Had Dan put me to bed at a friend’s apartment last night for some reason? I struggle to remember, but the last thing I recall is falling asleep in his arms just after leaving the restaurant.
“Dan?” I call out tentatively.
I hear footsteps in the hallway, then the sound of someone whistling softly. Again, I have a strange feeling of familiarity, but it only unsettles me. Dan never whistles. In fact, he’d told me on
our first date that he considers his inability to whistle one of his greatest failures in life. It was the first time he’d made me laugh.
“Babe?” I venture a bit more uncertainly.
And then the person whistling rounds the corner into the bedroom, and my heart nearly stops, because it’s not Dan standing there at all.
It’s Patrick.
My husband, Patrick.
Who died a dozen years ago.
“Morning,” he says with a smile, and the sound of his sweetly familiar deep voice hits me like a punch to the gut. I was so sure I’d never hear it again.
This is impossible.
As I gape at him, I realize that he doesn’t quite look the way he used to. His dark hair is a little thinner around the temples, his laugh lines have deepened, and he’s more solid than he once was. It’s how I always imagined he might have looked if he’d lived to grow older with me. His eyes are just as brilliant and green and warm as I remember, though, and for a long moment, I forget to breathe.
“What’s happening?” I finally whisper, but my voice barely makes a sound. I notice with a start that there’s a sort of haze filling the room, the kind of softening of the light that happens when the sun’s rays hit particles of dust in the air just the right way. Those gossamer moments have always made me think of fairy dust and wishes come true. I wonder if that’s what’s happening now, something magical and unreal.
But as I stare at Patrick, something strange happens: my disorientation begins to fade. I look around and realize with a start that I
knew
somehow that there would be a slender Dyson vacuum cleaner propped haphazardly in the corner; I knew there would be a Word-of-the-Day calendar on the bedside table; I knew there would be a small cluster of yellow roses in a blue vase on the bureau.
This is our old apartment, I’m startled to realize, the one on Chambers Street, the one we were living in when Patrick died. The furniture is mostly new, but I recognize the layout, the hardwood floors I’d once loved, the walls I’d once pounded on while screaming and demanding to know how God could have taken my husband away. I can’t understand what’s happening.
“Katielee? You okay?” Patrick asks with concern, cutting into my confused train of thoughts and bringing me back down to earth.
I can feel tears rolling down my cheeks as I struggle to say something in return, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is a meaningless string of vowels. A part of me is wondering if this is a dream, but the longer I’m here, the more convinced I am it’s not. After all, I’ve never dreamed this vividly and in this much detail before. Then again, if I’m not dreaming, what explanation is there?
Patrick sits down beside me on the bed. “You must have had a rougher night than I thought, honey,” he says with a chuckle.
Then he reaches out to stroke my arm, and my whole body feels suddenly like it’s on fire. He feels so real, and it startles me so much that I pull away and then instantly regret it, because I’d do anything in the world to have his hands on my skin.
“What is it, Kate?” he asks, reaching up to wipe my tears away. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re alive!” I finally manage to choke out between sobs. His hand on my face is the only thing grounding me. I have the sudden feeling that if he moves away again, I’ll simply drift straight out the open window and back to the reality in which I belong.
“Of course I’m alive,” he says, looking puzzled.
I sniffle and try to explain. “But you . . . you died twelve years ago.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, the
whole room goes fuzzy. I reach out in a panic, groping for him.
“Honey, what are you talking about?” His voice sounds very far away. “Why would you say something like that?”
“Because—” I pause as the world around me continues to fade. Abruptly, I wonder whether my doubt is making this reality disappear. Isn’t that what happens when one shakes the foundation of a dream? All of a sudden, regardless of what this is, I’m desperate to stay here for as long as I can, so I take a deep breath, force a feeble smile, and say in a rush, “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m sorry. You’re obviously right here.”
The room comes instantly back into focus—
Patrick
comes back into focus—and my heart skips a beat. For a few seconds, I look around in wonder, taking it all in. The impossibly blue sky outside the window. The technicolor yellow of the roses on the bureau. The searingly red glow of the numbers on our digital bedside clock. It’s like someone has turned up the color dial by fifty percent, making everything more beautiful. I look back at Patrick, and although he seems to almost glow in the overly saturated room, he still looks like himself. Except that he’s frowning.
“Katielee, you’re scaring me,” he says. The room flickers again, and I grab his hand in a panic.
“No, I’m sorry,” I hurry to say. “I think I was having a bad dream.”
The minute the words are out of my mouth, I find myself wishing fervently that they’re somehow true. What if
this
isn’t the dream? What if everything that has happened in the last twelve years is instead the strange fiction?
“You dreamed that I was dead?” He looks concerned, and I can feel my eyes filling with tears.
“Patrick, it was the worst thing I could have imagined. You have no idea how glad I am that you’re here.”
He gives me another strange look before pulling away. “You’re being really weird this morning. Why don’t I go get you some ibuprofen and a cup of coffee, okay?” He stands up and takes a step toward the door, and before I know what I’m doing, I lurch out of bed and grab his arm in a panic.
“Please don’t go!” I cry. I’m terrified that if I let him stride out of the room, I’ll never see him again.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “Would you like to come with me?”
I nod, feeling foolish, and after giving me another concerned look, he helps me out of bed. I feel dizzy and disoriented the moment I’m on my feet.
As Patrick takes my hand and leads me out of the bedroom, I glance out the window in the hall and notice that the dilapidated funeral home that always stood there has been replaced by a little green space with a jungle gym, a yellow slide, and a poplar tree. “Everything’s different,” I murmur.
“Kate,” Patrick says, his voice hoarse, “what’s wrong with you?”
I turn to face him, and he’s so close that I can hardly breathe. I move into the space between us, and as I feel his body against mine, I remember with a jolt the way I used to fit so perfectly into the nook between his arm and his chest. I touch his face, and the stubble on his jaw feels so real. “I . . . I’m not supposed to be here,” I say, because I don’t know how else to explain what’s happening to me. The hall flickers and sparks at the edges, and I realize that I’ve again threatened the fabric of this world.
“Where else would you be?” Patrick looks at me for a moment and then gently turns me around and begins moving us back toward the bedroom. “You know what, honey?” he asks. “Maybe it’s better if I just bring you that ibuprofen. You seem really off this morning. Let’s get you back to bed for a bit, okay?”
I let him lead me back to the bedroom, because he’s right; I feel dazed and unsteady on my feet. “Don’t leave me,” I murmur.
“I’ll be right back,” he says as he tucks me under the covers. “I promise.”
“But you promised me you’d be with me forever too,” I whisper after he’s gone. For a moment, I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what’s happening. Why does everything here feel so familiar? How do I know, for example, that the ibuprofen bottle Patrick is going to get is the generic brand from Duane Reade, that it’s on the second shelf beside the sink in the bathroom, and that there are only a dozen pills left? How do I know that the shopping list attached to the fridge has
ibuprofen
written on it, directly below
milk, marshmallows, peanut butter, frozen onions,
and
toilet paper
—all in my handwriting? How do I know that when I reach for the lamp on Patrick’s bedside table, it won’t turn on, because the bulb burned out last night? I take a deep breath and just to be sure, I reach across and flick the switch at the lamp’s base. Nothing happens, and I exhale heavily, more confused than ever.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m really here, that this isn’t actually a dream at all. But that doesn’t make any sense.
My heart thudding, I reach for the phone on my bedside table. We still have a landline, I know in a flash, because Patrick thinks it’s safer, just in case we ever need to call 911.
How do I know that?
I shake my head and dial my sister’s home number. Surely she’ll explain everything.
But a second later, a recording comes on telling me the line has been disconnected. I hang up and redial, assuming I’ve hit the buttons wrong in my confusion, but the same recording comes on again. I try her cell, but there’s a man’s voice on the outgoing message instead of hers. I’m getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. What if something happened to her?
“Is Susan okay?” I demand as Patrick walks back into the room. Could this dream world have traded my sister for my husband, one horror for another? “Please tell me she’s okay. Please tell me she’s alive.”
Patrick’s brow furrows. “Of course she is, honey,” he says, and relief floods through me like a river. “What are you talking about?”
“I just tried calling her,” I say as I feel myself begin to shake again. I rattle off the digits of her home phone, as if saying them will bring her back.
He shakes his head. “Katielee, that’s her old number.”
I stare at him, and suddenly, as if someone is uploading my memory files as we go, I know exactly what he means. “She moved,” I murmur. “For Rob’s job. Eleven years ago.”
Patrick looks concerned. “Of course. To San Diego.”
“Right,” I say slowly. I also know suddenly that Sammie is taking surf lessons, that Calvin broke his arm falling off his skateboard three weeks ago, and that they live in a little yellow house with blue shutters seven blocks from the beach. “How do I know everything?” I whisper.
Patrick climbs into bed beside me and slips his arm around me, pulling me close. “Honey, what are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur. I close my eyes and breathe in his woodsy cinnamon scent, the one that’s so specifically and intimately his. I lean into his warm, solid chest, something I’d never imagined doing again. I reach up and kiss him, and it feels just like it always did. His lips are soft and gentle, and after a moment, he reaches up and strokes my right cheek with his left thumb, like he always used to do. He tastes like toothpaste and love and life, and I consume him eagerly, hungrily, as tears sting my eyes. As long as I’m kissing him, I’m not scared.
But then I’m hit with a sharp pang of guilt, and I pull away.
Am I cheating on Dan?
I shake the thought off. Of course I’m not. This isn’t real. It can’t be.
“Tell me you love me, Patrick,” I whisper urgently, because I need to hear him say it before reality comes crashing back in.
Patrick pulls back a little to look me in the eye. “More than you could ever imagine,” he says. “I love you, Kate. I knew before I met you—”
“—that I was meant to be yours,” I murmur, feeling the salty path of tears down my cheek.
He leans in to kiss me softly, gently, and it feels like magic. Our kiss is beginning to grow more intense when we’re interrupted by a voice from the doorway.
“Dad?”
I turn in slow motion to see a girl standing there in a pink nightgown. Her wavy chestnut hair falls just past her shoulders, and she has big green eyes the exact color of Patrick’s. I feel my heart flutter.
She’s immediately familiar to me, and although I can’t quite grasp the thread of memory that ties everything together, I know instantly that she’ll be thirteen in four weeks, on July eighth. I know she loves One Direction and that her favorite member is Louis, because he’s the mature one. I know she loves to draw and play the piano. And I know she got a B+ on her vocabulary test last week because she misspelled the words
sagacious
and
countenance.
“Hi,” I whisper.
The girl is staring at me with concern. “Mom?” she ventures, and something inside me bursts wide open.
I turn to Patrick with wide eyes. “I’m her mother?” I whisper, but of course I am. I know it instantly, and just as quickly, there’s a sudden buzzing in my ears. I see Patrick open his mouth to reply, and I feel him wrap his hand around mine,
but already, the light is growing brighter, and he’s beginning to fade into it.
“Come back!” I cry, but I know he can’t hear me.
I lose sight of him as the room disappears. The last thing I can feel is his strong fingers slipping from mine.
Four
M
y alarm jars me awake, and it takes me only a split second to remember the feel of Patrick’s touch, warm and solid and alive. I sit bolt upright, blinking into the darkness.
“Patrick!” I call out, but there’s only the bleating of the alarm clock in return. I hit the snooze button, and in the sudden silence, I already know that I’m back in my real life, the one I share with Dan, the one in which I’ll always be a widow. “Patrick?” I repeat feebly, although I already know he’s not here.
As the room comes into focus, the last shred of hope disappears. The blackout shades obscure most of the light, and I’m wrapped in the cool silk sheets I’ve grown accustomed to.
“It was just a dream,” I say aloud. “A dream. That’s all. Patrick is gone.” But I can’t get over how real it all felt. His touch. His taste. The weird way everything seemed to glow.