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The next
morning, my body began groaning before my mouth did. When I cracked open one of my eyes, I spied
the enemy, daylight, and shut it again, turning my head on the pillow so that
it was facing the opposite direction.
And I would have stayed that way for the rest of the day if it wasn’t
for Glenda.
“What in the hell is wrong with
you?” I said into my pillow the third time she hopped up on my bed and started
pacing on top of me, her little paws feeling like mini-punches on my back.
“Maybe she’s trying to wake you up,”
I heard a male voice say.
A streak of fear shot through me and
my body instantly jolted awake. For a
moment, I was too afraid to lift my head from the pillow to see who the
deliverer was. I’d had one wild night in
college when I’d woken up next to a stranger and I knew there was nothing worse
than waking up naked and then introducing yourself.
After doing a quick mental
run-through of the night before, ending with the beer on the back porch, I
breathed a quick sigh of relief when I realized that I couldn’t have had a repeat
of my youthful indiscretion. And then I sucked
that breath right back in again when I became conscious of the fact that that
it still didn’t answer the question about the voice in my room.
I slowly lifted my head and twisted
my body so that I could take a look around.
And as my eyes circled the space, they rested in disbelief on the chair
in the corner.
“Henry?”
There he was, sitting hunched over
with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands folded in front of him,
looking at me intently with a little smile on his face. He had on the white button-down dress shirt
and khakis that he’d been wearing the day he died, his hair cut too short due
to a trip to the barber that week. His face had a
little stubble, just as it would have after a full day of work and he looked exactly
as he had the morning I kissed him goodbye for the last time.
I slowly raised myself to a sitting
position, still staring at him. Neither
one of us said a word for a moment as my brain worked in overdrive, trying to
figure out what was going on. The
pounding in my head was the only thing that was convincing me that this wasn’t
a dream., which left me with only one logical conclusion.
That I had somehow dreamed the last
six months in one night.
I tried to swallow, but the shock
and the vodka tonic flavored cotton in my mouth made that too hard. I started gasping for air for a minute and I
saw a look of alarm cross Henry’s face.
“Are you okay?” he asked, sitting
straighter in the chair.
“No…I….” I struggled to find the
words. And then I started to cry. “Oh, Henry. You won’t believe the dream I had! You’d been hit by a truck and you were gone
and everything changed and I was so lonely and lost and oh my gosh I love you
so much and I’m sorry I didn’t say it more often, but get ready to hear it
about every five minutes because I don’t know what I’d do without you and – “
Henry stood up. “Jane, stop.”
“But it was horrible. That has to be the
worst dream I’ve ever had. I never
thought I took you for granted, but now I’m starting to think that I did and I
won’t ever do that again and….” I started to laugh. “I’m sounding like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, aren’t I?”
He walked toward me, but didn’t make
a move to touch me. “Baby, it wasn’t a
dream.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“It wasn’t a dream.”
“But you’re here now – “
“I know.”
I stared for another moment before I
allowed myself to speak. “What are you
doing here?” I whispered.
“What do you mean ‘what am I doing
here?’” He said. “You should know.”
I blinked. “Emily put Ecstasy in the red beans and rice
and it took a while to take affect?”
“No.
Not her style.”
“I’ve had a vodka tonic induced
stroke?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m still asleep?”
“If you were, would your head be
hurting as bad as it is now?”
“Good point. Then…how…how are you here?”
“You wished for me, didn’t you?”
I rose unsteadily to my feet,
letting the quilt drop to the floor and we faced each other.
“You…you’re here because I wished
for it?”
“Of course. Well, technically, I’ve been here all
along. You just haven’t noticed. Glenda has really been the only interaction
I’ve had in months and, to be honest, that was getting a little old. Despite the fact that everyone thinks cats
have a lot of personality, she really doesn’t have that much to offer in the
way of conversation.”
I started to reach out to him but
couldn’t feel anything at the tip of my fingers.
“Sorry, kiddo. It doesn’t work that way,” he said, looking a
little sad. “I wish it did. But you won’t be able to feel me. There’s this really weird haze between you
and me that you can’t see that keeps us separate. But believe me, if it wasn’t there, I
wouldn’t have just woken you up with a ‘hello.’
You remember how I used to wake you up in the morning?”
“By telling me to roll over because
my breath smelled like something took a shit and then died in my mouth?”
“I guess I was thinking of our more
romantic encounters.”
“You mean when you used to tell me
to go brush my teeth and then get ready to have them rattled?”
“Yeah. Those.”
I stood there staring at him in disbelief,
unable to comprehend how this could possibly happen. And then one startling thought occurred to me.
“Henry? Am I dead?”
“No, you’re very much alive and
well. Well, alive, anyway. After last night, I’m not sure how ‘well’ you
are. But I guess losing a perfect man
like myself is pretty hard to adjust to.”
I
couldn’t help but laugh at Henry’s attempt at humor and for a moment I forgot
my earlier promises to him. "Yeah, it’s been pretty difficult getting used to walking into
the bedroom without worrying that I’ll trip on your shoes and getting into my
car without the gas light on.”
Henry’s face looked serious. “You know what I mean. I know you’ve felt alone, even though I’ve
tried to do everything I can to let you know that you’re not.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, like that time you turned on
the Golden Oldies station in your car and I played that Prince song we danced
to once. I thought for sure that would
get your attention.”
“That was you?”
“Yeah. I noticed how emotional that made you.”
“I wasn’t emotional, you idiot! I was crying because a song that I danced to
in high school was on the Golden Oldies station! I was upset because I realized I was a Golden
Oldie!”
“Oh.
Well, how about how I’d make all the lights in the house dim every once
in a while?”
“You did that? You made me spend $500 for an electrician to
come out and tell me there was nothing wrong!
I felt like a moron. A poor
moron.”
“Okay, fine. Maybe I’m not so good at the signs. It’s not like we get to take a class on it or
something when we get here.”
“But…why can I see you now?”
“I told you. You found a star and wished for it. Guess you finally picked a winner.”
“I knew it,” I said smugly. “I knew it would work someday. Didn’t I always tell you it would work?”
“Yes. You did.
And that’s exactly why I came back.
To give you the satisfaction of saying ‘I told you so.’”
“Well, it was worth the trip. There have been many things I’ve been wanting
to say ‘I told you so’ about.”
“Like what?” He asked with a skeptical look on his face.
“Oh, like how we should have gotten
that extra life-insurance policy last year when I brought it up and you swore
up and down that we wouldn’t need it.
Like how I knew your parents were never really that crazy about me since
I haven’t really heard from them since you died. Like how I always knew Glenda liked you more
than me since she pined away for weeks after your accident and hasn’t really
given me the time of day since then.”
“Feel better now? Get it all out of your system?”
I crossed my arms over my
chest. “For now. If I’d known you’d be stopping by, I would
have worked on a list.”
There was a pause in the
conversation as we both stood there staring at each other. In my wildest imagination, thinking about
what I’d say to Henry if I had one more chance, I never saw our conversation
going this way and I immediately felt bad about it. In the time he’d been gone, I’d had countless
daydreams about seeing him again so that I could tell him how much I loved
him, how much he’d changed my life, how impossible living had been since he’d
been gone. I would picture him alive
and well, both of us together in a dimly lit romantic scene where we would
declare that we could never imagine spending one day away from each other, much
less a lifetime.
Not a scene where I was hungover and
yelling at him for an unnecessary bill from the electrician.
But
then again, Henry and I were never the type of couple who would whisper
romantic declarations to each other over cups of Swiss Mocha International
Coffee. Our love was in our banter and
our combined temperament. An ordinary
conversation with Henry for me was someone else’s equivalent of passionately
dipping his partner and engaging her in a deep, powerful kiss. And other than hugging Henry and just holding
his hand on the couch while we watched TV, our conversation was what I’d missed
the most since he’d been gone.
“So, how long are you in town?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You wished and I’m here. I was just as surprised as you were when I
found out it was actually possible.”
“So…this isn’t forever?” I said, preparing myself for disappointment.
“I’m not sure. I guess we’ll just
have to take each day as it comes.”
I looked at him for a minute, looked
as deep into his eyes as possible and said, “I wish I could hug you right now.”
“I know,” he said. “I wish you could, too. I’ve been wishing that for months.”
“But I guess beggars can’t be
choosers, right? You’re here now and,
really, that’s what I wished for.”
“Please be more specific about it
next time.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said. “I just have one more question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“You didn’t by any chance bring that
promotion at work that I wanted years ago, did you?”
Henry
smiled. “That’s a different star.”
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