The Missouri postcard made Darren's eyes water to look at. It almost seemed as if there were two cards occupying the same space, but just a tad out of sync, timewise. The image on the front rippled slightly. Darren hoped the text on the back wouldn't do the same, and was relieved to see that the writing was quite easy to-
THE DELIBERATE GHOST
1.
When Lana saw the slowly swaying body of her husband Leo in the living room, his purple face nearly unrecognizable with the protruding, bulging eyes and tongue, her first reaction was a dull, muted sensation of surprise. She didn’t think Leo had it in him. Her first action was to sit down on the sofa, facing the body as it swung gently, and take out a cigarette. Leo didn’t allow smoking in the house, and also didn’t know she hadn’t really quit. Her first thought, as she lit her cigarette, was “Where did he find a rope that thin and still strong enough to support his fat ass?”
Lana thought many things as she took her time finishing the cigarette, and most of them were unkind. She stubbed the cigarette out on a coaster placed upon the end table next to the sofa, then took out her compact mirror and a tube of lipstick. After lining her mouth, Lana stood up, glanced once again at her husband, and left the house.
When she returned several hours later during the very late hours of the night, when it was closer to being early, smelling of vodka and cigarette smoke, and perhaps the saliva of an overzealous dancing partner, Lana stopped in the doorway, staring at Leo’s body. His face was even darker now, and a slight, sweet odor could be detected. She exhaled noisily, quite annoyed. She’d planned on getting some sleep before taking care of the situation, but the odor would undoubtedly get a lot worse when the day became warmer.
Lana marched upstairs to take off her heels, and began to change into more comfortable clothes, but realized that would contradict her story when she gave it to the authorities. She fished her cell phone out of her purse and began dialing as she headed back downstairs to fix herself one more drink. As soon as the other end picked up, Lana spoke, trying to make her voice sound sad.
“Bill? It’s Lana. Could you come over here? I need-” she stopped. She thought of a better incentive. “Leo needs you.”
2.
Lana discovered quickly that any concern she might have had about not playing the part of the grieving widow was quite unnecessary. Bill had more than enough tears, sobs, and snot for the both of them.
The meaty, sweaty Bill shook as he sat upon the sofa with his head clasped in his hands, heaving with loud ragged sobs. Bill was one of Leo’s oldest friends, having gone to grade school with her husband- her former husband-and standing in as one of the groomsmen at her wedding. She’d called him, partly to try out her mask of grief before showing it to other law enforcement officers, and partly to give the appearance of being disoriented and unsure what to do. Calling a friend rather than 911 would surely be something a distraught wife did.
“I’m so sorry,” Bill moaned, although Lana was unsure whether he was addressing her or the dead man. “If I knew, if I knew, I would have done something, anything to help, anything but this! Ah, GOD!” Bill erupted into a fresh round of wailing and gushing snot from his nose. Lana turned her head aside to roll her eyes outside of Bill’s field of vision. Then she put a hand on Bill’s trembling shoulder, leaning in a bit.
“Maybe we should call some of your guys? We shouldn’t leave Leo like this. I mean, I called you the second I walked in, you know? But I just can’t bear to leave him like that any longer. It’s so awful.” She mirrored Bill’s pose, hunching over and covering her face with her hands. Bill wiped his own face on his sleeve, leaving a long streak of fluids that shone wetly on the fabric. He nodded, taking in a deep breath and uttering a resolute grunt.
“Yeah, Lana, yeah. Let’s take care of Leo.”
3.
Growing up in Oak Valley as Leo and Lana had, everybody knew each other. Therefore, when Lana showed up at the coroner’s office to receive the official verdict of death, the coroner, Rita Warrick, greeted her with sincere condolences.. Popular opinion was that it was a suicide, but Bill wanted to be sure. Leo had loved his wife very much, but the general consensus among Leo’s friends was that Leo could have found a more devoted partner. Lana had a temper, seemed to occasionally find Leo quite irritating, and her faithfulness was an issue of debate sometimes. When Leo was far from within range of hearing, of course.
Their relationship had not always been that strained or one-sided. When Lana and Leo began dating during Leo’s third year of college; her first year, they’d been head over heels for each other. Still, the changes in Lana weren’t all that subtle and it seemed only Leo was oblivious to the fact that his wife was no longer crazy about him. Then again, perhaps not, if Leo had chosen to end his life.
“Oh hon, I am so sorry for your loss,” Rita told her as they sat down in Rita’s tiny office in the back of the hospital adjoining the police station. Rita sighed as she sat, perhaps from sorrow, or from the effort of lowering her considerable bulk into her char, which groaned and creaked in protest. She drew imaginary hair back out of her face; she’d worn her hair long for many years, until the gray became harder and harder to dye over, so she’d cut it short. From the way Rita occasionally tossed her head back or moved her hands to her head to execute certain actions with phantom locks, she was still adjusting to the reduced amount. Lana acknowledged Rita’s words with a nod. She opened her purse and began to draw out her cigarettes, then stopped. She couldn’t remember if she’d be allowed to smoke indoors, since she now did all the time at home. Still, better not to seem uninterested. She folded her hands and looked at Rita, expectant.
“I have completed my examination of your husband’s body, and all indications are that he died from asphyxiation, caused by the cessation of oxygen flow through his carotid arteries and trachea. This appears to have been self-inflicted, by means of a rope. I regretfully conclude that Leo hung himself, to death.”
4.
“I’m afraid I don’t really get what you mean,” Laura snapped, her fingers twitching towards her purse. Gordon Morgan regarded her without reply for a few moments, smoothing his tie out with two fingers and thumb over and over. Finally he broke his silence, deliberating his reply.
“Your husband’s instructions were quite clear, Mrs. Daugherty. Leo explicitly stated in his will that his estate not be released for the 12 months immediately following the date of his death.” Gordon paused again. “You’ll have to wait a year to get what Leo left you, that is the gist.”
“Why?” Lana demanded, her voice turning somewhat strident. Gordon shook his head.
“Only Leo knew the answer to that. You could try contesting his will, see if you can get the estate released. But, really, by the time you got all the paperwork filed, a hearing date set, and then a decision handed down, the year’d pretty much be up.” Gordon stood up, relinquishing his seat upon the edge of his desk near where Lana sat. He began to gather papers, halfway dismissing Lana. “Besides, it’s a small inconvenience, I should think, for you.”
Lana frowned, standing up. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Gordon stared into her eyes, holding her glare for a beat. “You’re his sole beneficiary, Mrs. Daugherty. You get everything. Your husband left you everything.”
5.
The following Tuesday, the day of Leo’s memorial service and internment, was one of the worst days Lana had ever endured in her lifetime. Not because it meant saying good bye to her husband. Lana had already said farewell to her marriage in her mind and heart years ago. Leo was a good husband, she knew, but she hadn’t been attracted to him in so long. She hadn’t been excited about coming home to him in ages. She felt as if she’d been going through the motions for quite some time.
The entire ordeal was excruciating because she was bewildered anew nearly every minute by the sheer volume of devotion Leo’s friends and family displayed, devotion she could not find within herself at all. Devotion which she didn’t understand how someone as unremarkable as Leo could elicit from a handful of people, let alone what seemed to be the entire damn town. It was exhausting. Especially Leo’s mother, who seemed to suspect Lana had a hand in Leo’s death despite Rita’s findings of suicide. Lana could feel her mother-in-law’s accusatory eyes burning into the back of her head as she leaned over Leo’s casket. Lana noted that the mortician had done a pretty good job with restoring Leo’s natural colors. A definite improvement over the ghastly eggplant hue of his demise.
Lana also decided that perhaps she could have pursued an acting career beyond playing the lead role in two plays while in high school. How else could she have managed to endure the seemingly endless condolences and anecdotes from all of the mourners at the service , and later, at the cemetery, without screaming? Or perhaps even laughing?
Because . . . now she was free.
6.
For the first couple of months after Leo’s burial, Lana spent a sizeable chunk of money on gas, since she didn’t want to arouse suspicion, criticism, or contempt from the other residents of Oak Valley. She drove a minimum of an hour out to seek out men whenever she got horny. In the third month, though, Lana started decreasing the radius of her sexual gratification searches, and also began to socialize more frequently with her girlfriends. Let them think she was starting to “heal” from the “loss”. Or drowning her sorrows in alcohol. Either way, Lana wanted to go out and have fun, with or without the approval of her friends. She visited the attorney, Gordon Morgan, twice more, but despite her attempts to win him over, both times by niceties, the second time by seduction, the lawyer remained adamant. Lana would not get her inheritance for another nine months, Gordon told her, and if she tried to sexually harass her again, he’d take legal action.
Lana didn’t let that faze her. After all, the quality of her life had already improved so much. Things could only go up in nine months.
In the fourth month, Lana arrived home one evening, late. She didn’t bother turning on the lights as she headed for the staircase, but then she bumped her hip into the sofa. She was still adjusting to the new arrangement of their- her- living room. Moving the furniture around had given Lana some relief from the occasional flashbacks she had to walking in on Leo’s corpse.
Rubbing her thigh where she’d hit the sofa, she stumbled her way up the stairs, her gaze darting left and right in the darkness, chasing the rainbow whorls of drunken colors starbursting in front of her eyes. Once upstairs, she dropped her heels and purse from onto the floor, pulled off her shirt and unzipped her skirt. Kicking it aside, she collapsed into bed.
When she awoke, a few hours later, with an uncomfortable full bladder, she grunted with annoyance at the slight hangover that she’d already acquired in her boozy slumber. She flung out her arm to support herself up into a sitting position. Her arm hit something soft, but solid. Something warm. Something that grunted softly when her arm made contact.
Gasping with panic, Lana catapulted from the bed. “What’s that? Who’s there?” she cried, as she backed up so rapidly she nearly fell over backwards. She came up against the back wall, and began feeling her way towards the bedroom door. There was no reply to her queries. Lana reached the doorway, stubbing her toe slightly on one of her discarded heels. She wanted to flee downstairs, arm herself with something sharp and nasty from the kitchen, but . . . she also had to know.
Slowly, trying not to let her hand rasp across the wall surface, Lana felt for the switchplate by the door. She slammed her hand upon the switch, and when the lights came on, she screamed.
Leo lay upon the bed, staring at her with bemused eyes.
“What’s the matter, hon?” her dead husband asked, “did you hear something downstairs?”
Lana’s body began to tremble. She couldn’t still her muscles as she grasped the door frame for support.
“No,” Lana whimpered. “You’re dead! This can’t- why is this-” Lana left her sentence unfinished, gasping.
Leo nodded. “Yes. I’m dead. And?”
Lana’s mouth opened, but all that came out was a cross between a squeal and a squeak. Her mouth remained open for some time before she finally shut it. After several false starts, she raised a shaking hand to point at her husband. Ex-husband. Wasbund. Deadbund.
Leo propped himself up on his elbows, his expression now less bemusement, more a mixture of amusement and scorn. “Allow me to give you the Reader’s Digest version. I died with . . . shall we say unresolved issues? And you, my dear wife, have quite some relevance to these issues. So apparently, I’m not going anywhere for a while. I’m here to,” Leo grinned enthusiastically, waggling his eyebrows, “haunt you!”
Lana screamed.
7.
Lana tried one last time to procure her endowment from Gordon, desperate to acquire enough money to move out of the house, since Leo’s constant presence was driving her crazy. She tried to deny his existence. She’d moved into the guest room downstairs, and locked the door every night. Leo made no comment, never knocked on her door, or jiggled the handle. Yet every few days she’d wake to Leo’s sleeping form next to hers. To spite Leo, Lana had taken to smoking quite heavily, indoors all the time. Leo made no comment, never coughed, or waved a hand in front of his face.
One night Lana had even brought a man home for the night. She talked loudly, clung to the man, and walked around in her underwear after she’d “accidentally” spilled water upon her dress. Leo made no comment, never made his presence known to the man, or tried to stop her seduction whenever she walked past her husband the few times she’d gone upstairs.
But when she finally took the man by the hand and drew him into the guest bedroom, she realized she had no desire at all to follow through with her intended tryst. With insincere apologies she kicked the man out and fell into her bed, weeping. Her tears were angry and defiant, and what bothered Lana most of all was that she couldn’t figure out why.
One day, Lana stormed upstairs, surprising Leo as he stood staring out the window over their backyard. Her backyard.
“Why don’t you ever complain? All these things I do, the things I have done, I know you can’t be fine with them,” she cried, striking her thigh with her fist. Leo merely shrugged with a faint smile.
“I’m dead, Lana. These things don’t bother me anymore. Beyond worldly concerns and all that. But thanks for checking in,” he said with a smile.
Lana spun on her heels, peeved. She stalked downstairs, her shoulders tense. That man was insufferable. She’d show him. She had a whole life ahead of her.
8.
Lana continued to ignore Leo as best as she could for the next few weeks. Then one Tuesday, she had a terrible day at work. The kind of day where everything just seemed to go the worst way possible, and everyone was running on angry juice, snapping at each other and being uncommunicative and uncooperative.
When she got home, the first thing she did was to pour herself a glass of wine. She slumped down on the sofa, but before she could take a sip, she doubled over, weeping.
Suddenly, an arm encircled her shoulders gently, offering comfort. Lana automatically leaned into the embrace, laying her head upon Leo’s chest. They remained still, saying nothing for several minutes. Then with a grunt of annoyance Lana wrenched herself away, gulping down half her glass. Leo remained where he was, but cleared his throat.
“Wanna talk about it, Lana?” he inquired softly.
“No. I never want to talk to you again. You have no right to be here. Get out, and leave my life forever.”
She wanted to say these words. She meant to say them. She opened her mouth to utter them. But when she looked at her husband’s ghost, she saw in his eyes the companionship she’d been without for so long. A friend. Someone who would listen. Someone who always listened.
So she talked, and Leo listened. For hours. When they got up to get ready for bed, or at least when Lana did (since she didn’t know if Leo actually slept regularly. She hadn’t seen him eat or sleep or anything else on a regular basis since his return as a ghost) Lana realized she’d followed Leo halfway upstairs. She paused, surprised. She said good night to him on the stairs, and surprised herself again when she reached out to squeeze his arm affectionately. (She’d asked him weeks earlier why he was solid, not intangible. He’d just replied with a grin, “I don’t make the rules.”) Lana fell asleep into a dream of her wedding.
9.
Lana continued to spend her nights in the guest bedroom, but in the mornings and evenings, she began to spend more time with her former husband. She engaged him in conversations, began to ask him about his existence as a spirit or ghost or whatever he was supposed to be. She began to notice little things, details that were at once familiar and new to her, about Leo. How his eyes always crinkled at the corners a half second before his smile appeared. How he always paused whenever they moved together to head in the same direction to make sure he wasn’t in error about their destination. She also noticed that his belly was flatter than she had remembered it, his hair a little darker, perhaps thicker.
One Sunday evening while Lana was at the grocery store a whim blossomed in her mind, and she began to walk more briskly with her cart, choosing items purposefully.
As she walked into the house, she could hear Leo walking around upstairs. She called up to him. When he replied, she ascended a couple of stairs to make sure Leo would hear her clearly.
“Join me for dinner, Leo,” she declared. “I’m making chicken cacciatore.” Leo’s favorite dish. “I have more than enough for the two of us, if you’re hungry.”
Lana stared at Leo through her wineglass, watching his features distort as he spoke. He had been talking about a book he had read years before, one he hoped to re-read if a copy should fall into his hands. Suddenly he trailed off, staring back at Lana. “What is it?” he asked, expectant. Lana shook her head, but the words were out of her mouth before she really realized the thought behind them.
“I wish you were still alive.”
Stunned by her own admission, Lana set down her glass, blinking rapidly. Then the tears came. She put her head in her hands and sobbed loudly, without reserve. Faintly, over the sound of her crying, there was the sound of Leo’s chair scraping and his footsteps. She waited for his comforting caress. Yet it never came. She raised her head to see what Leo was doing.
He was gone. Unhappily, Lana stood. She stumbled her way to Leo’s-their-bedroom, only to find the door locked. She began to cry again, a quieter, softer keening, as she stroked the door. She stared at the door as if she could wish herself through it and into her husband’s arms. Sinking down to the floor, she whispered apologies over and over. It wasn’t until several hours later that she drew herself up with great effort to stagger downstairs and collapse in the bed downstairs.
10.
Lana awoke to an unusual and unexpected sensation: breakfast cooking. After a quick change into her pajamas from the clothes she hadn’t bothered to remove the night before, Lana ventured into the kitchen to find Leo preparing a delicious looing and smelling breakfast, and there was clearly enough for two.
Leo glanced over at Lana, and smiled brilliantly. “Lana! You’re up. Have a seat and I’ll get you coffee.” Slightly dazed, Lana complied. Leo paid a hand upon her shoulder as he poured the coffee, a habit of his Lana had all but forgotten. She put her hand over his, and Leo looked down at her. He put the coffeepot down on the table, and held her gaze.
“Last night, you wished I was still alive. Why?” he inquired of her. Lana blinked, stammering out her reply.
“I- we- it-I-“ She caught herself, let out a sigh. “We’d lost what we had together, but I think what happened is that I put all the blame for that on you. IT was easier than working at our relationship. I resented that we’d changed, but rather than figuring out to keep up with each other during the change, I only focused on the past rather than our future.”
Leo nodded slowly. “So did I, Lana. Then once day, I realized that perhaps I could change things by taking a jump into the future. So I left the present.”
Lana shook her head, mystified. “I’m not following you.”
Leo sat down opposite Lana, and folded his hands on the table. “Lana, I faked my suicide. I’m not a ghost. I never died. Gordon and Rita agreed to help me.“
Lana stared at Leo, waiting for him to laugh, to smile, anything to turn the moment into a joke. But no laughter came forth. Instead, a hiss did. Not from eo, but from Lana. The hiss rose into a wail then a scream. Lana stood, throwing herself at Leo who had also gotten to his feet. She hit him with her fists everywhere she could, screaming. Leo made no comment, offered no resistance, returned none of her blows. But when she finally leaned into him, crying, running her hands over his face and chest and arms, Leo gathered her into his arms and held her tightly, breathing into the top of her head, until she sagged in his embrace.
She raised her eyes to look into his. Emotions cascaded through her as lava and icewater. Her entire body began to tremble, but Leo held her steady. She grabbed his head in both hands and pulled him in for a kiss. The kiss went on and on, through her, piercing her heart, and pulling her back, years, into the beginning of their love, and then up the stairs, with Leo, her husband, her love, alive.
They made love several times throughout the day and night. Sometimes hard and hungry, sometimes gentle and exploratory, sometimes both at once. In between, they talked. Lana tried to apologize for her behavior after Leo’s fake suicide, but Leo told her she had no need to, since for all intent and purposes, he’d been dead. AS much as her actions had hurt him, he’d endured it all as a consequence of his deception. A necessary deception, he explained, for a fresh start.
Lana still felt anger at the trickery, but she also realized the depths her husband had been willing to go to, hoping to revitalize their marriage. And so she surrendered to the hope that this truly was a new beginning.
11.
Lana moved back upstairs into her-their-bedroom. The next three weeks flew past as they rebuilt the foundation of their life. Lana found herself actually smiling whenever she was headed home, knowing Leo was there, or would be, when he got home from his new job.
Which is why she was truly devastated when Bill (who’d been pretty pissed at finding out that Leo’s death was fake, but quite happy to have his friend back) called her, his voice thick with doubled sorrow to inform her that Leo had been killed in a car accident.
Numbed, yet still aware of unbearable pain buried underneath the obliterating dullness, Lana found herself repeating the entire cycle of morgue, lawyer, funeral. This time, her grief was all too real, and everything was blurred through an invisible widow’s veil. The faces of everyone who uttered their condolences blurred into one wavering, wobbly mouth-hole voicing meaningless sounds.
Then Lana found herself at the graveside, the true graveside of her husband. She’d never see him again. Never know his love again. Never be his wife again. She’d been given a second chance, and it had been so fleeting. Could one dehydrate from tears?
The sixth night she lay in their-her- bed, caressing the space where Leo should be, Lana fell asleep with her head upon a salty wet pillow. In the middle of the night, she awoke, sensing a presence. She reached over, but felt nothing on the other side of the bed opposite her. Still, her arm tingled as if she’d touched something electric. Something alive. Lana got out of bed, and walked over to the switchplate by the door. She flicked the lights on, and looked at the bed.
Leo lay upon the bed, staring at her with bemused eyes. She could see through him, and his body made no depression on the surface of the mattress. His face was wrong, out of alignment, his skin a landscape of pain and damage. His skull had been crushed in the accident, and the mortician had recommended a closed casket. Now Lana knew why.
“What’s the matter, hon?” her dead husband asked, “did you hear something downstairs?”
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