Page 25 of I'll Be Waiting

I’m drifting again. I gather my thoughts like an armful of clothingI keep dropping, forever losing a sock or shirt on my way from the laundry.

“Anton was sweet,” I say. “I wish I’d kept talking to him, but if we could only have had a few months together, then I’m glad I waited. What we had later…” My throat tightens and my eyes tear up.

God how I love you, Anton.

“Shh, Nic,” a voice whispers. “It’s okay.”

I stiffen. The words come from a distance, as if from deep in the house, so soft that my ears wouldn’t have picked them up if I weren’t already halfway zoned out, lost in memories of Anton.

I glance over my shoulder, toward the door. The voice came from over there.

“Nicola?” Dr. Cirillo says.

I want to shake it off, but I keep staring over my shoulder. That snapped “Janica” was easy to dismiss. It hadn’t even sounded like anyone. But this had been Anton’s voice. Undeniably Anton’s voice.

I pull myself back. “I’m sorry. I thought I heard something.”

“Anton?” Dr. Cirillo says gently.

“I’m hearing what I want to hear, and if no one else does, then it’s just me.”

“What did you—?”

“I was imagining it,” I cut in, a little too sharply. “That happens sometimes at séances. It’s just wishful thinking.”

Dr. Cirillo meets my gaze. “You’re engaging in what I call blocking behavior. You’re worried about seeming foolish, right? Being the grieving widow who leaps on any curtain flutter as a sign that her husband is in the room.”

My face heats. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. At séances, people expect the grieving widow to be desperate—hell, it’s what the charlatans count on.

Dr. Cirillo continues, “If you—or anyone else—experiences something, I want you to share it, please, without qualifications orapologies. We accept that there will be misreadings, so to speak. Now, did the voice sound like Anton?”

I nod.

“Could you tell what it seemed to say?”

My throat closes, but I force the words out. “He said it’s okay. Which is trivial, but also what I’m hoping for and—” I take a deep breath. “That’s qualifying, isn’t it?”

He smiles. “It’ll take time to get used to this degree of openness, particularly after you’ve been taken advantage of so many times.”

“But Nic’s really good at seeing through the scams,” Shania says, and then shoots me an apologetic look. “I don’t mean to cut in, but you spot the snake oil before I do.”

“And Nicola recognizes that if she hears Anton, it could be wishful thinking,” Dr. Cirillo says. “With all those caveats in place, would you like to return to the welcoming? Or investigate the voice?”

“Return to the welcoming, please,” I say.

“All right. Jin? You knew Anton, didn’t you?”

Jin nods. “He got together with Nic not long after Libby introduced me to Keith. We joked that we joined the family together.”

“Would you feel comfortable sharing a memory?”

“Sure. First time we met?”

“Please, if that works.”

Jin gets comfortable in his chair. “It was the first time I met Nic, too. I knew about her. Actually, I knew about her before I knew about Keith. Libby would talk about going out with Nic, and I thought it was really cool that she’d stayed friends with her former sister-in-law. Then when I started dating Keith, he’d also talked about Nic. So I felt like I knew her already. Anton was just some guy she was seeing that both Libby and Keith really liked.”

Jin takes off his sweater and hangs it on the back of his chair. “So, that sets the stage. I’m going to dinner with my new boyfriend and his sister and her relatively new boyfriend. Last thing I want to be is late, right? So of course I was late. Got held up at work, and I’dtexted Keith, but he hadn’t answered. I thought I’d pissed him off. Turned out he just didn’t see the text.”

---