Watch Over Me (26 page)

"
Do you remember the day I was released from the hospital and we looked over that list
of therapist names?" I ask Meg on my cell phone as I sit in my car staring out the
front windshield at the array of headstones and fake flower arrangements.

I didn't even bother trying to make sense of things when I left Dr. Thompson's office
the other night. I was exhausted and emotionally drained, and I just wanted to sleep.
Unfortunately, sleep wouldn't come. I've tossed and turned the last few nights thinking
about my faith in God, my faith in people, and how something so completely impossible
might actually be happening to me. I thought about Zander and everything he told me,
and against my better judgment, I missed him. It took everything in me not to pick
up my cell phone and call him just to hear his voice. He would know what to do, and
he would know what to say to make all of this okay, but I couldn't call him. I had
no idea how to forgive him for something like this.

Turning my engine off, I pocket my keys and unbuckle my seatbelt, but I don't move
to open the door. I haven't been back to this place in a year. A year ago today. It's
probably not healthy for me to be here right now, today of all days, but I don't know
where else to go.

"Yeah, I think so," Meg replies through the line as I watch a man pull weeds around
a headstone a hundred yards away from where I'm parked. "I remember telling you to
stay far away from Chronic Halitosis Man. You didn't go to him did you? I warned you
about him."

The napkin note I found taped to the wall of the office last night sits in my center
console right next to the gearshift. I don't need to read the words again. I already
have them memorized, and they repeat on a loop, over and over in my head.

"No, I didn't go to him. I went to that woman you suggested. The one you said you
really liked," I tell her, hoping she'll confirm that I'm not crazy.

"Oh awesome! I just spoke to her last night. I have an appointment with her tomorrow
as soon as I get released."

I let out the breath I was holding, feeling a little bit less crazy than I did the
other night. Maybe she just moved offices or something. That would make much more
sense than the ideas I actually have floating around in my brain about spirits and
people talking from beyond the grave.

"So did she move? Get a new office or something?" I ask, glancing down at the napkin
again.

"No, I don't think so. My appointment is at the same address where I met with her
a few years ago," Meg replies.

"On East Avenue, right? On the second floor?"

I hear Meg talking to a nurse in her room, and I wait impatiently for her to finish,
tapping my fingers against the steering wheel.

"Sorry, they had to take my blood pressure," Meg tells me, coming back on the line.
"Did you say East Avenue? Dr. Thomas isn't on East Avenue. She's on Clifton at the
corner of Butternut, and she's on the first floor."

My blood runs cold as I pick up the note and stare at the handwriting.

"You mean Dr.
Thompson
?" I ask, stressing the difference in the name.

"No, Dr.
Thomas
," Meg replies. "No
P
. Who the hell have you been talking to for the last year?"

I don't have an answer for her because I'd like to know the exact same thing. I quickly
end the conversation with her, telling her I'll call her later and shove my phone
into my pocket. My whole body is filled with dread as I open my car door and slowly
climb out. It takes everything in me to force my feet to move off of the blacktop
and onto the grass, making my way to her grave. Memories of my last time here flutter
in and out of my head, and I try to block them out as I walk up the small incline
and pass other headstones of people I don't know. My eyes stay focused on the one
I'm heading toward, and it's not long before the sights and sounds around me disappear.
I see nothing but the flat cement marker with her smiling face on it, nothing but
her name, date of birth, and date of death, nothing but the ground below it that is
no longer covered with disturbed earth but freshly mowed grass after a year of upkeep
from the groundskeepers.

I don't hear the birds chirping or the tree branches swaying in the breeze. I don't
hear the sounds of traffic on the outskirts of the cemetery as people race to get
to work or school or wherever else they need to be. I hear nothing but the words I
spoke as I sat in the very spot I now stand with nothing but death and ending the
pain on my mind.

"I don't know how to live."

"I don't know how to be here without you."

All of the feelings of emptiness and desolation come rushing back. Everything I've
tried to keep locked away so I can breathe and function without her surround me, and
I clutch my arms around my waist to try and keep it all in. I don't want to let it
out. I don't want to feel like I did a year ago. I was in a black hole of depression
and nothing could force me out. I close my eyes to ward off the memories, but it doesn't
work. I remember birthdays, holidays, vacations, and every conversation we ever had,
good or bad. It all comes at me like fireworks bursting right before my eyes. I remember
it all, but I don't remember
her.
In my memories her face is fuzzy, and I can't hear her voice. I'm forgetting what
she looks like, and I'm forgetting what she sounds like, all because I chose to push
it all away and keep it buried where it can't hurt me. I hear her voice in my head
telling me to watch my language when I would get fired up about something or complaining
to me about how my dad just wanted to watch television instead of going out to dinner.
I hear it, but it's not her. It's not her voice echoing in my head; it's Dr. Thompson's.
I just want to hear
her
voice again. I want to hear it so badly that I wonder if any of the past year has
been real. Dr. Thompson or Thomas or whoever the hell she was reminded me of her.
She had the same color hair, the same mannerisms, and the same addiction to hazelnut
coffee, but it wasn't
her
. It couldn't have been
her
. It's not possible and it doesn't make sense.

I stare at the headstone and realize it's the only one within my line of vision that
doesn't have any flowers on it. It's the only one that shows no sign of anyone having
visited it or having carefully picked out just the right decorations to show that
this person was missed and someone was thinking about them. I feel guilty that I haven't
been back here. I feel ashamed that I haven't let her know how much I've missed her.
She should have a hundred different flower bouquets and notes littering her grave.
She should have silk flowers and real flowers, flower pots and flower baskets. She
was worth more than this barren four-foot by seven-foot plot of land with nothing
to show how amazing she was but a patch of sod.

Slowly lowering myself to the ground, I sit in the exact same spot I did a year ago
where I let the blood pour out of my veins and into the earth. With the index finger
of my right hand, I trace the white scar on the inside of my left wrist as I stare
at her picture.

I used to come here all the time after she died. I would come here and talk to her,
and every time the wind blew or a bird flew by, I used to imagine it was her trying
to answer me. After I got out of the hospital, I looked back on those times when I
asked her a question and a windsock hanging from a nearby tree would blow in the breeze,
and I called myself all kinds of stupid. The dead don't speak. They don't force a
bird to fly by to give you a sign when you're thinking about whether or not killing
yourself is a good idea. They don't make the musical notes of a wind chime ring out
when you ask if she can hear you.

I pull the crumpled up napkin out of my pocket and stare at it yet again. I trace
the cursive handwriting that looks so familiar instead of the scar on my wrist.

"This isn't real. None of this is real," I whisper to the headstone. "I've wanted
it too much and my mind is playing tricks on me."

I hold my breath and look around for a leaf to flutter by or a bird to land on the
next plot over. Rolling my eyes at my idiocy, I wad the napkin back up in my hand
and throw it angrily into the grass.

My mother always believed in spirits. She believed in the afterlife and she believed
people would watch over you after they were gone and they'd find a way to communicate.
I always scoffed at her when we would discuss it, but she was adamant.

"Don't laugh. Your grandmother is watching over me. Sometimes I can just feel it,"
she said to me as we sat at the kitchen table eating dinner while my dad was at work.

"Mom, that's just creepy. Do you really think Grandma is like standing over you watching
you make cookies or something? Or going to the bathroom? Oh my God, what if she's
watching you and Dad when you…you know…" I asked, trailing off with a laugh.

She picked up the kitchen towel that sat on the table next to her plate and whipped
it at me, laughing when it hit me square in the face.

"Well then, she'd definitely get an eyeful since you're father and I…you know…all
the time. We're like rabbits," she told me with a wink.

"Oh, eeeeew! La-la-la-la-la-la, I'M NOT LISTENING!" I shouted with my fingers in my
ears so I didn't have to hear her.

She reached over and tugged on one of my hands so I would pull a finger out of my
ear.