imagining things. I know it’s not real. It can’t be real. But then there’s a puff of air on the back of my neck, warm and soft, like a gentle caress. The hand on my shoulder squeezes gently, and as I open my eyes, wondering why I am not scared, standing in the dark with someone behind me, I see a flash of blue, like light, like lightning. But it’s gone before my eyes are opened all the way and the hand on my shoulder departs. I turn, already knowing there’s no one there. There never is.
The store is empty behind me, of course.
It’s not the first time this has happened.
It’s not uncommon, I’ve been told (over and over again), to feel a loved one nearby after they pass. They are not really there, of course, but a manifestation of what our mind begs us to feel. We hope for this to be true, that they aren’t actually gone. That they are some kind of guardian angel, with nothing better to do than watch over us. It’s a stage of grief to wish that those we loved never actually left us.
It’s the stage I’ve been stuck in for five years.
The first time I felt that presence, I figured I was losing my mind, having just returned home for the first time in over three months. The second time, I decided my sanity was long gone. But then it happened again. And again. And again. Eventually, I accepted it, even if it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me.
It is always the same. A hand on my shoulder. A breath on my neck. The gentle grip on my shoulder. A flash of blue. It doesn’t happen every day, or every other day. It’s not even once a week. But when I am at my darkest, when I am sure I can’t take another step, it happens. Every time I don’t think I can go on, it happens.
I lock the front door of the station and get into the 1965 Ford F-100 that my father and I restored painstakingly. Lovingly. Light blue with white trim. Whitewall tires. White interior. Original dash and radio that never gets any reception. My father’s old coat is always draped along the back of the seat. “It’s cherry,” Big Eddie used to say.
“So cherry,” I agreed.
“So cherry,” I say now to the empty air around me.
Except it doesn’t feel empty. It feels heavy, like anticipation. Like expectation.
I wait for it to depart, but it doesn’t leave.
Eventually, I fire the truck up and head for home.
Roseland is quiet this late at night. Granted, it’s always quiet, but when the
sun falls and the stars come out, the quiet becomes a palpable thing. A slumber that can only be erased by dawn.
I think a normal person would probably go insane living out here. There’s no excitement. There’s nothing to hold you here, unless your roots are entrenched deep into the earth like mine are. I feel lost in cities like Portland or Seattle. Buildings rise up out of the ground like metallic trees, impersonal and cold. People that you have never seen before and will never see again pass you by, ignoring you in favor of themselves. You bump into someone and get a scowl even as you fumble with an apology. I don’t handle that very well.
I drive past Rosie’s Diner on the corner of Poplar and Bellevue. Rosie herself moves around inside. An old guy in a tweed jacket and fedora who only goes by Mr. Wade sits in a corner booth, sipping his coffee and eating his pie as he does every night around this time. They both wave as I drive past. I wave back as I continue into the night.
The other shops are dark, closing before the sun goes down. The Safe Haven, a bookstore owned by a pair of old dykes. A hardware store owned by Mayor Walken. An Italian restaurant owned by Mayor Walken. A secondhand clothing store owned by an Armenian immigrant family. Doc Heward’s office. A real estate office, owned by no one, boarded up and empty. A gift shop where I’d gotten—
A blue light flashes behind me in the rearview mirror.
My breath catches.
But then the blue light is followed by a red one, spinning in a lazy circle. Dammit.
I pull over to the side of the road, the whitewall tires crunching the gravel near the ditch. The lights continue to swirl behind me as the car pulls up within kissing