The Two-Knock Ghost

by Jeff Lombardo

  When I returned to the condo, I played the last song that I had written for Christine on the piano, showered, and shaved and headed for the office.

  I was absolutely ecstatic when I greeted Amanda who was sitting at her desk looking resplendent in a red dress with black trim at the bottom, the pocket and the edges of the short sleeves. All the way to the office from the Beaches of Paradise, what I thought about was how lucky I was, how bright my future could be.

  Amanda reminded me of my schedule and even though it was almost 90 degrees outside, I said yes when she asked if I wanted hot chocolate. Then immediately I thought she must think I was an odd duck because of that little quirk.

  The day went smoothly, as had thousands of similar days before this. I equated the experience to the movie, Ground Hog Day. It was nothing special, just my typical day with few deviations. But today my highlights were my two phone calls. The first to Dr. Banderas at noon, and the second to Christine at 5:30. I was fortunate enough that when I called Dianne to ask if Dr. Banderas would speak with me, she asked him and he had said yes—even though I was interrupting his in-office lunch.

  “Hello, Dr. McKenzie,” he said pleasantly. “It is interesting that you are calling me the day after your appointment. What has happened that you wish to share with me?”

  “Dr. Banderas, I took your advice and let the Two-Knock Ghost come into my dream last night.”

  “And what did it turn out to be?”

  “It was my parents.”

  “So it was not something malevolent?”

  “On the contrary, they absolutely saved me from incredible pain in what started out as a horrendous devil dream.”

  He asked me to describe the dream in detail, which I did. When I finished, I asked him what he thought.

  “It was a beautiful dream. It took courage for you to finally, if not somewhat reluctantly, invite the ghost in, not knowing if its intent was to harm you. By doing so, you have taken a giant step forward in your recovery. I’m not sure that I believe in ghosts, but I believe in dreams. And in this case, I believe that Two Knock will return and reveal more. And if it does, you must tell me every detail because the facts of your dream may alter the way I perceive the universe.”

  “I never expected you to say that.”

  “We are all each other’s teachers, Dr. McKenzie, as you probably already know. But I am certain that your parents will return because they always returned when you did not invite them in. They never gave up before. Why would they give up now, when they finally made contact? It will be the sum total of what they tell you that will influence you so much that it may change your life. And as you reveal the facts in their most minute detail, that is what may alter my perception of the universe as well.”

  “I promise I will keep you abreast of any dream I have of them, Doctor. And thank you for making me feel like everything I tell you is fascinating and important to you.”

  “It is, Dr. McKenzie. Each tiny piece of the puzzle that is your dreams is fascinating. But what picture will be revealed when the puzzle is put completely together is what we both anxiously await.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Banderas.”

  “You are the utmost welcomed, Dr. McKenzie.”

  He sounded kind, but I also detected a bit of tiredness in his voice. I wondered for a moment how hard he worked. If he put as much effort and energy into each of his clients as he did for me, he would have every right to be tired. Thinking deeply of the right things to say to people when they are in mental distress or agony can be exhausting. Dr. Banderas was a strong and gentle soul. I could feel the weight of his ponderous mind, which was not unlike mine. I felt we were kindred spirits. He was intelligent and kind. I respected him and genuinely liked what I could see of him as a person.

  After I hung up the phone, it was back to work for me. But no matter what I did, the predominant thought in my mind was when will my parents return to my dreams. The answer didn’t come soon enough.

  Monday night came and went, no dreams of note. Tuesday night was the same. Wednesday nothing, except for my meeting with Dr. Banderas.

  I was very excited to see the man who had suggested that I invite the Two-Knock Ghost into my dreams. After a playful interaction with Dianne, I entered my psychologist’s plush office. Dr. Banderas stood as I entered. He held his hand out to shake mine as I strode across the room.

  “Success,” he said, as we squeezed palms. “A good beginning, that’s what I like.”

  “It’s a start for sure, but I wonder where we go from here?” I asked.

  “We wait,” he answered, “patiently and appreciatively of what they have shared with you in their first visit. I don’t think you can hustle ghosts along,” he said with a twinkle in his eye and a slight smile cracking onto the right side of his shut lips. “They live in their own time and space and we must respect their comings and goings, as they obviously have their own unique agenda.”

  I enjoyed listening to how this man articulated his thinking. For somebody who had told me he didn’t believe in ghosts, he sure seemed to know how to show them courtesy.

  “I am the psychologist and you are the client in this relationship, but I am extremely excited to hear what your parents have to tell you, hopefully in the very near future. I don’t think I’ve told you this yet, but sometimes when I’m finished dealing with a client with an interesting case, I dream some kind of dream directly related to it and sometimes I wake up thinking about the facts and circumstances of a case and often lay in bed thinking about it. I’ve lost thousands of hours of sleep over the years because of this reality.”

  “I hope you don’t lose too much sleep over my case,” I said with a twinkle in my eye.

  “On the contrary, Dr. McKenzie. I hope I do. Your case has become one of my favorites ever, and now the dream ghost has revealed itself and it’s friendly. When I think about my cases during the day, I am always distracted by something or someone, Dianne, a phone call, an emergency. But when I lay in bed and think about things, I am rarely distracted except maybe for my dear wife getting up to go to the bathroom. I even gave a nickname to that type of rumination. I call it, ‘wee hour thinking.’ And I want to assure you that though I have lost sleep, I have not lost those hours. In fact, I have gained something because most of the time I do my best work while lying flat on my back in bed during ‘wee hour thinking.’”

  “What have you gained, Doctor?” I asked, feeling intense curiosity.

  “Mostly insight, insight into the minds of my clients, sometimes my own mind and often into the nature of the human mind in general.”

  We talked like that for the rest of the hour, like two men getting to know each other piece by complicated piece. The more he spoke, the more I drifted into that space of wanting the man to be my friend. There was nothing new, nothing earth shattering in our conversation. The predominate theme was his encouraging me to be patient about my parents’ return. Also, he encouraged me to be joyful about my dreams and my life in general because not merely one breakthrough was about to happen, but many.

  I trusted him and I bought his encouragement and superimposed it upon that which I was producing for myself.

  Then Thursday night, nothing in the way of notable dreams.

  Finally, it was Friday. I knew Friday would be exciting. Mary Bauer was scheduled for 11:00 a.m. I couldn’t wait to see how she was feeling after our last intense conversation.

  When she came into the office, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The ten years she had aged in the last several months were gone. Her cheeks were rosy and her skin was sun-toned, as if she had spent hours on the beach in the past few days. She was smiling and pretty. The sad scowl which had zapped her of her natural good looks since I had known her had been vanquished by a blithe spirit from within her.

  Dr. Banderas’s jungle had influenced me and I had recently purchased seven plants from a greenhouse on
Central and about Sixty-Eighth Street. They were the first things she commented on as she almost bounded through the door.

  “Wow, Dr. McKenzie! Your plants are beautiful. They really liven up the room.”

  “Thank you, Mary. You look marvelous. To what can we attribute this change for the better?”

  “When you told me that Reubin Tatum was gone forever, I took that to heart, Dr. McKenzie. Each time I thought about that and felt better. Then, every time I thought about the rest of Reubin’s gang being gone forever, in a cell, I felt better still. I have much to thank you for. You have given me my life back.”

  A sharp pang of pain hit my stomach and immediately I thought of the soothing effects of rum and Coke. I had given Mary her life back, but I had cost Toby his. For a moment I continued looking at Mary Bauer squarely in the eyes while slowly nodding my head, but not hearing what she said. When she seemed to be finished with her next spoken paragraph, I guessed at what to say to her next.

  “How have these improvements in your happiness level influenced your relationship with your husband?”

  Mary Bauer was a shy, private person. What she said next surprised me.

  “We made love two times this week. Both times it was filled with tenderness and passion. And it was I who initiated almost all of the passion. It’s not that my husband had become disinterested in me. It’s that he had become tentative in his approach to me because he knew I was hurting emotionally. I knew that I had forced him into that behavior and I wanted to make it up to him. I felt safe with him, loved and adored by him, and I felt free to give of myself. It was the first time I’d felt that way in a long while. I feel like you’ve helped me to reclaim my marriage too.”

  Another pang hit my stomach. I had helped Mary Bauer to reclaim her marriage, but I had caused the destruction of Toby Magnessun’s. I wished I had a bottle of rum and Coke in the office, so as soon as Mary left, I could take a drink and put a Band-Aid on the massive guilt wound that I had. It was yet another of those thousands of skirmishes I knew I would have in my battle to stay sober. I quickly dismissed my desire for alcohol and tried to replace it by feeling some joy that Mary and her husband were mending.

  “What about the cruise?” I asked.

  “We’re going. I won’t have anything to worry about while we’re gone. We’re so excited.”

  She was ebullient. I was genuinely happy for her.

  “Dr. McKenzie, there is one thing that is bothering me. It’s new and it’s extremely difficult for me to tell you.”

  “If you really don’t feel comfortable, you don’t have to tell me.”

  “I know that Doctor, but I have to.”

  She paused and swallowed hard.

  “I want this to be my last session with you. School’s out, summer’s almost here. I’m feeling better. My husband and I are going on a cruise soon. I don’t want to think about pain anymore or negative things, specifically, my problems. I didn’t have any therapeutic problems before Reubin Tatum. I was very happy. I want to be that woman again. I know I can access her now. You’ve helped me so much and I thank you for your kindness, logic and consistent encouragement. But I want to look forward, not back. You helped me to move off the horrible spot that I was stuck on. I hope I’m not hurting your feelings by wanting our sessions to end Doctor, but you understand why I’m thinking this way, right?”

  She was speaking with a profound fusion of intensity and sincerity, and though it was a difficult moment for her, I could see the strength and confidence of the old Mary I had never seen, emerging.

  She would never know the great loss that had been incurred in order to deliver to her the comfort she deserved.

  “Of course I understand, Mary,” I said after what might have been too long of a pause. “I’m proud of how far you’ve come so quickly. If you’re happy, then I’m happy. If you’ve made up your mind already, about all I can offer you is to be here for you if you ever need to return for any reason.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, apparently relieved she didn’t get an argument from me.

  We talked out the rest of our final hour with rather superficial conversation. It was actually highlighted by Mary’s telling me of five new dresses she had already bought for the cruise. She regaled me with glorious details about colors, patterns, lengths and cuts. She spoke quickly as she described the clothes she couldn’t wait to wear for her husband. She told me that she wouldn’t show him the outfits before she wore them on the cruise. She wanted them to be a surprise. She was giggly as she spoke. All I could do was sit there and watch in amazement at her reacquired joy.

  When she departed my office, I felt sad and lonely, the way a person often feels when they finish a good book they took their time reading. I usually felt similar to this when a client reached the end of their time with me. And I wanted a drink. When I was drinking, I never thought about alcohol during my working hours. But now, because I hadn’t been drinking—except for my one collapse—it seemed that with every twinge of negative emotions, my body was overcome with cravings for liquor.

  I picked up the phone and called Christine. Fortunately, she was at work on a break and able to talk. I asked her if I could take her to dinner, maybe to Lee Gardens, the Chinese Buffet on Fourth Street. She said yes and I immediately felt better.

  That night dinner was wonderful. We knew all the waitresses and the hostess, and they knew both of us by our first names. I told Christine about my dream and how the Two-Knock Ghost finally came in and that it was my parents. She listened with interest to every word. She asked me also, if I had any stumbles during the week and I told her no. She smiled.

  Throughout the night Christine and I were affectionate with each other. In the car and on the short walk into the restaurant, we held hands. Inside the restaurant we got a booth and decided to sit side by side. There, the affection continued. Often I would rest my hand on her leg and equally as often, she would rest her hand on my leg. It was almost as if we were a young couple again.

  I would listen to stories about her job as intently as she would listen to details of my life. The smooth flowing of the equality of our sharing was so wonderful that at one point during dinner my eyes welled with tears as I thought about it. Everything I had ever wanted in life was wrapped up in this tiny woman sitting next to me. Christine noticed my eyes.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” she asked tenderly.

  I simply shook and lowered my head as my eyes closed.

  “You’re happy right now, aren’t you, Turf?” There it was again, my old nickname. And a greater flood of emotion came upon me forcing tears from my eyes like parallel rivers of liquid emotion. I nodded my head yes this time. As Christine reached around my neck and hugged me tightly before kissing me lightly on the neck, the way my father did, but without the funny sounds.

  After dinner, during which we consumed at least 30 shrimp each, I drove Christine the short ride back to our home on Snell Island. I parked the car in the driveway and accompanied my wife to the front door and right into the house. We did not need words between us to ask and answer whether I would spend the night with her. It was understood between us in an inner space that was never wrong.

  We brushed our teeth at the same time, then Christine put on a pretty pink teddy, and I put on a pair of solid blue cotton pajamas. We were in bed within thirty seconds of one another—Christine first, then me. I snuggled up behind her, curled my body around my resting sweetheart, then brought both my feet up, so they were playing with hers. We were cozy beyond belief. There were no covers above us. The air conditioning was set at the perfect level. We were together and tender, two people who’d had interesting and tiring weeks. Within three minutes and without a word having been spoken or a single kiss being shared. That is how we fell asleep.

  Sometime during an undisturbed night of quality sleep, the real excitement began. Thankfully it wasn’t a devil dream. I hadn�
�t anticipated having one because they were extremely rare while sleeping with Christine. My favorite live oak appeared. It was recurring in its most recent position as the centerpiece of the tranquil rustic scene. The tree was in front of the creek that ran through the entire scene and the grass was the green of a million emeralds and the sky was a cool blue and cloudless. The white swing was hanging from the tree’s lowest branch, and I was sitting on it pensively. I was holding my notebook from work, working on what to say to tomorrow’s clients. All of a sudden like a thunder blast from a clear blue sky it broke the moment of tranquility I was enjoying and scared me for an instant. Two knocks, that’s all it was. The sounds of the knocks had been augmented by some unknown power, but this time I knew what it was. I looked to the sky where I heard the knocks emanate and said, “Come on down,” in an announcer voice, like they do on The Price is Right. In a moment the golden glowing door opened and my parents passed through, this time floating down to where I was sitting on the swing. They stopped and stood before me smiling sweetly, my father carrying a large picnic basket, the kind that opens at both ends. My mother spoke first.

  “We thought you might be hungry, honey, so we brought a picnic lunch to share while we all chat.” I jumped off the swing while my mother pulled a sheet, the same cream color as I wore in my dreams, out of the basket and spread it on the ground. Then each of us sat on it as Mom and Dad took out my favorite foods one by one. I was so happy to be there with them, but one thing was very strange. It was weird being older than them. No one said a word about that. The fact that I had aged and they hadn’t was just accepted because I was still living life on earth and they had obviously been in a place where you didn’t age. Because of that, we accepted each other for the way we were, but it did raise my curiosity about where they had been all these years and where did they come from these two welcomed visits? Because of my wondering, I asked them my first question.