Page 20 of I'll Be Waiting

“That was the question. They said they definitely heard the sounds first, but I went into it knowing that might not be true. It would be understandable to learn about a violent death and then imagine sounds from that part of the house. Also, it was a very old house, with all the attendant creaks and odd noises. On the first night, I heard nothing. The second night, the whispers and crying came. On the third, the pacing started. That’s when I went into full detective mode. These clearly weren’t the creaks of an old house. Therefore someone was faking a haunting.”

He takes a pause to sip his tea, and I have to give him credit for knowing how to play his audience.

“I tried everything to catch someone in the attic,” he says. “I set up video. I checked for alternate entrances. I positioned myself right below the hatch. Still the noises continued. When I cleaned up the recording, I clearly heard a woman’s voice pleading to be let out. Promising she wouldn’t tell.”

Shania rubs her arms and shifts in her seat. Even I feel hairs prickling.

Cirillo’s gaze goes to Shania. “I could stop there.”

She twists a smile. “Then I’d only imagine the worst. Go on.”

“Well, I don’t have a definitive answer for what I experienced, only a theory. It turned out that the man who’d ended his life had a niece who disappeared a few years earlier. The story went that he was supposed to pick her up at college and drive her home for the summer break. Only he was late to the meetup spot, and she was already gone. The police suspected she’d accepted a ride with someone else when her uncle was late. The family believed the uncle blamed himself for it, and that’s why he ended his life. But… given what I heard in that house, I see another explanation.”

“He did pick her up,” Shania whispers. “And locked her in the attic. After she died, he kept hearing her there. So he went into the attic and…” She shudders.

“I believe so,” Cirillo says. “That experience obviously unsettled me. Not only was it disturbing, but I had no rational, non-paranormal explanation for what I experienced. I told my advisor I needed a break. I thought I was getting too deep into the work. He argued that to properly investigate these phenomena, we had to accept the possibility that therecouldbe something out there. That shook me. I thought I knew what I was doing, and then I didn’t. But I went back to it. Nineteen times out of twenty, I found an explanation. But every now and then…”

“You found one that couldn’t be explained away,” Shania says.

“Yes. I finished my doctorate and decided to stay in the field. Over time, those exceptions to the rule increasingly seized my attention, and my studies evolved to where they are today. I still investigate phenomena with an eye toward scientific explanations, but I also actively try to communicate with the dead, because I believe, sometimes, they are there and want to communicate, as that poor girl in the attic did.”

“So you’re not a medium?” Shania says. “I mean, in the sense of having the Sight or being attuned to the other world.”

“I don’t believe in the Sight, as they call it, nor in the idea of some people being naturally attuned to the spirit world. Iammore attuned, but purely through practice. And still, as I explained to Ms. Laughton, ninety-five percent of the time, I find nothing.”

“Nicola, please,” I say. “Or just Nic. Your research is the reason we chose you. I don’t want guaranteed contact, because I know that’s bullshit, pardon my language.”

His eyes warm with a smile. “No need to pardon any language. I’m a professor, not a priest. What I believe is that some spirits are right on the other side, waiting to communicate. Most of them, though, are not. They’ve crossed over.”

“And Anton might have stayed,” Shania says, “because of what he said before he died.”

Dr. Cirillo answers carefully, “It’s possible, but more than that, I think Ms.—Nicola is in a particular situation where what I offer might be what she needs. Not necessarily contact, but answers, even if that answer is that I don’t sense him.”

I nod. “I won’t lie and pretend I don’t care whether I make contact or not. Of course I want to know he’s somewhere and he’s okay. But mostly, I just…” My hands find each other, clutched on my lap even as I try to relax. “Mostly, I want to be done with this. I tell myself that the person who claimed to see Anton’s ghost just wanted attention. But I feel as if… as if Anton disappeared and someone said they saw him, and I ignored it.”

“A missed opportunity,” Dr. Cirillo says.

“More than that.”

Jin looks over at me. “Like he’s trying to call, and you aren’t picking up the phone. One of those nightmares, where you can’t answer it.”

My eyes fill. “Exactly. As if he’s trying to get in touch, and I’m not answering the phone. As if he’s right there, waving his arms, and I’m ignoring him. As if… I’ve moved on.”

Jin reaches out to squeeze my hand.

I squeeze my eyes shut against welling tears. “I’m going to do this now and then. I know it’s been eight months but… I’m not getting past it.”

“Your husband died,” Jin says softly. “No one expects you to get past it.”

“No one expects anything of you this week, Nicola,” Dr. Cirillo says.

ButIdo. I don’t expect to get over Anton. That’s never going to happen. But I expect to be able to put on a good face in public and save my tears for private. Months of therapy, group and individual, and I’ve barely progressed beyond where I was at his funeral.

No, my therapist would say that isn’t true. At his funeral, I didn’t cry. I know people judged me for that, but those who knew me—Keith, Libby, Jin, and others—realized the truth of my stony silence. I was locked behind that facade, screaming at the top of my lungs that this was all wrong, that Anton wasn’t gone, that someone had made a terrible mistake.

Reaching the point of being able to cry was an improvement, even if it meant nights of sobbing so bad that I’d rented a house for a week because my neighbors complained about the noise.

Iammaking progress. It’s just not where I personally want to be. I want to keep my grief as private as I’d kept my love.

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