Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [25]
She had laughed. “That’s the worst pick-up line I’ve ever heard.”
“It can’t be,” he said. “Surely it’s only in the top ten of the worst. It can’t be the worst of all.”
From there, they’d made a casual date—to meet at the Empire State Building like Sleepless in Seattle. “That way, if I scare you, you can have the safety of all those people, plus you can throw me off the roof if you decide I’m the wrong one. You can even give me a fake name if you want so I can’t stalk you later. I’ll buy the hot dogs.”
“I’ll bring a parachute,” she’d told him.
And then, she dreamed of:
The face of the dead man in the morgue. It had not been Hut, even though it had been him. What was Hut had fled, and left the empty husk of flesh behind.
The face of the dead man with closed eyes.
In her dream, his eyes opened.
Chapter Seven
1
After a week, Julie felt herself rise, a waking sleeper, from some dark place. She spent less time in bed. She began enjoying the taste of food again. Just a little. Less time avoiding phone calls from the detective. Less time avoiding her mother and sister and even her children. Livy started having bad dreams, but weirdly Matt was handling himself okay, and her therapist, Eleanor Swanson, said it was completely normal, everything that was going on. Normal, normal, normal.
Within a few days, her mother went back to Pennsylvania, and Mel came and went, and it wasn’t normal yet, and she felt as if she were hiding something, keeping a secret about how she wanted to scream and cry and yell and break things and kick walls in.
But she let some autopilot within her switch on, and focused on Matt and Livy, helping them navigate the slender canals of grief.
2
“Mommy!” Livy cried out from the backyard.
Some instinct kicked in, and Julie thought of the trowel she had left in the flowerbed, and all she could think of was that her baby was hurt.
“Mommy hurry!” Livy screeched.
Julie nearly flew out the kitchen door, out to the patio.
Livy stood next to the low weeping willow tree at the edge of the lawn.
“Honey? You okay?”
Livy had a glow to her face—as if she’d been sunburned, almost. She had her hands to her ears. “It’s Daddy!” she shouted. “It’s him!”
Julie went to her and squatted down in front of her so they were eye-level with each other.
“He’s on my brain radio,” Livy grinned. “He’s telling me he’s okay.”
“Oh, baby,” Julie said, and felt herself get all weepy as she lifted Livy up. Livy wrapped her legs around her mother’s waist. “He’s in heaven. He’s with God now.”
“No he’s not,” Livy said. Then, whispering in her mother’s ear as if it were a big secret that nobody was supposed to hear. “Gramma was wrong. He didn’t go upstairs. He’s with us. Right now.”
3
On the phone:
“Eleanor. It’s Julie. I think maybe I’d like to ask you to talk with Livy.”
4
Eleanor made an exception that afternoon. Livy clutched her mother’s hand as they stepped into the waiting room. Julie went to the assistant, a young man named Vincent who handled three of the psychologists in the suite of offices. Then, Eleanor came out, and gave Livy a warm smile. “It’s good to finally meet you,” she said. “I know your mom and brother Matt well. I’ve heard so much about you for so long, I feel we’re practically neighbors.”
Then, Eleanor asked Julie to stay in the waiting area so that she and Livy could talk for a bit. Livy looked back at her, eyes wide, mouth a small tight o, and for a second, Julie felt as if she were giving her daughter away to a stranger.
5
Afterward, Livy came out, a grin on her face, and tapped her mother on the knee.
“How’d it go?” Julie asked, setting a magazine down on the chair next to hers.
Livy looked up at her, and for just a moment Julie felt a chill as if her daughter contained some unknown well of anger and fury, and it was all in that glance.
“She’s a nice lady,” Livy said.
When Julie called to ask about Livy, Eleanor told her, “She thinks she sees her father. She told me that he started coming through