Page 37 of The Accidental Ghost

Twelve

Ralph felt those words thrum though her veins, piercing the deepest part of her heart. “Did she know, Drucinda? Did she know how you felt?”

Drucinda’s snow-white head moved with a slow nod. “We were a couple for more than thirty years. We were a couple when society said we shouldn’t be.” She lifted a slender finger. “Mind you, we were always careful, of course, because the world could be such a horrible place. We kept separate residences until the day I died, but the dream was always to live together, make a home together…” Her voice hitched, her eyes filling with tears. “We just never did.”

How absolutely tragic. Ralph felt her heart constrict in sympathy. It was crystal clear, Drucinda loved this woman deeply. How cruel to have been denied the right to love one another due to fear, to not spend the rest of your years wrapped in the embrace of happiness.

It made her angry, sad. It made her want to rage against the ignorance, the nerve of someone to decide who you could love.

Ralph swallowed hard, her voice hitching, too. “I’m so sorry. The world can be a horrible place sometimes, can’t it? Filled with people who have no business sticking their noses into your life. I’m sorry acceptance is still so dreadfully small, and I know my words are just that—words. But I mean them.”

Her sigh was low, filled with sorrow. “We could have bucked the system, thrown caution to the wind and lived together anyway, but Kat was so afraid it would harm my agency, my legacy. Back in the day, I don’t know that it wouldn’t have. Even after all the awareness surfaced and began to pick up speed, she refused. Even after I told her I didn’t give a right damn. I only wanted to spend every night in her arms. But then I found out I had cancer, and it was over before I could give the agency and all its trappings the finger.”

Ralph gripped Drucinda’s hand in hers while they looked down at Kat. “I hate that for you, for her…for anyone who’s denied the right to enjoy their life, free of ridicule and persecution.”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all simply be ourselves? Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for us, and we wasted so much time hiding. I hate that we wasted so much time.” She looked down at Kat, letting her hand rest on her cheek, stroking it lovingly. “I wasn’t alone when I left this plane. She was right by my side until the bitter end. But she has no one. No family, no truly close friends. I guess there was no time for that because of our careers. We didn’t make time for that. But I don’t want her be alone, Ralph. I want to be here for her, too.”

“Her time is very close,” Ralph murmured. “I feel it.”

The beep of the heart monitor, slowing rapidly, sounded in her ears. But the voice that spoke to her about Gloria, the one that told her it wasn’t her time to go, the hushed, gentle disembodied voice in the dark, spoke to her once more.

You’re right. Well done. Her time is near, Raphaela. It’s very near… Are you ready?

Was she ready?

“That’s why I wanted your help, Raphaela. Because I’ve been spying on the nurses and this morning, they said, it wouldn’t be long—maybe even tonight. During the last weeks of my life, I promised her I’d find a way for us to be together… That when her time came, I’d be waiting. Even if we could only be together for a moment before she went where all good people go, I’d wait. I want her to know she should go where she belongs. I want her to have eternal happiness.”

Ah. Now it all made sense. She was waiting on this plane in limbo for her love. “That’s why you haven’t crossed to the other side.”

“That and…” She hesitated, but then determination pushed her to finish. “I didn’t live the purest of lives, Ralph. I’ve done things that some would, in this day and age, call shady. I didn’t commit murder or hurt animals or anything like that, but I wasn’t above finagling a deal, poaching a model or two, working them too hard.”

Ralph cocked her head. “Do you really think those things would keep you from going somewhere good, Drucinda?”

What defined good, anyway? She’d tried to live an honest life, one with integrity, but she wasn’t above lying at one time or another.

And what was considered good up there, anyhow? Were there levels of good, the way there were levels of Hell? Were you given a package according to your excellence? Bronze, silver, gold?

She knew Drucinda wasn’t going anywhere bad. Once more, she didn’t know why she knew, but she knew.

However, Drucinda’s smile was ironic. “Oh, there were other things I did before I discovered I was gay. Married men, drinking, you name it. Things I’m ashamed of to this day. I was uncompromising as a businesswoman, sometimes far more than need be, because I thought I had to be. I was selfish, I was judgmental. I was even mean. In our later years, Kat was my measuring stick—for when I became too aggressive, when I needed to lighten up, and she was the only person unafraid to tell me.”

Ralph whispered, “She softened you. What a wonderful quality to find in a life partner.”

“She made me see things from a different perspective. She was the calm to my storm.” Drucinda shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. “Anyway, I was afraid to cross because of that, if I’m being brutally honest. Afraid I’d be denied entry…”

As the heart monitor slowed yet more, Ralph nodded her understanding. “So you’ve stayed in limbo. That, in and of itself, is pretty selfless, Drucinda.”

She flapped a dismissive hand, her shoulders sagging. “Yes, I stayed where I was in the waiting room and denied myself the light, because I knew Kat was going to the best place the afterlife has to offer. And I didn’t care how long I had to wait to see her just once more, because I don’t think I’m going to be allowed admittance to where she’s going. Unfortunately, I didn’t have to wait long at all.”

A thought popped into Ralph’s head, as though she’d opened the cover of a book on Katriana Wellington, where every bit of information about her was in each chapter.

Kat’s life had, indeed, been good. The seventy-eight years she’d spent on Earth had been filled with her kindness.

While other models clawed their way up the ladder of success, she’d gracefully turned the other cheek, ascending on hard work and her helpful, empathetic nature. Kat Wellington had lived a selfless life, charging head-on against the naysayers who called models vain and selfish, like a bull in a china shop.

She wasn’t only beautiful on the outside; she was a million times more so on the inside. Her heart virtually glowed, and true to Drucinda’s statement, Kat had kept her lover on the straight and narrow.

And Ralph knew—knew it as surely as she knew her name was Raphaela Marguerite Tucci—that was why she was here, in this moment, with Drucinda. To lead Kat to her rightful place in the afterlife, and her entry would be glorious.

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