"I just have to try," she said aloud, a habit these days. "Sheridan believed in ghosts." Which led to that unspeakable hope: Maybe his belief can bring him back.
It was worth a try. What did Ave have to lose? Sheridan will try to come back to me. If anywhere, here. He will know I need him. He will know I stayed alive just to come here for him.
She would go into his arms once more. This thin thread had tied her to life. Because the worst thing about death was that it came without giving fair warning, one last chance to fill up your soul with enough love to last as long as you had to keep going.
A winter ago, Ave had prepared a lecture on war-and-water literature for her university students as she tossed together a soup and salad for Sheridan, on his way home from a Deans" meeting. But Sheridan flung aside his trenchcoat and briefcase to gather in his arms a rape/murder victim in an alleyway and was shot along with the fleeing culprit by the arriving police officers.
Struggling to hold onto life at the hospital, he"d weakened so alarmingly before she even got there that just kissing his cracked lips seemed a cruel imposition. As she waited and watched the emergency team work on him, Ave never doubted for a moment that he would revive.
But the doctor pulled up the sheet to cover Sheridan"s face. He looked up as Ave started to scream and shouted for help, tugging her out past the curtains of the emergency room.
She fought all the way, shrieking Sheridan"s name. But he was gone. And her first coherent thought, struggling up out of layers of shock and sedatives, had been that they would never make love again.
Not easy to say to her aunts when they came to her loft apartment with plates of steaming greens, spicy cornbread, and savory dirty rice. "Eat, Ave Marie. You"re not in the grave yet, no matter how badly you wish to be." Not easy to explain to friends who asked her to a party, a club, a blind dinner date. "Maybe it"s time for you to meet someone new, girl."
I"m not through with Sheridan. I have to hear his voice. Tell him I love him. Feel his arms around me again. If another man touches me, I"ll kill him. I"ll die. I need to make love with Sheridan. Maybe then she could finally say goodbye.
Sheridan would have understood exactly how she felt. And if he came to the Mardi Gras ghostly ball ....
By now, Ave had s.n.a.t.c.hed off dust covers all the way from the front door through the dining hallway and up to the kitchen. They littered the floor behind her, waiting to be gathered up and dumped into a washing machine.
And there was just such a machine where she remembered it in the corner of the kitchen: frontload, European-style.
Ave deposited her load of candles and cleaning utensils and a handy camping lantern on the kitchen worktable, and went back for the dust covers. She jammed them into the washing machine and took a deep breath before she s.n.a.t.c.hed open the broom closet.
Shushed sounds of brittle things scuttling out of her way.
Ave stood her ground. She shone her light bravely around inside the cramped storage s.p.a.ce, driving hideous creatures before her, back into the darkness. Only brooms and a dustpan, a bucket, and a collection of string and sponge mops remained.
The water and gas companies had done better than the electric people. Soon, Ave had mopped a disinfectant trail throughout the downstairs rooms that was guaranteed to send vermin staggering back into the city"s sewage system.
Nothing scampered at the edges of the darkness now, she thought with satisfaction as she dumped the muck into the gutter outside. She really should finally close the front door when she went back into the pine-scented townhouse. Close herself in with her ghost.
The latch clicked loudly in the silence.
Seemed to echo far away, upstairs.
Ave"s heart stutter-skipped. Could an echo carry that far in here? All the way up to the attic? "h.e.l.lo?" she called, after the sound ricocheted off the dark cathedral ceiling.
No answer. No more sound.
She should go back outside to the Porsche 914. One of its two trunks held Sheridan"s battery-operated sound system and his favourite CDs. She should play Sheridan"s music so she wouldn"t have to listen to sounds she couldn"t explain while she prepared to see him again.
Ave left her cleaning bucket to wedge open the heavy front door, even after she returned and set up Sheridan"s music system.
Blues would be good for the invocation. Soon, Bobby Blue Bland crooned, "I"ll take care of you. Please let me take care of you."
Now for a romantic dinner.
Ave retrieved a candelabrum from the mantelpiece in the parlour and carried it to the dining hall. Had she and Sheridan eaten at this very dining table before they went in search of the ghostly ball? Was this the same candelabrum Sheridan had carried upstairs? Ave couldn"t be sure. That one honeymoon night they had spent at the townhouse was hazy, entangled as it was in her mind with so much fear and desire.
Ave fitted new white candles into the holders and debated lighting them this early. Decided against it.
She went, instead, to the kitchen, and washed and dried a collection of fragile plates from the china cabinet. She set out a circle of brie, a baguette of fresh bread, some b.u.t.tery mascarpone cheese, and cl.u.s.ters of willow-green and violet-black grapes. She covered all these under upturned serving bowls on the dining table, in case the vermin crept back in while she was away, up in the attic.
Last, she set out the very same Hungarian cut crystal goblets that they had toasted their love with out on the balcony. "To us," Sheridan had said.
But she placed a bottle of clear water on the table tonight. Ave had not dared drink anything stronger than coffee since Sheridan"s death. Depression always threatened.
"There." Ave stood back from the table, hands on hips, to survey her spread. Perfect.
And a black line as thin as a hair caught in the viewer"s eye moved just out of Ave"s line of vision.
At first she thought it was a hair. She wasted precious seconds fluttering an eyelid and tugging at her eyelashes.
Wait. No pain.
There was nothing in her eye.
Ave jerked toward the doorway between the dining hall and kitchen. Something slipped away just ahead, as she turned.
"Sheridan?"
The slamming in Ave"s heart took forever to calm. She had to reason with herself that Sheridan wouldn"t come to her like this, slithering around at the edges of things. This was her imagination. She had always been frightened by the attic as Mardi Gras midnight drew near.
And a memory surfaced like a swimmer breaking through ice to gasp for air.
Ave"s grandmother, bathed and scented with lavender, wisteria, and mimosa oils from the local Voudun shops, draped in delicate white lace, her fine golden fingers sparkling with her wedding ring"s diamonds and sapphires as they ran along the keys of the baby grand piano, while she waited for that blackest hour.
The candelabrum"s flames flickered roseate spatters against the darkness all around and drew a courageous little Ave down the curved stairway to sit at her grandmother"s side. "Why are you still up, Grandmama Marie? Why are you so dressed up?"
Ave had looked up into her grandmother"s face. The fullness of her grandmother"s youth had been carved by pa.s.sing decades into contours of tenderness and grace lovelier than any of her young wedding photos.
"I want to be with him again, little one."
"Be with who, Grandmama Marie?"
Grandmama Marie had raised her beautiful face to gaze up the pitch-black stairway toward the attic.
Ave turned there now as Bobby Blue Bland"s song died away. In the sudden hush, a footstep sounded high away at the top of the stairs.
And brought a memory of Ave"s aunts struggling to restrain the one of them who fought in their arms to go up the stairs at Mardi Gras midnight, dressed in red satin, her hair straightened into undulating waves of perfumed blackness.
"No!" Ave screamed before she collected herself.
The footsteps stopped. Or had never sounded. Ave couldn"t be sure. She breathed deeply. Swallowed the sudden panic.
Grandmama Marie"s bath. Of course. A scented hot bath would ease Ave"s mind and put her in the mood for a possible encounter with Sheridan. And wasn"t she in luck? Water and gas were both turned back on.
It was harder to mop the upstairs bathroom floor and scrub the tub in what was now the pitch darkness of nighttime. Ave was very aware that the front door downstairs was still open to the street, to wanderers, revelers and burglars. But she wasn"t yet able to bring herself to close it again. She kept remembering the sound of that distant latch closing way upstairs in the attic.
Ave kept her cell phone off to save its power, but placed it carefully on the bathroom floor between the bathtub and the lit candelabrum, in case she needed to call for help. Then she stepped into the old claw-footed tub.
The warmth eased her legs and back. She moaned with pleasure and relief.
And came awake, thinking it was silly to be afraid to close the front door. Rats and roaches were nowhere near as dangerous as rapists, thieves and drunks. She would go close that door right now and then come back and finish her bath.
Ave clutched the edges of the tub and rose. Water sluiced down her sinewy cafe-au-lait thighs. Sheridan used to kiss her thighs like sipping coffee, the cream of the sunless season whipped deep into her skin"s end-of-summer mocha.
Dizzied by sleep and reverie, Ave stepped onto the newly cleaned floor and gathered up the sheet she had taken for a towel during her foray into a linen closet. She rubbed briskly, wrapped the sheet over damp skin and tucked the end between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
Paused. Listened. Called sharply, "Who was that?"
Someone had just whispered her name. Ave was sure of it this time. She leaned forward and shoved the bathroom door closed. Latched the flimsy hook.
She fumbled for her cell phone. s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and powered it on with shaking hands. Waited an eternity for it to beep into life so she could call 911.
And then thought, A burglar wouldn"t know my name. That has to be Sheridan.
"Sheridan? Sheridan, is that you, honey?"
Ave shut the phone just as she glimpsed the time. Nearly midnight. Already? Finally.
She slid the cell phone back to the floor and reached for the candelabrum, instead. How long did I sleep in the tub?
Went to the bathroom door and leaned her cheek against it, listening.
Nothing moved. No one spoke again.
"Sheridan?"
Ave gathered up her nerve. She had survived nine months when she would rather have been dead. She had driven halfway across the continent to meet with Sheridan one last time. She must not falter now, hiding from him in the bathroom, cowering in fear of the unknown.
Ave forced her free hand up to the latch. Flipped the hook free. Lowered her hand to the k.n.o.b.
Twisted it open. Pulled the door wide.
She raised her candelabrum and peered into the darkness. "Sheridan?"
How she hated the pleading in her voice! She tried again, more forcefully this time. "Sheridan, I"m here. It"s Ave."
Ave stepped out into the hallway and looked up toward the closed square of the attic door, still half a flight of stairs higher.
He would be in the attic.
Ave had not meant it to be like this. She had meant to be bathed, perfumed, dressed in his favorite colours, with her hair cascading from a pretty clip atop her head.
But what if he was up there already, waiting for her? How alone he must feel, suspended between the world of the dead and the world where they had shared their lives together!
Ave closed her eyes and thought of the warmth within Sheridan"s arms. The hard strength when he pressed her against his chest and abdomen. Their pa.s.sion.
She opened her eyes and forced herself to move up the last curve of the stairway. Of course it was Sheridan up there in the attic, waiting for her. What on earth else could it be?
Another flash of memory. One aunt"s sharp hand across the cheek of the aunt who struggled and wept.
"You don"t even know what"s up there."
"But Mama always went up there every Mardi Gras."
"And you don"t know what she went up there to meet."
"Papa. Daddy was up there for her."
"You don"t know that. She never said it was Papa."
"But who else could it be?" the aunt in red satin had asked desperately, just as they all heard the tinny thin music of the ghostly ball begin.
Ave paused beneath the attic door cut into the third floor ceiling. What had the aunt in red satin done, in the end?
But what did all that matter? What else besides the spirit of the man a woman loved could possibly be in that attic?
Had her grandmother ever explained? To any of them? No. She was sure Grandmama Marie had never said anything beyond, "I want to be with him again."
But Ave hadn"t been there to hear the last words when her grandmother died. Couldn"t even remember her grandmother"s waning years. Couldn"t begin to guess at the "he" that Grandmama Marie meant.
In fact, it seemed to Ave that she could remember nothing worthwhile, figure out nothing, just now when she needed so badly to remember and figure out everything.
And finally, for the first time ever, she wondered if the culprit whose crime cost Sheridan his life had survived that double shooting. How ironic, if he had. How cruel of fate.
In a flash, un-tethered memory a hissed warning to the aunt who struggled : "Carnival is the night when spirit becomes flesh, you fool. Anything could be up there."
This had stopped the aunt in red. And now it stopped Ave.
She faltered. Struggled with indecision.
Became impatient with herself. Really, what did all these memories matter? Surely, nothing at all! She knew with all the power of her love and devotion that Sheridan would come back for her, no matter what, just as she had held on, survived the pain, and come all this way just to be with him.
And anyway, if something else was in the attic when Sheridan came for her, he would protect her from it.
Of course Sheridan would protect her.
By now, Ave had arrived beneath the attic door. Bolstered by the thought of Sheridan"s protection, she reached for the rope that would open the door and drop down its collapsible ladder.
They would be together again.
Only as she gripped the rope did Ave wonder if Sheridan might not yet have arrived in the attic. Who or what else might know her name?
Her hand on the rope lay still.