Later, trying to make sense out of what had happened, she went over and over the scene, trying to glean every detail. The Mike she had seen that day had not been bloody and broken, but handsome, beautiful Mike wearing the new suit he'd bought for the trip and the tie she'd given him for Christmas, the breeze making his hair do that thing that irritated him but that she liked. Did he cast a shadow? Was the background faintly visible through him? Much later, having played the sight back so many times that the memory lost its integrity, she could see it any way she chose: Yes, he cast a sharp shadow on the sidewalk, no, he didn't; yes, he was solid as anyone else on the square, no, he had a slightly misty or translucent look.
One thing she knew for sure, though: It had been Mike, Mike and no one else, who had looked into her eyes that day with that inexpressible emotion. Somehow space and time and corporeality had permitted him to visit her in the minutes after his death. Mike had sought her and found her.
Much later, she'd learned that the occurrence was among the most common paranormal experiences: the spectral visitation by a geographically remote loved one at the moment of death. The survivor's conviction that the manifestation was physically real was also typical.
Of course, the statistics didn't explain how it happened. Nor help her come to grips with it.
In the end, all she hoped was that whatever he had experienced at that moment, he had seen the smile on her face, understood it for what it was: Oh, my beautiful Mike is here, what a wonderful surprise! Hello, my sweet, how I love you. Surely that was obvious, surely he couldn't mistake it for anything else. Whatever he took wherever he went afterward, she hoped he'd remember that.
It deflected her entire life, her whole being. Suddenly she was alone and heartbroken. Every simple assumption had been smashed. The days of anything clear and straightforward had died with Mike.
She also had a huge mystery right in her face, obstinate, undeniable. To cope with that, she started doing some reading. After a while she went back to school, studying psychology, philosophy, religion, anatomy and physiology, history – whatever seemed to promise hope of an explanation.
Or was it really explanation she wanted? Cree sometimes wondered. Maybe it was more a search for a way back to Mike. She spent her life looking through windows into other dimensions of the world, and into the past, observing and interacting with the ghosts that lived there. She claimed to be a scientist, but in the end maybe it all came down to the simple hope that one day, through one of those windows, she'd see Mike again. Just one more glimpse.
The night air had turned very cool, the breeze more insistent and now heavily laden with mist. The candles had burned themselves out, and Paul Fitzpatrick had become little more than a shadow in his chair. He didn't move or speak.
Against her will, Cree found herself laughing. Each laugh hurt, an explosion in her chest that burst up and seemed to come out her aching eyes.
'What?' Paul asked warily.
'Talk about a lead balloon! Talk about ways to put the chill on a date! Oh, man! Tell him you were married to the perfect guy whose shoes nobody could fill. Yeah, and better yet, tell him the perfect guy's not really, totally, quite dead, no, you're still pretty much married to him, so good luck, bud!' It really would be funny if it didn't hurt so much.
Paul didn't say anything.
Neither of them moved for a long time, and after another little while the coarse, blowing mist turned into raindrops that pattered on the umbrella and splashed on Cree's face. They were both well soaked by the time Paul leaned forward, put his hands on his knees, and stood. He came up stiffly, as if his joints pained him.
'Blowing up pretty wet,' he said hoarsely. 'We should probably go inside.'
24
Hey. it's me. ' A quarter to four in the morning. Poor Ed.
'Mmph. Hi. Yeah. I figured.'
Cree had been lying for hours in the dark room, listening to waves of rain wrap around the hotel and thrum at the windows. At intervals the wind sighed vastly, a weather god from the gulf coming inland to die. Mike's face came and went: Mike from days in Concord, nights in Philly, road trips they'd taken, mundane moments, making love.
Between visits from Mike's memory, she replayed the scene with Paul. They had fled the roof as the rain began to pelt down in earnest. Back in his kitchen, there didn't seem to be anything more to say. Her hands could still almost feel the topography of his back, the man shape of his bones and muscles, and they wanted to go there again and explore further. But that would be betrayal, and anyway the moment had gone. Whatever Paul thought of their embrace or her narrative, he didn't voice it. After a few strained moments, Cree had said tentatively, 'Well, I should probably be going.' And Paul hadn't argued, only offered to walk her to her car. She had declined. No point in both of them getting any wetter.
'Sorry to call so late, Ed, you must be – '
'No, no. Actually, I w's gonna call you, but I… mm, got in pretty late myself… ' She heard the sandpapery sound of Ed massaging his cheeks, trying to get his mouth working.
'I'm all fucked up, Ed.'
Rearranging noises: Ed was sitting up in his bed in Massachusetts, hunching over the phone. He'd scratch his head with his free hand and leave his hair sticking out the way it did when he napped on his office couch.
'I disagree about that, but I'll gladly listen to why you think so.'
Cree hadn't thought it through this far when she'd reached for the phone. She couldn't tell him about Paul, and that wasn't where it came from, anyway. 'Oh, Mike stuff. You know.'
'Yeah.'
'I mean, I'm going around talking to him.'
'Why's it happening now, Cree? What's bringing it on?'
She stumbled over the question. 'I don't know. Nothing. I don't know.' Paul Fitzpatrick. Who reminds me that I want to live life and don't know how.
They were quiet for a long moment. Ed probably heard her evasion. At the very least, he'd know Cree Black was never without complex explanations – if she wanted to reveal them.
'And my mind is doing some pretty strange things,' she confessed. Partly a way to change the subject.
'Like?'
Where to even start? 'Oh, I don't know. Like yesterday, middle of the day, I was over at the house. And I had this daydream. I had clear picture of what it was like during the Civil War.'
'I do that sometimes. Everybody does, don't they?'
'No, this was… a particular day, a specific moment. I was looking out the window, across the lawns at the next house. The Union troops were taking the neighbors away, and… ' Cree stopped. Telling Ed about it now, she suddenly remembered something she hadn't realized had been there when she'd been jolted out of the vision. Names: The neighbor woman was Mrs. Millard. The two girls were Lizzie and Jane and the little boy was William John. The Millards.
'Jesus,' she said.
'What?'
'I remember their names now. And I wasn't me, I was a young woman, a teenager… and I was sitting in the slave quarters because they were making me wait there.'
Ed didn't say anything for a moment. No doubt he was processing it the same way she was: Either Cree was getting very screwed up indeed, her mind running amok, or she had really visited the past through the mind of someone who had once lived at the house. And if that were true, poor Ed would have another huge theoretical problem to try to fit in with all the other crazy, freakish things Cree threw at him.
'Did the general have a teenage daughter then?' he asked.
'I don't know.'
Ed was chuckling. 'Oh, Cree,' he said softly. 'The marvelous Cree.'
'What.'
