Page 4 of I'll Be Waiting

I also know what can happen if you do.

An image flashes. Blood sprayed across a bush—

I shove that aside. That was two decades ago. This séance is about Anton, and I am not the least bit concerned about summoning my husband’s spirit.

I follow the medium down the dim hall. Beside me, Shania fairly vibrates with excitement. Tiny and dark-haired, Shania has kohl-linercat eyes that make her look much younger than her twenty-five years. So does the hope shining in her face.

I met Shania two months ago, at grief counseling, where I’d been assigned as a mentor to help her mourn the loss of her sister.

I can say I’m here for her. She desperately wants proof of an afterlife. But that’s a lie, and I won’t give in to it.

I’m here for me. Because I’m a damn coward who can’t accept that her husband is gone.

As the medium—call me Leilani—herds us toward the room, Shania whispers, “This time we’ll reach him. I know we will.” She squeezes my hand, her skin hot against my clammy fingers.

We enter a tiny, windowless room. It looks like the den in my grandparents’ house, complete with wood paneling and a stucco ceiling. Mystical abstract art on the walls seems to all be painted by the same amateur, maybe Leilani herself.

Two women and a man sit at an old table draped in a black cloth. All three are middle-aged, white, and nondescript enough that they could be related. Three pairs of eyes stare at me. Leilani introduces them as spirit helpers, but I know why they’re really here. To gape at me. Nicola Laughton. The woman from the news. The woman from a viral story that rises from the grave every few weeks, which I know by the sudden surge of messages with titles like “Have you seen him yet?” and “I can help you contact him.”

My life changed in one night. A winter storm, not even that bad, just earlier than usual. An asshole who wasn’t letting a little snow slow him down. Faulty airbags in a nearly new car. Between the three, I went from giddy newlywed to grieving widow in twenty minutes flat. A private tragedy that should have damn well remained private.

Except it didn’t.

One of those strangers milling around that night had recognized a story unfolding before them. Was it one of the Good Samaritans who helped get us out of the car, wrapped us in blankets, called 911? Or one of the ghouls who only stopped to gape?

It doesn’t matter. Someone overheard me telling the paramedics that I had cystic fibrosis, just warning them as you would with any chronic condition, and suddenly, a back-page “One Dead in Highway Accident” became a front-page “Terminally Ill Newlywed Widowed in Horrific Winter Crash.”

I’m not sure what enraged me more: the idea that having CF made me “terminally ill” or that the headline centered around me, when Anton was the one who’d lost his life.

“Man Dies in Crash” isn’t a story. Not until someone hears that he married a woman in the late stages of a chronic illness and—plot twist!—she’sthe one now planninghisfuneral. I’m not even in the late stages of CF, but given my age, someone apparently decided I was.

That story would have made the front page, but it wouldn’t have gone viral. It’s the other one that counted. That night, when I’d said goodbye to Anton, people had overheard us talking. They’d heard his last words to me.

I’ll be waiting.

One witness swore that after he said that, his spirit flowed from his body and bent to kiss the top of my head. They even took a damn photo—because that’s what you do when you unintentionally eavesdrop on a stranger’s dying words. You get out your phone for a picture.

In the photo, a white blur hangs over me. It’s some kind of optical illusion—from the snow and the night and the headlights—but people see what they want to see. And what they want to see is the ghost of a dead man, standing over his “terminally ill” wife, reassuring her that he’ll be waiting on the other side. For, you know, when she dies. Which will be soon. Aww. How sweet.

That’s the story that went viral. That’s also the story that brought every medium to my virtual—and sometimes actual—doorstep. I’m the perfect client, grief-stricken and financially comfortable enough to fork over cash for a séance, pathetically hopeful after that photo,and also minor-league social-media famous, guaranteeing publicity if they can contact my husband.

Do I sound angry? Iamangry. I’m pissed off at that driver, at the car manufacturer, at whoever shared those stories, at whoever took that picture, at the phony mediums preying on my grief. But the person I’m angry at the most?

Me.

Because I keep falling for the con artists. Because I am smarter than this, stronger than this, wiser than this. Or I should be. Yet here I am in another medium’s house, paying to be tricked and gaped at by strangers.

Worse, I’m here after swearing to everyone that I won’t do this again. I’m like a junkie sneaking away for her fix, and I am ashamed.

I am so damned ashamed of myself.

I’ve never been what you’d call meek. Dad always said I plow through life, and there may have been some mention of a bull and a china shop, implying that my “plowing” comes with the strong possibility of destruction. But when I enter Leilani’s lair, I am as meek as can be. Gaze downcast, greetings murmured, praying my face isn’t bright red with shame and embarrassment. I’m sure it is—the perils of being the pale and freckled kind of redhead.

I take my seat, and Shania slides in beside me. I offer her a smile that I try—really try—to make genuine. She deserves better. She deserves a mentor who can help her move past her sister’s death. But how am I supposed to help her do something I can’t do myself?

I know all the platitudes. Cherish the memories. Be thankful for the time you had with them. They would want you to be happy. All true. Anton would be horrified to see me in this room. But this is where I am.

Leilani lights candles and lowers the lights. She doesn’t turn them off. The candles aren’t strong enough for that. But the illusion of a séance by candlelight is all that matters. The illusion of the whole thing is all that matters. A proper séance must look as if we wanderedinto a nineties movie-set séance, complete with candles, incense, a black-clad medium, and a Ouija board. Don’t forget the Ouija board.

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