Chapter 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 the hospital, 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.

I remained in the Chicago area for as long as I could, reluctant to leave the house I'd shared with Claudia and the place where she was buried. But it all got to be too much. The pain. The grief. The stress of trying to keep it together when every fiber of my being wanted to fall apart. So when my parents told me they were moving and suggested I come back home and take over the house, I said yes, even though I knew bad memories of Billy were waiting for me.

That's the irony of this whole situation. Billy wasn't the most devastating loss in my life. It was Claudia. And when forced to decide which memories were easier to face, I chose Billy.

Had I known Billy himself was still waiting here, well, that would have changed my mind.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to change Ashley's.

"You think this is about Claudia," I say, using my fist to swipe the tears threatening to leak from my eyes. Christ, I feel so stupid. So weak. And that's without Ashley knowing how I never canceled Claudia's cell phone plan. How I still dial her number just to hear the sound of her voice and pretend she's not gone. How I continue to text her as if she's still around to read them.

"And Billy, too," Ashley says. "Grief is weird that way. It can make you think things you shouldn't be thinking. Or believe things that, deep down, you know are impossible. And I suspect you desperately want to think Billy is back because it means—"

"That Claudia can come back, too."

I'd be lying if I said it hasn't crossed my mind. That this experience with Billy is a sign that I'm—I don't know—touched somehow. That if he can leave me messages from beyond, then so can Claudia.

Now, though, the idea has been muddied somewhat by the things Fritz Van de Veer told me last night. What if Ezra Hawthorne was right about the different realms—earthly, spirit, and in between? If I was somehow able to communicate with Claudia, does it mean she, like Billy, isn't at peace? In many ways, that's a worse thought than knowing I'll never talk with her again.

"I know it's hard to deal with when someone you love dies," Ashley says. "I was devastated when my mom died. And I miss her every day. But I've also learned to let her go."

"What if I can't?" I say.

"You can at least try." Ashley stands and gives me a hug so warm and tender that it breaks my heart a little when it ends. "Maybe that's the point of all this. Instead of Billy trying to make you solve his murder, maybe it's your subconscious telling you it's time to say goodbye to both of them."

She leaves after that, going back into the yard and gathering Henry from the tent. He gives me a wave through the patio window. I wave back, thinking about what Ashley said. Maybe she's right and this is all my doing. I don't know how I'd forget throwing baseballs in the yard on a regular basis, but it wouldn't be the first time my memory has failed me.

As for saying goodbye, I'm willing to give it a try. Not for my sake, but for Claudia's. I know she'd hate seeing me like this. I know she'd want me to be happy.

In my new bedroom, I go to the closet and a cardboard box hidden away in a back corner. Inside is the purse Claudia had with her when she died. A kindly ER nurse gave it to me, pressing it into my numb hands as she said, "You might want to look through this at some point. Not now. But someday."

Which turns out to be today.

I open the purse, finding Claudia's sunglasses, a pack of gum, her favorite lipstick. I pull out her wallet and sort through it, my heart aching at the sight of her driver's license and the photo she hated but which I adored because it showed off her smile.

When she died, my wife had twenty-six dollars on her, plus two credit cards—one she never touched and one she used often, buying books and fresh flowers and that expensive cheese she loved to eat alongside equally expensive wine.

I put the wallet inside and dig out what I'm really looking for.

Her cell phone.

Although the battery died long ago, I use my phone's charger to bring it back to life. Then I scroll through the texts, reading the most recent ones first.

walking in the woods and thinking of you

can't sleep. of course

i miss you, Claude

I keep scrolling, skimming over a year of texts I sent even though I knew my wife wasn't going to see them. Some—such as watched jaws again. still holds up—are insipid. Others read like open wounds.

i miss you so much right now i can't breathe

I scan the dates and times, looking for a pattern in the moments when I couldn't resist firing off a text. Holidays, for instance. Or Claudia's birthday. Or late nights when sleep was impossible. But no such pattern exists. I missed her all the time. I still do.

I stop reading the texts when I come to the first one I sent knowing she was dead. Two weeks after her funeral, 3:46 in the afternoon.

i don't know how to do this

After the texts come the phone messages, made with less frequency but with the same randomness. The most recent is from a few nights ago. I listen to it from the chagrined start—"Hey. It's me again"—to its desperately honest end. "I think Billy might be haunting me, Claude. I know, it's ridiculous. But weird things are happening that I can't—"

The last voice message is the earliest, sent minutes after Claudia had died, when I didn't know it yet. When I press play, the sound of my voice—so naive, so hopeful—brings an ache to my chest that's so intense I fear my rib cage is about to crack open.

"Hi. Listen, I don't know where you are or where you intend to go, but I think wherever it is, you should turn around and come home. Because I love you, Claude. I've loved you since the moment I met you. And your happiness means the world to me. Much more than any stupid hang-ups I have because of something horrible that happened when I was a kid. In a lot of ways, I think what happened with Billy just gave me an excuse to avoid facing things that scare me. And being a father scares the shit out of me. But you're braver than me. You always have been. So if having a baby will make you happy, then I think we should do it. Let's have a baby."

Astonishingly, I make it most of the way through without crying. It's not until I hear those last four words—Let's have a baby—that I lose it entirely. As the tears flow, I picture an existence in which everything in that message happens. Claudia comes home. We make love. A child is conceived. We prep and plan and babyproof the house and buy too much furniture and finally bring home an infant boy who will grow into someone not unlike Henry Wallace. Smart and kind and a little weird. Someone exactly like me and Claudia.

Then the fantasy ends, and I'm shuttled back to a reality in which I'm alone and clutching my deceased wife's phone. Fitting, for that's basically been my go-to mode for the past year. I envision a future spent frozen in this position, the years speeding by and me staying exactly the same.

That's when I realize the time to say goodbye is now.

I reach for my phone and call Claudia's number. In my other hand, her phone rings and my name appears on the screen. When the call goes to voicemail, I have to force myself to speak.

"Hey, Claude." Sadness clutches at my heart when I realize I might never address her this way again. "I, um, need to tell you a few things."

And I do, telling Claudia how much I love her, how she meant the world to me, how happy she made me even though I sometimes didn't show it. When I run out of time and the message cuts off, I keep talking.

Minutes pass.

Then an hour.

Then I'm done.

I've said my final goodbye.

Claudia's phone goes back into her purse, which goes back into the cardboard box, which I return to the closet. Then I take my own phone and delete Claudia's contact information, an act that sucks all the air from my chest.

It feels like a betrayal.

It also feels like liberation.

Even though it's well past midnight, I decide not to sleep in the bedroom. It seems too lonely here, too packed with the still-fresh sting of letting go. So I return to the tent, with its lumpy pillow and mildewed sleeping bag. While they're no match for my bed, I'm more comfortable out here knowing that Billy might be nearby, just a silent shadow in the woods, and that Claudia might also be here, somewhere. A wisp of cloud in the night sky. A pulsing star that I could see if I only knew where to look.

I close my eyes and imagine both of them, so near and yet so far, watching over me as I fall asleep.