Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6 I’m sitting in the backyard. It’s a sunny afternoon and I’m finally finding the energy to do some much needed gardening. Boone is running around the lawn after a ball I periodically throw for him. It’s hysterical to see him tumble ass over teakettle to get to it.

My spirits feel pretty lifted today. Maybe it’s because the sun’s actually out. Maybe it’s the soft breeze blowing a symphony of scents at me. Maybe it’s the fact that Boone and I faced Eric’s room last night, my one last hurdle that I knew I had to jump eventually. Either way I feel good.

I’m sitting in the grass finally getting to deadheading my little flower bed. I tried to save what little strawberries I could but it was no use. No fresh strawberries for me.

Boone runs over and drops his ball at my side. It’s covered in slobber and dirt but I have no issues picking it up to toss it away. Boone looks at me expectantly, “I’s fierce. Good throw! Good throw!”

I give it a good throw and shield my eyes as I watch him race after it. A smile creeps up on my face and I turn back to my flowers. There’s something cathartic about gardening. I think it’s just the idea of being down in the dirt, with nature, preserving pretty flowers and removing unwanted weeds. I imagine my little flowers giving me little “thank you’s” as I pull the weeds away.

One weed in particular is being very stubborn. I can’t seem to get a good grip on it, so I start digging around the base, hoping to pull directly from the roots. My fingers brush something smooth. I momentarily pull back, surprised at finding a hidden treasure in my flower bed. I start digging again after tossing the ball yet again for Boone. He is simply relentless.

My hands go deeper into the soft soil. I can’t believe the depth of these roots! They seem to go on forever. My hands brush the smooth surface of whatever is down there again. I get up onto my knees to give myself better leverage. I’m removing the dirt when I peer down and see something that makes my blood stop. I blink rapidly, hoping to clear my vision and unsee what I’ve seen. It doesn’t work. Apparently I’m a glutton for pain or I just have no sense as to when to stop because I keep digging, faster and faster. I’m now pulling up flowers as well as weeds, tossing dirt between my legs like a dog digging a hole to bury his bone.

“No…no. It’s not possible.”

“Yes it is, babe. I told you I’d never leave you.”

I’m staring down at Eric’s face, partially covered in granules of soil. His once full lips are gone, revealing a set of teeth that have become a grayish-brown, whether from the dirt or being dead I don’t know. His eyes are sunken into his ashen face and his pronounced cheekbones are, literally, splitting the skin of his cheeks. He blinks up at me and I swear I can hear the mucus around his eyes squish.

Eric attempts to smile at me which proves to be horrifying given he has no lips. “Don’t look so shocked, babe. It’s not like I died safely in my bed.” His voice is playful, like it always was when he was razzing me.

“I’m glad you found me. I’ve sure missed that pretty face of yours.”

“Wh…wh…” Nope. Speaking isn’t happening. Everything in me is frozen. I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I can’t even think. I can’t hear anything except for his voice.

“Don’t worry, babe. It won’t be like this forever, I promise.” He smiles again and a worm starts to crawl out of his mouth. My vision dims around the edges and I try desperately not to faint but I can feel those familiar fingers start to creep up around me. I should want to faint, if for no other reason then to get out of this nightmare, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to loose sight of Eric. He looks grotesque but he’s still my Eric.

“That’s right, babe. I will always be your Eric.” The worm tries to creep into one of the gashes on his cheek and I can’t hold on. I start to see gray and feel the ground come up to meet me as I hear Eric say, “This is just the beginning, love. Don’t you worry.”

~~~

I sit up so fast I actually give myself a head rush. I’m covered in sweat and Boone is panting nervously at my feet. He trots up the length of my legs and gives my face a soft kiss, “You is okay now.”

I bury my face in his coat and try to control my breathing. “What just happened, Boone?” Every time I close my eyes I see Eric’s face covered in dirt, mutilated and yet still as handsome as ever. I don’t know what to make of it. Am I spiraling into insanity? Am I so grief-stricken that I’ll take any form of him, decaying or otherwise? “What is wrong with me?”

“Nothing wrong with you,” he snuggles under my chin.

I take a few moments to let my heart settle, absentmindedly stroking Boone and letting his little puppy presence do its job of calming me down. I slowly roll off the couch and make my way towards the bathroom, listening as my body creaks and cracks like an old door hinge. I think a hot shower is in order.

I pause in my office and gaze through the window towards my flower bed. Everything is in place. No soil is disturbed. No flowers thrown around in a fit of panic. It’s even still raining which solidifies the fact that it was a dream. I can’t tell if I’m relieved or disappointed. I look down at Boone sitting beside me. “It was a dream.”

He cocks his head at me and smiles, “I dream too!”

An unladylike snort escapes me as I say, “I bet you do. I bet you dream of treats and balls and chasing cats, don’t you?”

He licks his chops, “And you.”

I smile at him and scratch the sweet spot behind his drunken ear.

We trudge up the stairs and enter the master suite. I strip out of my sweaty clothes, listening to the pitter-patter of raindrops hitting the skylight above my head. I turn on the shower to scalding hot, hoping that will take away the chill that seems to have permanently settled under my skin. Boone circles around multiple times on the bathmat until he’s got it just right and plops down with a sigh, happy with waiting for me to do my “human things.”

I luxuriate in the shower, taking time to shampoo and condition. Twice. I use my good loofa and scrub down my body until my skin is pink and shining. I even go so far as to shave my legs since it gives me something to focus on. I’m still feeling horribly weirded out by my dream and have no idea what to do with myself today. The rainy weather calls for some hot chocolate and a nice fire, but I’m feeling the urge to just put on a movie and let cinema keep my attention. I really don’t want to think about my dream, or the broken lamp or anything else that will add to my unease.

I get out of the shower and throw on a pair of oversized sweats and an oversized sweatshirt. I slip on some fuzzy socks and throw my wet hair up in a messy bun.

I regard myself in the mirror and can’t help but laugh. I look like a drowned rat. A comfortable one, but a rat nonetheless.

I’ve turned into such a bum.

“Yeah. Yeah, Boone. I don’t think I can get away with not working today if I’m gonna dress like this…I’m a heartbeat away from eating out of a dumpster.”

“I like dumpster!”

“You’re also a dog. There’s no excuse for me.”

“I is dog. I is civilized.”

I bark out a laugh. “Yes…you’re definitely civilized.”

Feeling slightly more lifted, we trot our way downstairs. I make myself a cup of coffee and feed Boone his breakfast, which he’s all too eager to gobble down. The rain has picked up a bit and I can’t not light a fire. But I compromise by grabbing my laptop from my office and settling in on the couch to possibly get some work done.

I check my emails and find a number from John, all in various shades of excitement over the novel I sent over. I read through each one and conclude that he’s slightly bi-polar. The “notes” I’ll be receiving on Monday should be interesting if I’m basing it off these emails. I’ve never met a man who could insult and complement in the same sentence and yet John has perfected it to within an inch of its life.

I have an email from Megan with a link to a grief support group here on the coast. She says none-too-gently to “peel the sweats off and get off the freaking couch.” I think she knows me just a little too well.

I know I can’t avoid it forever so I open a new document and stare at the empty page. Usually I can just put fingertip to key and let the words flow on their own, but that talent has evaded me for some time now. I stare at the blinking cursor, randomly wishing I had a cigarette to puff on. At least it would give me something to do.

Usually my novels are somewhere between mystery and romance, just enough mindless reading to help people relax but not so mindless that you feel stupid after putting the book down. John says I have a “knack for making the mindless mindful,” just another backhanded compliment I’ve come to expect from my All Mighty Agent. That’s what Eric used to call him. There was a grudging respect between Eric and John that I always found hysterical. Eric hated how John would speak so bluntly to me but he couldn’t discount the fact that John’s notes were exactly spot on. And John thought Eric distracted me from writing, which he did. But he was also my inspiration, which John could never discount. The irony is that even in death, Eric still managed to distract me.

The image of Eric’s face in the ground flashes through my mind. I feel a spark light up in my chest, like a tiny firecracker going off. I place my fingertips on the keys. It takes a few clicks to work out the kinks in my hands but before I know it, my hands are flying across the board and words are forming on this once empty document.

I didn’t think I could, but I relive that whole dream, detail by gruesome detail. I break once to let Boone out to do his business. He’s been tucked against my feet this whole time, lulling in and out of sleep, allowing me this chance to get the words out of my head and onto paper.

What should have been a simple five page short story has turned into a 47 page work-in-progress. The clock reads 3:25 in the afternoon. I’ve been writing all freaking day and I didn’t even realize it.

I spend the next hour rereading what I wrote, correcting errors and adding or deleting details that fit or don’t fit.

At 5:00 I close my laptop, take a languid stretch and add one more log to the fire. It’s stopped raining but the air is still damp and chilly.

I kneel down in front of Boone, who has barely moved an inch. “What do you say we toss the ball around a little bit. The ball? You wanna play with the ball?”

“YES YES YES!” He’s up and prancing around like a fuzzy little jumping bean. “Ball! I want ball!”

“You’ve earned it, buddy. Lets go play.”

I grab his ball, which somehow got wedged under the sofa and head for the backyard.

It strikes me that even in death, Eric can still be my inspiration.

~~~

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m sitting out in the backyard with a cup of tea, Megan and Boone. Boone is scampering after his ball and Megan is reading the story from my dream, which I haven’t stopped working on for over two days. It’s the fastest book I’ve ever written, but I guess when you write for two days straight and barely sleep, that will happen. Since I haven’t been blessed with any more nightmares of Eric’s decaying body I’ve had to embellish a little but I must say I’m really happy with how it turned out. And even though it makes my heart cry to write Eric as a ghost, it’s somehow made that never-ending ache in my soul ease up some and has taken some of the chill out of my body.

Megan has always been the first to read every one of my books, an unknown fact to John that I will never reveal. God knows that man doesn’t need more ammunition. While I’m always nervous about what John has to say, it’s Megan’s opinion I always strive to impress. Which means that sitting here sipping a cup of tea and trying not to watch her every facial expression is agonizing. I take refuge in watching Boone delight over his ball, an activity he can’t seem to get enough of and, because he’s got me wrapped around his ever-growing paw, an activity I perform over and over again.

“Holy shit, Sal,” Megan exclaims through a puff of air.

I shift in my little lawn chair and stare at her with anxious eyes. I feel like Boone begging for a treat: “Please?! Please?! I’s good dog!”

“What do you think?” I wait on baited breath.

She closes the laptop, sits back in her chair and tilts her face up to the sun. She’s procrastinating. She always does and even though she’s done this with every single book I’ve ever written it still manages to piss me off. I clench my teeth and try not to break the mug I’m squeezing between my now sweaty hands.

She inhales deeply, removes her sunglasses and stares directly at me as she says, “That is one of the best pieces you’ve ever written.”

I exhale loudly and smile back at her. “Really?”

“Yes. Really. It’s raw, it’s funny, it’s intriguing, it’s creepy…it’s fucking brilliant is what it is.”

I slump back in my chair like the weight of the world has just been lifted off my shoulders. “Not to boast, but I’m really happy with it.”

“You should be. I know John has ready on the chopping block tomorrow but you gotta send this to him today. He has to read it.”

Boone barrels over to me, shoelaces of drool hanging out of his mouth around an even wetter ball. He drops it at my feet with a loud splat. Both Megan and I laugh as I chuck the ball across the yard and watch his furry butt give chase.

“I agree with you,” I pause and choose my next words carefully, “Ever since I had that dream I’ve felt like Eric is here somehow. And when I started writing, it was like I was manifesting him.” I shake my head. “I don’t know if that makes sense but I just feel like a piece of me has been put back in place. Not the whole broken egg, but a piece.”

“No, it totally has. I can see it.”

We smile at each other. She hands me my laptop and before I can give it too much thought, I shoot my new novel to John. We spend the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun, playing with Boone.

At around 5:00 we head inside because the wind has picked up and it’s cold. The ever crucial debate over pizza verses Chinese is ensuing. James is spending the night in the city to oversee a large build he’s doing, so Megan has decided to spend the evening with me and Boone.

“I say pizza…they deliver.” What can I say? I’m a homebody.

“You lazy ass. It’ll take five minutes to drive up the road and pick it up,” Megan is always propagating Chinese. I think she just likes using chopsticks.

“How about I order pizza and you go get Chinese and then everyone is happy?” That is my age-old compromise and it annoys her to no end.

She grumbles over a bottle of wine, “Yeah, happy and fat.”

I laugh as I take the bottle of wine from her and start opening it. I pop the cork and reach for some glasses. A gust of cold air blows through the kitchen and ruffles our hair. Megan and I give each other confused glances and Boone stands at attention, sniffing the air and probably detecting a lot more then I would.

“Did you leave a window open, Sal?”

I shrug and make my way into the living room. Sure enough, one of the front windows is wide open, blowing my filmy curtains around like a dancing ghost. I can’t remember the last time I opened that window. A tingle starts at the base of my spine and my mind flashes to the broken lamp in Eric’s office. Megan comes to stand beside me, arms crossed over her chest and a perplexed expression marring her pretty face.

“When did you open that, babe?”

I give a little shudder as I whisper, “I didn’t.”

“Hey…are you okay?” She wraps her arm around my shoulders and draws me to her side.

“I didn’t tell you this before because I didn’t think it mattered. The night I had that dream I found an open window and a broken lamp in Eric’s office.”

Megan’s forehand scrunches up as she thinks about this. “When was the last time you were in his office?”

“Before he died.”

She pauses for a long moment, her rational mind trying to make sense of this. “Well that’s just…” she quiets, “That’s really creepy.” We both stare at the open window, neither of us making a move to close it even though the cold air is anything but enjoyable. The tingle in my spine is now like a vibrating wire. I’m not scared but more anticipatory.

I slowly turn in a circle, inspecting every corner from floor to ceiling. Not like I really expect to see his floating form hovering over the fireplace, but at this point I would prefer that over nightmares and random open windows.

“You think he’s here don’t you?” Megan isn’t judging. She’s genuinely curious.

“I have no idea, to be honest. It could possibly explain why two windows have magically opened themselves within the past week. It may also explain the dream and this sudden burst out of writers block.” I know I look ridiculous but I start to slowly wander the room, checking under tables and chairs and even going so far as to lift pillows. Ever the loyal friend, Megan joins me. Boone has his nose to the open window, a slight wag in his tail. Maybe he can sense something I can’t. I wish I could ask him.

“What do you think Boone?”

He glances over his shoulder at me, “I’s smell something.”

“What do you smell, boy? Do you smell Eric?”

“I’s smell dirt. And flowers. And rain. And gasoline. And dog. And cat. And leather.”

“That’s a lot of smells, buddy. Anything else?”

“You.”

A smile creeps on my face. Of course he would smell me.

Megan has watched this one-sided exchange with a raised eyebrow, a slight tilt to her head and a small smirk. I can just hear her pragmatic brain churning. She chooses to keep her mouth shut, however. I attribute that to fact-driven Megan currently searching my living room for a specter being.

“Do you think it’s possible people can really come back as ghosts?” I have to ask her because Megan’s opinion comes only second to Eric’s.

She’s moved into the dining room, still looking from floor to ceiling as she replies with, “You know what? I didn’t. But now I’m not so sure.”

I’ll take it.

We look through the whole house, Eric’s office included and come up sorely disappointed. No ghosts. No crashed lamps. No faces peaking out of the potted plants. Just an open window with a very curious Boone attached to the windowsill. His tail is wagging furiously and he lets loose a single bark just as the doorbell chimes.

Megan jumps about three feet and I let out a half-gurgled scream. We both giggle nervously and head for the door, Megan holding onto Boone’s collar as he seems about to jump out of his fur with excitement.

I turn on the porch light and open the door. Some kid I don’t recognize is standing at the door, a large pizza box clutched under his arm. He smiles, showing braces and dimples and says in a voice lower then I was expecting, “Hi. Delivery for Sal.”

“Yeah…um…I’m Sal. But I didn’t order a pizza.” I turn to Megan, who has a comically incredulous expression on her face.

The boy gets a confused look and checks the address. Twice. “They told me to deliver here. You didn’t order this?”

“I…I…maybe,” I pause, trying to connect the dots, “Who called in the order? Was it a woman or a man?”

He shrugs as he says, “I don’t know. I didn’t take the order. All I know is to deliver it to this address. It’s all paid for.” He hands the box to me. I reach for it like I might reach for a live bomb.

He tips his hat as he says, “Have a great night ladies,” and off he saunters down my walkway to his beat-up Ford truck.

I close the door as Megan lets go of Boone’s collar and he’s instantly at my feet, panting happily and doing some sort of ecstatic doggie dance. I stare at Megan as I say, “Did you order a pizza?”

She blanches at me. “Oh yeah. Because this is clearly the face of someone who knows what the fuck is going on.”

A cool, swift breeze blows in from the open window. Megan shivers and races for the window, slamming it shut, letting a catalog of sailor curses erupt. She faces me, starring at the pizza box with something like awe, confusion and fear. “This is some fucked-up shit,” she takes a shuddering breath, “Eric orders you a pizza and I don’t get my Chinese food? He’s on my shit-list now.”

I burst out laughing. If tonight got any weirder at least I’ve got my best girl and my best dog by my side.