The rain has softened the edges and I stepped too far, straining to catch a glimpse of my favourite ghost when I began to slide. I thought I would stop but I didn't, picking up speed, taking on passengers as I went until Lochlan came charging out of the dark, pulling me up to a safe ledge, putting headphones on me so I couldn't hear all the horrible screams coming from somewhere where she hides, away from the pain that reaches out to catch a glimpse of her whenever it can, and the music swelled and the screams were gone.
I guess they were coming from me but I didn't know until I had turned myself inside out just to hold on to the edge. Now I'm tethered by a fifty-foot coiled cord that connects me to the only thing that ever actually worked. From lying in the cold packed-up camper on an unmade cot as the leaves turned colour outside the tiny gravel-pocked window at sixteen years old listening to Blue Rodeo on Lochlan's (who's now twenty-one) black edition Sony Walkman, churning through batteries like oxygen to walking around the whole house with this stupid cord keeping me in proximity of the big stereo because I can hear every breath with a headset that costs the same as a small car and my little airpods pale to the point of translucency against.
Like a ghost.
Almost see-through but you know he's there. You can feel it like your own heartbeat. A little out of rhythm but part of the landscape. A little cold and then warm. A little good and then so, so bad.
How is he?
Pretty good actually. Just one more white-knuckle round and then we are done.
The hard part?
Supposedly not but the labs have to come back and that's the part that's scaring me. Another month of waiting.
He's fine, Princess. I can see it from here.
Now you're a fortune teller?
No,there's an arrival board and he isn't on it.
Am I?
And that makes him angry and he's gone as quickly as he materialized and maybe he wasn't there and I hit my head when I fell in the hole. Like Ben. Who's time isn't up yet either and he didn't die last year but almost and almost is too much and I can't do this for anyone else. I can't. I can't.
If I reach up and slide a name that I don't know out the other end of the letter-track I can use those pieces and a few more, rearranging them to spell my own name. Like an airport but instead of digital it's all analog. Like me. Tactile. Present. Visible. Obvious.
It doesn't work that way! Christ, Piglet.
He's back. The warmth comes in but with it, betrayal. Anger. Hopelessness and a distinct, painful awareness that I would trade everything for him to take a breath and be whole.
But would I? Only in those first moments when he makes himself known. The rest of the time the Bridget-rage marches on. It's 'complicated grief'. I laugh but they keep saying that. Oh, boy, is it ever.
I tuck my hands under my arms and rock forward. The pain is real, unlike the man. Just remember, idiot, you never had a chance at a normal life. What made you think you did? I laugh to myself, a pell sound, a beautiful laugh that used to be charming before now, before I was older and afraid. Two things messed me up and I can never fix either of them and yet the two men who caused them won't even leave because now I won't. let. them.
What are you doing?
Trying to make it hurt less.
Does it work?
Music works.
Then go listen to music.
I WAS WHEN YOU GOT HERE. I rip off the headphones and I throw them at him and the screaming starts up again and briefly I wonder if he's the one screaming but then Lochlan comes rushing back in, picks up the headphones and crosses the room to me, pulling me in under his chin, kissing the top of my head, rocking me gently in place.
Find a song we should have scrubbed?
Yeah, I lie, pushing my face into his shirt until I can't breathe anymore.