Page 100 of Middle of the Night

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“You don’t know the half of it.” Ashley says it without anger or accusation or even seeking pity. It’s simply a statement, hinting at untold depths of misery. “And all I wanted to do—the reason I came over—was to invite an old friend for dinner in the hope I could forget about everything for a few minutes.”

“Instead, you encountered a crackpot talking about ghosts.”

“You’re not a crackpot.” Ashley exhales a long, exasperated sigh. “Honestly, this all would be easier to deal with if you were. But I can tell you honestly believe it.”

“I do,” I say, with a quickness that’s startling. We’re talking about Billy’s ghost, for God’s sake. The very idea should give me at least some pause. Yet it doesn’t. Not anymore. “Even though it’s crazy, I believe it. Because who else could have done it? Who else could have entered this house even though every door and window is locked, and written in my notebook something that only me and Billy knew he said?”

Ashley responds with a sad shake of her head. “I don’t know.”

“And who’s been tossing baseballs into my yard? Something Billy—and only Billy—used to do?”

“Somebody playing a cruel trick,” Ashley says. “Or maybe it’s you, Ethan. Have you ever thought of that? Maybe you’re doing it and you don’t remember. Maybe it’s always been you.”

I give her a look, shocked by the implication of her words. “Always?Do you think I had something to do with what happened to Billy? Do you think I killed him?”

“Of course not.” She reaches across the table, seeking my hand. Clasping it with both of hers, she says, “I know you didn’t hurt Billy. Everyone does. But I also know that what happened to him hit you harder than anyone but his family. And I just think that, maybe, all the things that have been happening aren’t really happening at all.”

I snatch my hand away from hers. “You think I’m making it up?”

“No,” Ashley says. “I think it’s possible you’re doing it without knowing what’s going on. Kind of like sleepwalking.Youmight have written in that notebook. Andyoumight have put those baseballs in your yard. Then you forgot all about it.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you want to believe it’s real. You want to believe that people can come back from the dead and communicate with you. Just like you want to believe this is just about Billy, when I have a feeling there’s more to it than that.”

“What do you mean?” I say. “Of course it’s about Billy.”

“And nothing to do with your wife?”

My body goes numb. When Ashley takes my hand again, I can barely feel it.

“I know what happened to Claudia, Ethan,” she says. “I know she died.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

At first, I say nothing. No words can adequately sum up what it feels like to lose your spouse. Especially when it’s so unexpected, when you incorrectly thought you still had decades left together. Yes, Claudia and I were going through a rough time when she died, arguing over not wanting to have kids, wondering if, after fifteen years of marriage, we weren’t the people we thought we were.

But I knew.

Claudia, although she’d changed in many ways, was still the person I met at that party in college, and I had zero doubts that we’d work it out. And when she left after our last fight about parenthood, I assumed she’d return. Because our last words to each other weren’t angry. They were resigned.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

But Claudia didn’t come back.

And unlike with Billy’s disappearance, I remember all of it.

The phone call as it neared midnight. The somber voice of the patrolman who told me he found an unresponsive woman inside a car registered in my name. The frantic, gnawing anxiety of the drive to thehospital, the body on the table, the white sheet being lifted, the face of my dead wife.

The car had been parked at a cute little lake where Claudia liked to go to think. There was no drama to her death. No foul play. She died of an aortic aneurysm that had gone undetected.

And I was left alone.

That was a year ago.

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