Louise
It was windy. The wind whistled through the yard. He heard a loud crash and was startled. He had been startling easily lately. Since “it” happened. He went to the back window to check it out. A planter, half full of dirt, had blown over. It seemed impossible, but it was a plastic planter and the dirt had a lot of filler in it.
Still, the whistling wind made the night eerie. The clouds were whisking through the sky like gazelles trying to escape a lion. The crescent moon was trying desperately to stay clear of the clouds and provide some light in the dark night.
Marie asked him if he would be alright. He insisted she go to her sister’s. Every year they spent a week together. Sometimes they would stay at Anne’s house, other times they would rent a hotel on some beach. He had been in a bad accident and was still recuperating. He had flashes of memory but he still couldn’t put it all together.
It still felt strange being alone. Has it been three months already? He shook his head gazing at the calendar. The cats on the calendar were looking at him as though they were judging him, as though they knew what he had done. It wasn’t just the cats, things had been going wrong for a while. They could all be explained, like the wind knocking over the planter, but still, something seemed off, wrong.
The other night he was doing the dishes and suddenly the water was piping hot. His hand was scalded pink and red from the hot water. And two nights before that the tv kept shutting off. He would turn it on and, click, off it would go a few minutes later. Every six minutes for an hour he fought with the tv. And, the other day, he swore he hung his keys on the hook by the door, but when he went to go out the next day, the keys were gone. He found them on the table next to the chair in the living room next to the coasters with the pictures of the fluffy white cats. Marie loved cats. They creeped him out a little.
Another crash. This time from the kitchen. He thought he heard something else but shook his head and insisted it was just the wind or his runaway imagination. He went into the kitchen and saw the window was slightly opened. A tin coffee can that contained eggshells and coffee grinds that he kept on the windowsill for the plants had tumbled into the sink. He closed the window and started cleaning the grinds. A cool breeze brushed his cheek.
“But how?” he said aloud to the empty house. “I closed that window.”
The house was old, he admitted to himself, and drafty. That must be it.
“Charles,” a voice whispered.
“Who is it? Who’s there?”
“Charles,” the familiar voice, louder now.
He spun around and there she was. Not exactly there, but a shade of the woman.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“Yet, here I am. I’ve been here for quite a while. You just haven’t been able to see me until now,” the figure said in a quiet, echoing voice.
“But . . . but this is impossible,” Charles countered, still wondering if he was awake or trapped in some horrible dream sequence.
“You should have told the truth,” the shade accused.
“It was an accident, Louise. An accident. What could I do? They were going to blame me and you know it wasn’t my fault,” Charles said in a shaky voice.
“You should have told the truth,” the shade repeated, “at least then I would have closure and I would have moved on, Charles. Now, I’m stuck with unfinished business that isn’t even my unfinished business,” she knocked over the salt shaker as she finished her sentence.
“I didn’t know, Louise. It was all I could do to crawl up that embankment after the car went off the road. You were a bloody mess and I couldn’t find a heartbeat and,” he broke down sobbing, his face bent down into his hands.
“You have to tell the truth, Charles,” the spector insisted.
“I was in the hospital for days and I couldn’t remember what happened . . .” he was making excuses again.
“You have to tell them, Charles,” she said again. “You left me, you left me exposed. You have to tell them where my body is, Charles.”
He hung his head. He tried to hold back the tears but three tears escaped. A tear for Louise. A tear for Marie. Of course, she was right. He would have to tell the truth. He picked up his phone and pushed 9-1-1.
“Thank you, Charles.”
Louise, the beautiful, vibrant woman who had flitted into his life a year ago, disappeared
