’t shine like it used to. It carried a hint of grey now and the circles under her bright green eyes looked like bruises. She had thin, unusually red lips that normally stood out in stark contrast to her skin, but now they too seemed lifeless and dim. Her clothes hung off her too-thin frame as if she were made of twigs.
“This is no way to live,” she told her reflection.
She made a sandwich, tossed the hat in the trash--if he’d wanted it, he shouldn’t have left it--then went to the library to see if she could find any movies to borrow. She couldn’t always rely solely on Katie to help her get through the nights alone. She had to start somewhere.
The Young Woman
Not all Mertland ghosts were of the same variety. One ghost in particular had never been anything more than the personification of one person’s regret. But then, it’s the things we carry that weigh us down the most.
The young woman had spent three months in a facility that helped clean her out, both physically and mentally. All the chemicals in her system were washed away with time while her mind had been prepared to deal with the hard truths of what led to her addictions in the first place, as well as the aftereffects of what that addiction had done to her family.
Anyone who’s been through the process can tell you, once you’re clean, it’s looking back and seeing what your actions have done to those around you, those you love most, that hurt more than any kind of withdrawal.
When she returned home from her time away, she began the process of rebuilding her life. It wasn’t the life she wanted, but she had made her decisions and part of getting clean was living with the consequences of what you had done while in your addiction. Those around her would forgive her or they wouldn’t, she could only “let go and let God” as they said in group.
While she was away getting her help, Anna, her daughter, had been placed in the Mertland Childrens' Home. When the woman came back home, she had tried to get her daughter back, but she hadn’t yet proved she could take care of herself, let alone a child. The only thing a clean drug test proved was that she hadn’t used drugs recently.
Get a job, she’d been told, prove you can stand on your own two feet, and that you can keep passing your random drug screens, and we’ll see how things work out from there.
So she got a job. There was an opening for a caregiver at the Mertland Childrens' Home. She thought for sure she’d never get the position; conflict of interest, she was positive. But she had to at least try. Surely something like this would prove how reliable she was and how fit she was to take care of her own daughter. If she could take care of other peoples’ kids, surely she was qualified to see after her own.
So she got up that day and, in her blue jeans and red shirt, something left over from an old boyfriend long gone but the only thing she had that was clean, she strolled into the office, shook the offered hand, and gave the best interview of her life.
She didn’t reveal her past drug use, only minutes later realizing when her connection to Anna came out, as it was sure to do, so would everything else about her past. But in the end, it didn’t matter.
Even when they found her on her hands and knees in the bathroom, crying her eyes out and screaming for her daughter--Anna wasn’t there; she’d been sent to a foster home two days earlier--and she spilled the whole tale in a rush of tears and wailing, when she told them about her history with drugs, about being arrested and having her daughter taken from her, they never let her go. They helped her up, dried her eyes and wiped her nose, then sent her to meet the rest of the girls under her care.
Eventually, Anna grew up, so she assumed, and possibly forgot about her mother. She never returned to the Home, and her mother, for her part, put all of the affection and attention she wasn’t allowed to lavish on her own daughter onto the daughters of strangers. She had lost one daughter and gained, over the years, dozens and dozens more.
It was anything but a fair trade and not a day went by that the young woman, who eventually grew to be very old but whose years never showed on her face, didn’t think about her daughter, didn’t look out the windows of the Mertland Childrens' Home and long for the life she’d lost. It wasn’t the drugs she missed, or jail, or even the rehab facility although the cafeteria there made a turkey and mashed potato dinner that was to die for.
She just missed “out there.” But the rules were the rules and, while she didn’t like them, while those rules kept her and her daughter apart and she eventually came to realize she would probably never see Anna again, she had made her choices and now, as she had learned in rehab, she was going to live with the ghost of that old life haunting her for the rest of her unnatural life.
Monday
On her first day of work, Mandy showed up early. She had dressed in tan Capris with a stark white, plain button down short sleeved top. She had remembered her loafers today and hoped they wouldn’t squeak as much as the Chucks had. She parked in the same spot she’d parked for her interview with Mr. Winters two days earlier, directly in front of the building a couple hundred feet away, went into the same door, and stopped outside Mr. Winters’s office. She knocked and heard a voice call “Come in,” in reply, so she went inside.
Mr. Winters looked up, a little surprised, definitely somewhat offended and said, “I know it’s your first day, but when the door is closed, I generally like people to knock before coming in.”
Taken aback, Mandy stared at him for a second, then pointed at the hallway with her thumb over her shoulder and said, “I did knock. You said come in.”
Mr. Winters shook his head and said, “I never said any such thing. I’m not upset at you, Mandy, but in a facility like this, it’s very very important that we follow every rule. We have to set the example for the kids. It starts with you, it starts with me, it’s up to every one of us on staff here.”
“But, Mr. Winters, I--”
“I’m not saying we have to be perfect here, nobody is, but they learn by example, and we are that example. So please, in future, knock first.”
“Mr. Winters,” Mandy stammered, “I did knock. I heard you say . . . You didn’t say come in, did you?”
&
nbsp; Mr. Winters shook his head slowly, prolonging his disapproving frown. She thought he could easily be a cartoon school principal come to life.
“So, what I heard was . . . one of the ghosts, maybe?”
Mr. Winters cocked his head, bit the inside of his cheek as he thought this over, then said, “I don’t see how, since I’m familiar with all of the ones we have and, as I explained already, they’re nothing more than a time loop, playing over and over. And there are no ghosts here who stand outside my office door and invite visitors inside. You may have heard a voice from elsewhere in the building, but I assure you it wasn’t me, it wasn’t coming from in here, and it didn’t tell you to come into my office.”
“Then I apologize,” Mandy said, certain now she’d lost her job before she’d even started. “I heard something. I thought it was you. It won’t happen again.”
“Neither here nor there,” Mr. Winters said. “You’re in now. What can I help you with?”
“I just wondered what you wanted me to do. My first day. I’ve brought my lunch, but don’t know where to put it. Do I need to clock in or anything? Is there a break room or something?”
Mr. Winters sat back down behind his desk, and looked at the clock.
“Lynn will be here soon, she’ll show you everything you need. And please close the door behind you.”
Mandy nodded and backed out, doing as he’d asked with the door. Well, she thought, that went over very well. At least I’ve still got a job, though.
She stood waiting in the hall, her purse in one hand, her lunchbox dangling from the other, her eyes roaming the walls. She cracked her knuckles, glanced down the hall and saw the reader was back at his table, face buried in his book, and she decided that, yes, he had to be a ghost, and he seemed harmless.
A few minutes later, a tall, plain faced woman, wearing no make-up and dressed in jeans and a simple orange T-shirt, appeared behind her, startling her for a moment. She was neither pretty nor unattractive, Mandy thought. She carried a belly, though, that bore the fullness of a pregnant woman, but something about the way she carried it told Mandy she didn’t think the woman was pregnant. Best not to ask when she was due and, if Lynn brought it up, ok, but if not, maybe she was just fat.
The Ghosts of Mertland (An Angel Hill novel) Page 3