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Daniel Brody stared into the empty glass after having drained the rest of the Jim Beam a moment before. The alcohol stupor he was hoping for had not yet arrived. He touched the bandage covering the healing wound on his shoulder. It was the constant reminder of the event. The memory was still there along with the heartache that was never going to go away.
The police had told him at the hospital what happened in vivid detail. Now his mind tormented him once again replaying the scene—a carjacking had occurred a few blocks away. Police happened to be nearby and started the chase. The bad guys fired gunshots at the cops as they raced away. One stray bullet came through the window of Daniel and Callie's little honeymoon house.
The two were embracing in front of the window in a long warm hug as they did often during their two years of marriage. The bullet went through the window, through Callie's shoulder, severing the subclavian artery near her collarbone, according to the hospital doc. The bullet exited her and lodged in Dan's shoulder. He lost consciousness long enough for Callie to bleed to death in his arms. When he came to, Callie was already gone. The bullet left her body and entered his, bringing with it some of her blood. Later, a thought occurred to him. It may not have been scientifically provable but ... He rubbed his forehead. But, he wanted to think he was carrying inside him a tiny bit of Callie—a little bit of her DNA.
Piercing rays of sun came in through the kitchen window, waking up Daniel from a two-hour alcohol nap. Wakefulness came with a booze headache. At least the headache replaced the other pain, the pain in his heart. No. . . . no, it didn't. That NEVER went away nor was it EVER going to go away.
He poured two fingers worth into the glass for the third time. He downed it in one swift movement hoping for oblivion. His head was in a centrifuge as he thumped it down on the table. Before his spinning brain drove him to pass out Daniel felt something like a light touch on the back of his neck like a butterfly landed there. Was that a slight breeze just now that moved the hair on the back of his neck? No, that wasn't it. It was different. The small part of his brain that could still put coherent thoughts together pondered this. Lucidity was escaping like blood dripping from a wound. There was no time to decide why that was wrong before shutting down and falling into a dark pit of unconsciousness.
Another morning found his head lying on the table. He held his head still for fear it would fall off his neck and tried to focus. He picked up the frame of the honeymoon photo that was sitting next to the empty whiskey bottle. He stared with sunken eyes at Callie's dazzling smile and cute dimple. Her gorgeous face was aglow with happiness. His throat tightened with the choke-hold of vise grips as tears ran down his cheeks. It was already three weeks ago that he buried his beloved wife but it seemed like yesterday.
How could fate be so cruel? he thought, wiping his face and rubbing the back of his neck at the sensation he just felt. What, a breeze again? He looked up and wondered if there was a window cracked open that was letting air in. But he knew there were none; his house was closed shut. He pushed the thought aside trying to let his mind go blank and stumbled toward the bathroom.
His stubble face and vacant eyes glared back at him in the mirror. He looked a mess and needed a bath and shave. The booze was turning his brain into mush. He had to stop this, and he needed a hot shower to clear his head. He also needed to get back to work before his leave of absence ran out and they fired him. He had to snap out it. But no ... a chunk of my heart is missing. How does a human being cope with a horrific loss like this? She was the love of my life! She WAS my life and she died in my arms!
The hot water from the shower ran over him in cascades. It was unsuccessful at soothing away the darkness that surrounded his heart and mind. The bathroom became foggy with steam and looked more like a sauna. He didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore.
Preparing to shave he couldn't see himself in the mirror for the haze. The steam covered it completely except for an odd small oval smudge in the middle at eye-level. He grabbed a towel to wipe it clean when he stopped halfway through the swipe. He leaned in to take a closer look at the strange spot. A little of it was now gone, but what remained was ... looked like … he blinked his eyes rapidly.
Dan got immediately light-headed. "Oh, no, wait. It can't be! That looks just like ... but it can't be!" he whispered in a raspy voice. "The booze ... it's the booze… it has pickled my brain," he said out loud. He came even closer to the glass and saw tiny vertical grooves, like those you see on a ... a LIP print -- like the one before! Like a KISS! And to him a RECOGNIZABLE KISS! Dan jumped away from the mirror.
"NO-O-O-O … WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME? I'M GOING CRAZY!" he screamed to the empty bathroom and pounded his fist on the top of the vanity. He swept his arm across the surface sending all the bottles crashing to the floor. On impulse he swiped his hand across the print on the mirror, erasing the smudge. "I CAN'T ... I CAN"T TAKE THIS. THE PAIN IS TOO MUCH. IT'S MAKING ME LOSE MY MIND!"
He ran to the bedroom which he had been avoiding for some time. He reached into a drawer and grasped the gun he had bought for home protection. The black metal of the .40 mm Glock was cool and heavy, somehow adding to his resolve. There was one way to stop the torment. He knew just how to end the pain in his heart. A tear ran down his eye. "Maybe I'll ... get to see Callie one more time...on my way to Hell." He raised the gun and placed it to his temple. "Maybe I'll see you again, my darling Callie … my angel." His voice was gravelly now with tears running down his face. "... My sweet angel," he repeated and pressed the trigger. The loud click of the pin hitting an empty barrel seemed to echo in the room and made him jump. He had forgotten to chamber a round.
In the same instant a photo frame tipped over on the dresser and a strong rush of wind blew impossibly across his head. There was a definite firm pressure at the back of his neck. "What? Who's there ...?" He whirled around now pointing the gun outward but saw no one. He felt it again, a definite pressure. This time on his cheek followed by a light breeze that blew across his face. He looked across the room and knew it was as he had left it the week before. On the bed, that held so many loving memories with Callie, he noticed something. On the side where she used to sleep was an object lying there. He approached it and picked up a photo of Callie, one that he KNEW had been inside his nightstand. Tears blurred his vision.
Dan whirled around again to the empty room. "Wha ...? How...? WHAT'S HAPPENING?" He screamed again and landed on the bed. He could not wrap his mind around the idea that was now forming there. He could not … he would not accept what he was starting to think. He reached over and grasped the photo of Callie. The sobs were uncontrollable, and tears were blurring his vision as he fell asleep from exhaustion.
Dan woke with a start to daylight. He had been dreaming of Callie. Of course, he had. He fell asleep holding onto her picture. He hadn't dreamed about her since before they got married. Now it was starting up again! In the dream, she had been talking to him but her voice was so faint he couldn't hear nor understand her.
Last night she was the last thing he was thinking about. NO, it wasn't! Something else had occurred to him. Something that in the light of day was impossible, ludicrous.
He didn't believe in ghosts, and that's what his toasted brain was coming up with.
And the photo of Callie on the bed – of course, he just forgot he had taken it out of the drawer given his state of mind. He kissed the photograph and placed it inside the drawer of the nightstand again. The mark on the steamed up bathroom mirror was just a finger smudge of his. Yes, the tiny lines were just his fingerprint. He had wiped it off anyway, now forgotten. The booze had messed him up. But today everything could be easily explained.
He went into the bathroom to look at the mirror to prove there was nothing to it. The blood drained from his face. There was a small heart with a tiny star in its middle drawn with soap by a fingert
ip. He knew the mirror had been clean from when he swiped the towel over it the night before. This was new! He whipped around looking for someone, anyone that could explain this. He was alone. He approached the little heart now shaking his head in disbelief.
"Cal..." He almost couldn't say the word. "Callie?" It came out as a hoarse whisper. He felt a sensation on his lips. It was the unmistakable and familiar contact of HER lips on his! His knees buckled as he crumbled to the floor. Tears flooded from his eyes. He touched his fingers to his lips. "Callie? How … how is this possible ...?"
He felt a definite feather light brush against his cheek. There it is again! Confirmation? Is it really you? Then, nothing. Something in the room had just changed … just now. There was emptiness around him, a space that wasn't present minutes before. Somehow, she had just been here---SHE HAD BEEN HERE! -- But now she was gone. He stayed sitting on the bathroom floor trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened. He lingered for the better part of an hour on the floor, afraid to move, to see if it would happen again.
He replayed it all in his head. He was not drunk, nor insane. At least he didn't think so. He knew what he felt and what he saw -- the little heart was still on the surface of the mirror! Just like the one he remembered seeing in her sketchbook. He put his fingers to his lips again -- and he KNEW. CALLIE HAD BEEN HERE! Which meant that she was a … what, a ... ghost?
He held his head in both hands lest it explode. He had to accept this -- when she died she had not, for whatever the reason, 'crossed over' as they say. He roamed the house looking for some evidence of her like some fool until he realized he was not going to find her. Would she come back? Please come back, my sweet angel.
That night he fell into dreaming of her again. This time, it was different – it was bright and vivid like Dorothy in Munchkin Land.
He was standing next to a sparkling running brook at the edge of a lush green pristine forest. "Danny." Her voice was clear. He turned around to her voice.
"Callie?" This all felt too surreal. This was not fuzzy or out of focus like in previous dreams. She was standing there smiling at him as if they had just been hiking through the woods. She was wearing the same T-shirt he last saw her wearing.
"Hi, Danny. I need to talk to you. You're not okay, I see." Her smile turned to sadness.
All he could utter was "Callie ..." This IS a dream, right? was his first thought. She was as beautiful as ever.
"Yes, it's a dream, but more than that." She was hearing his thoughts! "And look, we can talk this way, without even speaking, darling."
"How ..." he was still stunned.
"I know you're wondering what is going on. Me too! I'm caught between our two worlds and I'm not sure why. I think it has something to do with my spirit passing through your body at the moment when I died."
"Baby ..." he couldn't continue. "I ... I have questions, too. Yesterday... Did you visit me? Yesterday, and the day before?"
"Yes, it was me! But, it seems to take all my energy to 'do' things. Like brushing across the back of your neck, and doing those things on our mirror. It was difficult at first; I felt exhausted after every attempt and kept blacking out, so to speak. I think as you started 'believing,' I got stronger and was able to do more."
"This is incredible. I don't want to wake up!"
"Dan, even now I'm getting weaker." He noticed she was growing more transparent. "I'm still new at this myself. I will come back. Rest darling. We will figure all this out, but PLEASE ... PLEASE, you must NOT, MUST NOT, do what you tried to do yester...!" Then she was gone. He was no longer in the forest but awake and surrounded by the darkness of the bedroom before sleep overtook him again.