The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women (Mammoth Books)

a sign, any sign. Comfort, any comfort. In desperation I turn to the books, to the acacia. But I hear only silence. Damnable silence.

I look down at the shard of glass by my hand.

Daydreaming again, weren’t you? Amy laughs. Always dreaming. Always distracted. One of these days, you’re going to hurt yourself.

I run my finger along the edge of the shard. As sharp as her ceramic knives, the ones I bought for her birthday, kept in the cupboard so Rose wouldn’t mistake the white blades for plastic.

And don’t you use them either, she’d said to me. Please.

Worried about me. About us. That was her nature. Double-checking door locks. Double-checking the stove. Double-checking Rose’s car seat. Even if she’d done it herself, she always double-checked. If Rose or I so much as stubbed our toes and yelped, Amy would come running.

She’d always come running.

I take the shard, pinch it tight between thumb and forefinger. Drag the edge along my arm. Blood wells up.

“Amy?”

I cut deeper. Blood drips on to the dirty pages of the useless book.

“Amy? I need you.”

Damnable silence. Always silence.

Crouched at their graves. Talking until I realize I’m only speaking to fill the silence, and I stop. I touch the marble. Cold. Always cold, even now with the late winter sun beating down.

No flowers. I took them away as soon as they started to wither. Dead flowers by a grave seem wrong. Left and forgotten. Nothing here should be forgotten.

I bring new mementoes every week. Something small. Something meaningful. A franc from our honeymoon. A seashell from our last vacation. A button from Rose’s First Communion dress. A cat’s-eye marble from Amy’s childhood collection. Indestructible. As memories should be.

I come here twice a week to talk to them. I know they won’t hear me, but I hope others will. Other ghosts. I can see them flitting past the graves. Wandering, endlessly wandering, looking for someone to take their message to the world beyond.

That someone used to be me. I couldn’t set foot in a cemetery without being besieged by the dead. Now they give me a wide berth. They know I come with a plea of my own. Find my wife. Find my daughter. Tell them I need to see them. Need to speak to them.

I want something from the ghosts, so they want nothing to do with me. I sit here and I talk to my wife and child, and I pray my words will thaw the hearts of those shades. I pray one will finally approach and say, “I’ll do this.” They don’t. They keep their distance and they wander in silence. Always silence.

The doorbell rings. I hear it through the garage walls. Someone on the front porch. Someone come to call. I ignore it and keep working on the car.

Three months, and it’s almost finished. The windshield replaced. The engine repaired. The dents hammered out.

There’s one thing I can’t fix. The blood on the passenger’s seat. No longer red. Faded to rust brown. But still blood. Undeniably blood.

The insurance company didn’t want me to have the car. Too badly damaged, they said. We’ve paid you; now let us dispose of it. I’d pulled out my contract and showed them the clause where I could buy back the wreck for a few hundred dollars. At least let us remove the seat, they said. No one needs to see that. But I did.

“Hello!” a voice calls.

I stay crouched by the front of the car, replacing the cracked headlight. The door opens.

“Hello?”

It’s no one I know. I can tell by the voice. I consider staying where I am, but that’s childish. I stand and wipe my hands on my jeans.

“Can I help you?”

It’s a portly man, smiling that desperate, too-hearty smile of the salesman. I let him talk. I have no idea what he’s saying, what he’s selling. Just words, fluttering past.

“I’m not interested,” I say.

He sizes me up. I wonder how I look to him. Unshaven. Bleary-eyed. Worn blue jeans. Grease-stained T-shirt. A drunk? Drug addict? Can’t hold a job? Explains why I’d be home in the middle of the day. Still, it’s a decent house, and he’s desperate.

He sidles around the front of the vehicle.

“Nice car,” he says.

It isn’t. Even before the accident, it was a serviceable car, nothing more. Amy had wanted something newer.

Not fancier, she said. Just safer, you know. For Rose.

I hear BMWs are safe, I said. You’re a lawyer’s wife now, not a law student’s. You need a BMW.

She laughed at that. Said I could buy her one when I made partner. I played along, but secretly made phone calls, visited dealers, planned to buy her a BMW or a Mercedes, whichever would make her feel safer. It was to be a Christmas gift.

Christmas.

That’s what we’d been doing three months ago. Christmas shopping. The mall busy, the shoppers cranky, we’d left later than we expected, past dark. Cars were still streaming into the lot, circling for spots. A woman saw me putting bags in our trunk. She asked if we were leaving and I said I was. When I got in the car, Amy was still standing by the open rear door, trying to cheer up Rose, fussing, her nap missed.

Hon, there’s a lady waiting for our spot.

Whoops. Sorry.

She fastened Rose’s chair and climbed into the passenger seat. I started backing out.

Wait! I need to double-check the— She glanced back at the car waiting for our spot. Never mind. I’m sure it’s fine.

“You restoring it?” The salesman’s voice jerks me from the memory and I glower at him. I don’t mean to. But for a second, I’d heard Amy’s voice, clearly heard it. Now it was gone.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m restoring it.”

“Huh.”

He struggles for a way to prolong the conversation. I bend and continue tinkering with the light. He stands there a moment. Then the silence becomes too much and he leaves.

A week later, the car is roadworthy. Barely. But it will make it where I want to go, all the bits and pieces intact, no chance of being pulled over.

The roadside.

I pull to the shoulder. It’s dark here, just outside the city. An empty snow-laced cornfield to my right, a bare strip of two-lane highway to my left. In front of the car, a crooked cross covered in dead flowers. More dead flowers stuck in a toppled tin can. I didn’t put them there. I don’t know who did. Strangers, I suppose. Heard of the tragedy and wanted to mark the place. I’d rather they hadn’t.

I didn’t need that wretched memorial to remind me where it happened. I would know the exact spot without any marker, save the image burned into my memory.

Coming back from Christmas shopping. Dark country road. The car quiet. A good silence. A peaceful silence. Rose asleep, Amy and me being careful not to wake her. Snow falling. First snow. Amy smiling as she watches the flakes dance past.

A pick-up ahead of us. A renovation company. Boards and poles and a ladder piled haphazardly in the back.

Oh, Amy said. That doesn’t look safe. Could you . . . ?