This House is Ours - 1 (Patreon)

-Sunday-

I don't want to believe in ghosts.

I used to.

I mean, I used to want to. My father was dying, and I didn't want him to die. Every day we stood around in that hospital room and told him. I don't want you to die.

Saying "I don't want you to die" doesn't help, though. You can't convince cancer.

I don't want you to die. I don't want you to die.

So, I made a plan.

I collected the ingredients. The memories. Recordings of his voice. His love. His fear. The spooky echoing laughter at his own dumb jokes. My little brother Simon and I, we collected every bit of him that we could, and we tried our best to trap a ghost.

I wanted to hold onto my father even after the cancer took him. I wanted there to be rituals or magic to keep him alive. To catch his voice in a bottle. But there wasn't any magic. In the end it was just a collection of recordings. I love to listen to them. Simon loves to listen to them. But there is no ghost there. Just the memory of a joke about chickens.

I was disappointed at first. But the more I think about it, the more it scares me, what we tried to do. What if we had caught his ghost? I imagine him sitting somewhere in the dark, by himself. What if he was still dying in the afterlife? What if they were still bruising his arms with needles? Freezing his blood with poison? What if the angels had been doing their jobs so long they turned cruel? What if their empathy was a colorful pin on a uniform they had worn until it was faded and cold.

I think about that a lot. What we almost did to our father.

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-Letter-

Dear Simon,

Dear Sunday,

If you're reading this, I'm already dead.

If you're not reading this, I'm still dead.

Let me start over.

I'm dead, my loves. My chickadees. My dear ones. Children, I used to be alive. That is no longer the case. This isn't an apology. I'm feeling a little giddy. My mind is made up. There's going to be nothing.

Dead and gone. I don't know when you'll read this letter. I hope you get to it before your uncles do. Or, if not, I hope they pass it along unopened. It isn't for them.

I say I hope, but I guess it's not my problem. Dead and gone. My body's "dead," and whatever the other thing is is "gone." This should be a sadder letter. But I'm elated. I am lifted up. I feel so certain now.

I don't have any answers or excuses for you. Answers? What needs answering? Why did I do it? Where did I do it? When? Who did I do it?

The questions all sound inane to me. Like, "Why is the sky blue?" That has a very simple answer. You ask the question and then you know why the sky is blue. If anyone ever brings it up, you have that blue sky information in your back pocket. It's a "fun fact."

I'm not a fun fact. I'm not going to come up at parties.

And I'm tired of trying to explain, even to myself. Suicide. It is the question and the answer. Simple.

Not like living. Living isn't simple. So much busy work. So much useless empty life. So many hours in a day. Wake up. Live. Repeat. Everybody needs everything spelled out, stretched out. 100,000 words to tell a sad, small story, or it won't sell in airport bookstores. And the writing inside knows it, too. The words know they're useless. Computer, make this paragraph five times as long. Computer, polish this dialogue.

Read the back and you've read the whole novel. My husband died of cancer. We had two children, a boy and a girl. (That's you, Simon. That's you, Sunday.) Then I walked out to the end of a pier in the night, in the fog, and I chained myself to some cinder blocks. Now I'm dead, and so I have no children at all. WE have no children at all. Think of all the disposable income your father and I will enjoy.

How many paragraphs and I still haven't said I loved you?

I did. You are my children and I loved you. I loved you both. I loved you almost enough to go on living.

Your mother.

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-Frank and Jonah-

Jonah was in bed, doing a crossword. He was half drunk. The days were long, and empty. At least in the evenings he could have wine, and laugh with Frank's mother. They had come here to say goodbye. Frank's brother was dying of cancer. And it had happened just like that. Frank's brother had died, and for a few days, Jonah was there for his husband.

But that was months ago, and they were still here. Because someone had to take care of Simon and Sunday. Their mother had completely broken down. Shut down. She was locked in her room. There was no plan to go back to the city, to put her children back in school, to go back to work, to be a person again. Weeks had turned to months.

The door opened quietly, and Frank slipped into the room. Quiet, to not wake Simon and Sunday, sleeping across the hall.

"Their mother was downstairs. In the kitchen."

"Maybe that's good."

"No. She said she is going to kill herself. Calm, like she was saying that she might take a vacation, or go to the store." Frank finished undressing and climbed into bed. "Can I turn out the light? My head is killing me."

Jonah set the crossword on the nightstand and turned out the light. He pulled Frank into his arms. Frank felt cold. Like he'd been outdoors.

"She's depressed, Frank. She's tired. But she's talking to us. Maybe that is good. Maybe she's asking for help." His voice was quiet, his Haitian accent gentle.

"It was shocking. She didn't sound sad, or confused, or desperate, or afraid, or manic. She was so matter of fact. What am I supposed to do with that?"

"What did you say to her?"

"I don't know. I said… I asked her what about your children? She said they would be fine. And then she went back upstairs with her chicken salad sandwich."

"You made her a chicken salad sandwich?"

"She has to eat, Jonah." Frank said.

"Do you want me to read to you?" Jonah said, and Frank smiled in the dark.

“No, but,”

There was a long pause. Jonah waited.

"You're going to make me ask?"

Jonah waited.

"Jonah, will you put your hand down my underwear, will you wrap your hand around me? I want to fall asleep like that. Just safe and yours. Protected property." There was a smile in his voice. But a tired one.

Jonah answered with his warm hand.

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