I noticed her, as I did two other women, Lucy Osborne and Annette Mayes, who lingered longer than most of the others. Both were at least fifteen years younger than I, and gorgeous. Lucy was a brunette, Annette a redhead. I wondered if David had stayed with my type or looked for something different when he chose a lover. Something in the way Annette looked at me made me decide he had tried something different. Oddly, I didn’t feel the animosity I thought I would feel towards her. I really didn’t care. David had come back to me. Fifteen weeks was not twenty-one years.
I sat next to the open grave longer than my sister, Lisa, thought I should, but I refused to be steered away. My father told her to let me be and then gave me a hug and said they’d be waiting for me at the car, to take my time.
“I guess this is goodbye, David,” I said aloud, and was startled to feel a warm hand on my shoulder. I looked up into the eyes of the ghost.
This time, I was angry. This was my private moment with David, and I didn’t want living or dead intruding on it. At the time, the man seemed to be among the living. I couldn’t see through him and his hand was warm. “Can’t a person have a moment’s peace?” I said, trying to remove his hand, but only touching my own shoulder. That frightened me.
He shook his head sadly and removed his hand.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said.
He shrugged.
“Are you David?” I asked, thinking maybe I was seeing him transformed somehow.
But the ghost shook his head.
“Could I please have a little time to say goodbye to my husband? Would that be too much to ask?”
He gave a little bow and vanished.
I was shaking. “David,” I said, when I had calmed down, “Why isn’t it you? If I’m going to go crazy and see ghosts, why isn’t it your ghost? Show up, David. Materialize, or whatever it is you do. I want you back.”
I waited. Nothing.
“Goodbye, David,” I said, giving up. “I’ll miss you. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. Be very sad for a very long time, I suppose.”
I looked up and saw a man walking toward me. I knew this one was among the living. There was nothing extraordinary about Detective Russo’s appearance. He was a plain-faced man, neither handsome nor ugly. He was of medium height, had mouse-brown hair that was cut short. His eyes, his voice, and his face usually reflected very little of what he was thinking or feeling. If you talked to him for a while, there was no mistaking his intelligence, but he didn’t walk around with his IQ embroidered on his sleeve. An ocean of calm, he seemed to me. I could use it.
“Hello, Detective Russo,” I said as he approached.
“Hello, Dr. Blackburn,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry if I interrupted you. Just wanted to make sure you were all right. I’ll leave-”
“No,” I said, standing up. “Don’t worry about it. I need to walk to the car; I’m keeping everyone waiting.”
He surprised me by offering me his arm, but I took it and we walked in silence toward the limo. When we reached it, I invited him to join us at the house, but he politely declined.
“Were you watching me the whole time I sat there?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am, I was,” he said, not seeming in the least embarrassed about it.
“Did you see anyone else?”
“While you sat there?”
“Yes.”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t. Why?”
“Nothing, really. Nothing at all. I don’t suppose you’ve learned anything more about what happened?”
“No, I’m sorry, Dr. Blackburn. But we’re still working on it.”
“It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I got into the car and let Lisa’s chatter roll over me as my father held my hand.
Back at the house, the ghost became rather nervy. I would see him standing among groups of people, watching me. Everyone excused my vacant stares as widow’s grief, which was fine with me. I wasn’t in the mood to be entertaining.
The gathering thinned out quickly. Lisa left only after I reassured her for the fifty-third time that I wanted to be by myself. Only I knew I wasn’t going to be able to be by myself. The ghost was growing as eager as I was to have her leave.
“Okay,” I said, after I saw her drive off. “Let’s talk.”
He looked even sadder than before.
“What? Did I say something?”
He didn’t reply.
I decided that even if he was a figment of my imagination, I needed to play this out. Avoiding him obviously wouldn’t work. “Let’s sit down,” I said.
He followed me into the living room, and we sat on opposite ends of the couch.
“Who are you?” I asked.
No answer, just gestures that I couldn’t make anything out of.
“Can’t you talk?”
He shook his head, pointing at his mouth.
“If I gave you a pen and paper could you write a note?”
He shook his head again.
“I thought ghosts were supposed to be cold. When you touched me today you were warm.”
He shrugged.
“Perhaps you haven’t been dead long?”
He nodded, and held up four fingers.
“Four days?”
He nodded again.
“Most people would be cold.”
He waited.
“Why me?” I asked.
He walked over to the mantel over the fireplace and pointed to a photograph.
“Because of David?”
He nodded.
“Is something wrong with him?” It immediately seemed like a stupid question. The man was dead. Things don’t go too much more wrong, unless-“He’s not in some sort of eternal torment is he? I don’t believe it. That can’t be true.”
The ghost made a frantic gesture to get me to stop talking, then looked up.
“Are you looking in the direction David traveled?”
He nodded.
“Thank you,” I said. I found myself crying. I had felt in my heart that David, for all his weaknesses, was a good man, but it was nice to have confirmation. I suddenly felt a sense of relief. I decided I owed the ghost a favor.
“What can I do for you?”
He got up and paced, tried to gesture, couldn’t get through to “Wait, settle down.”
He sat down again.
“You know David, right?”
He nodded.
“You are a ghost?”
Yes again.
I thought about everything I had heard about ghosts. “Are you trying to haunt me? Did I do something wrong to David?”
