I cradled the harmonica to my chest and turned back towards the house. There was a boulder of loss sitting in my chest, scratching my throat, but I couldn’t release it. Not yet.
The walls we’d painted yellow seemed drained of color as I dragged myself inside, trying to shake the dirt on my boots off near the welcome mat. The hardwood had seen better days, because we were supposed to sand and revarnish them together. I didn’t care, now. Before, this house had been cozy and charming, with bright spanish tile in the kitchen and a beat up old couch we’d found at a garage sale that was covered in a mound of pillows. Now everything seemed dismal and depressing. Shabby, instead of shabby-chic. The windows were caked in grime, and the shelves were covered in dust. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cleaned, or cared to.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the ornate hallway mirror I’d insisted on buying. It was an antique, and cost more than the couch and the bed combined, because it was from the art-deco era. A woman curved around the frame and seemed to peer at herself in the mirrored glass. I saw myself in the reflection now, and yelped. I looked like a creature, rather than a woman. My dark brown hair was wild and tangled and my face, normally a deep golden color like my mother’s, was the color of bleached bone. My mother used to laugh and say that my olive skin was the only thing she gave me besides ambition. And then she dropped the ambition part when I stayed here, with him. She never understood why I made the same “mistake” she did. I tried to tell her it was different, but she never understood. I stepped closer and touched the purple crescents beneath my hazel eyes, which were nearly black from the constant insomnia and the strange dreams. My eyes themselves, the supposed windows to the soul, had about as much life in them as a corpse. And I would know. I’d had to identify his body, after all.
Still clutching the harmonica, I went back to the bedroom, my fingers tracing the framed art and photos on the wall. Photos of us. Of our happiest moments. I was so tired. I didn’t want to eat. I just wanted to sleep and maybe, finally, see his face again. It had been eight months and I’d almost forgotten exactly what his smile looked like, the spot where his dimple popped up when he was amused, the scratch of his beard against my stomach. All I wanted was to see his face. To hold him again. To tell him I was sorry.
I crawled back into bed and pulled the thick cream-colored duvet over my body. We’d fought about that – I’d wanted our bedroom to be airy and delicate, all white and dove grey, and he wanted more color. I’d won, after a few rounds of rock, paper, scissors, and then I’d soothed his pride with empanadas. Remembering it, and looking around now, I wish I’d let him have the color. It seemed like death, now: pale and endless. I tried to play a few notes on the instrument – I was terrible, despite his many lessons – and then buried myself under the covers. I didn’t want the world. I didn’t want the pain. I only wanted him.
I fell back asleep.
The knocking began again. Muffled, this time. Where was he? My heart leaped. I couldn’t move. And this time, I heard his voice, too: “Della. Della are you there? I’m cold. Della. I can’t see. Will you let me in?”
Yes, I screamed in my head. Yes! Come in!
Silence.
And then the knocking. I jolted upright in bed. It was coming from the front of the house. I rushed to the front door, afraid it was going to stop, afraid that I’d miss him. I wrenched it open, nearly sobbing, and encountered a familiar face – though not the one I wanted to see. Instead of my husband, it was my friend Annemarie. “Oh. It’s you.” I said because I was still half asleep and more than half disappointed. I’d thought I heard him…
Annemarie narrowed her sharp green eyes. “Hello to you, too. Were you expecting someone else?”
I shook my head and went back inside, knowing she’d follow me, whether I wanted company or not. “No, of course not. Sorry, I was sleeping.” I could almost see her biting back the words: again? And then the pity that filled her expression, the frown that tugged her mouth down, was somehow even worse. I turned away, towards the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink?” Please go away. Please say no, I thought.
There was a long pause, as if she could hear my hateful thoughts, before she said, “Sure. Got any sweet tea?”
I rummaged through the fridge, peering inside because I didn’t actually know what I did and didn’t have. I saw one moldy lemon, some ketchup and mustard, and a questionable loaf of bread. I couldn’t recall the last time I went to the grocery store. I’d been eating canned foods and takeout, mostly. When I remembered to eat, that is. “I… don’t. I think I have some normal tea? Maybe?”
Annemarie sighed and gently hip-checked me out of the way as she looked in the refrigerator. I waited for her to lecture me but she just paused and then shut it quietly before she wandered to the pantry to dig out some tea bags, withholding any judgment. She knew where everything was and quickly had the kettle going, two mugs waiting for the hot water, and a bowl of cereal she managed to excavate which she pushed towards me. “Eat.” When she saw the look on my face, she gripped my hand and said, “Please. For me.”
She was the only friend I had left, really. Everyone else I’d driven away. So I spooned up some cereal, and tried to choke it down. Nodding, she added some honey to her tea and stirred it, waiting quietly, watching until I ate every last bite. It tasted like sawdust, but I humored her. I smiled wanly and picked up my own mug of tea, waiting for her to speak. Some days, I don’t say a word to anyone. Before this great loss, I was an extrovert. I loved parties and I’d chat up anyone and everyone, especially strangers. I knew everyone in this small town, and they knew me. My parents thought I was crazy when we bought a house in the woods, even further from civilization. Before him, I talked about moving away, maybe to Chicago or New York City. But he was the stranger in the bar on one fateful Thanksgiving night, and I was the saucy small town girl who thought he seemed interesting. Although really, I thought anyone who was a fresh face was interesting.
The thing is, he actually was. He charmed the hell out of me, fell in love with me and this small town, and we got married. I never got out of here, like my mom wanted me to, like she finally did. I knew she was happier in Texas, closer to our big extended family and surrounded by familiar things. She was still aiming for me to come out there, to join her. To get away from those haunted woods and the fog and the mountains. When he died I thought I’d suffocate in our big house with all the huge, throbbing silence. I almost left, almost took her up on that offer. But I learned to crave it, after a while, after days and weeks of putting off packing. And now I didn’t want the big family gatherings, all the questions and the hushed rooms and the food they’d foist on me. No, these days I found shapes in the fog and the treeline and waited for his voice to come.
So I was content to sit here. And wait.
Annemarie shifted, as if unnerved by the quiet. She was like me. Or how I used to be. Bright and fun, quick and charming, too big for this small town. She did get out, moved a few hours away to a big city with more than one light and one gas station. Away, she said, from the creepy tales and the old neighbors in their rocking chairs exchanging gossip and old wives tales. She had a city sheen now, with her slicked-back ponytail and a smart suit, delicate diamond studs in her ears instead of the insanely large gold hoops she’d once worn. She was twirling a stud now, a nervous tic. “So how are you?”
“Fine,” I said, taking a slow sip of tea. I saw her face fall and tried to remember how to do this, how to be a normal person with a lovely person visiting you just because they cared. “How about you babe? How’s your job? Are you and Jake still looking for an apartment?”
Her face lit up and my heart lurched, but I cast my eyes down so she wouldn’t see the pain in it. “It’s all going really well. My supervisor is hinting at a promotion which, god, would be incredible.” Annemarie was a data analyst for a huge record label, and she worked her ass off, so I was genuinely excited for her. My best friend was wicked smart and a math whiz. She used to tutor me and, when all else failed, she’d do my Calculus homework for me. I managed a smile and a nod, encouraging her to keep going. “And Jake and I are… we’re good. The apartment hunt is still on, so we’ll see.”
I could tell she was holding something back, but I didn’t push. I knew about secrets and boundaries. Especially now. “I’m so happy for you. I hope you know that.”
“I do know,” she murmured, taking my hand. She tilted her head and considered me. “Have you heard from your parents?”
“Oh, you know my mom. She’s still trying to get me to sell this place and move in with her. And dad,” I shrugged, “I have no idea. I haven’t heard from him since the funeral.” My father had remarried after he and my mom got divorced, only a few months after everything was finalized. His visits were sparse, since he also moved away, to be closer to his much younger bride. I had a half-brother I barely knew, and since my own loss I hadn’t been interested in knowing him. And besides a perfunctory visit at the viewing, and a horrible bouquet of calla lilies – my least favorite flower – I hadn’t heard from him.
It shouldn’t sting. But it did.
Annemarie got up and walked over to me, wrapping her arms around me. I let her hold me, because I was starved for any kind of touch. I stroked her arms up and down, silently saying: thank you. After a few moments, she walked back over and sat, but she seemed braced for something. And then she spit it out. “Maybe your mom is right, Delly.”
It felt like a punch, right to the gut. She knew how complicated my relationship with my mother was. How she’d become so disappointed in her only daughter and the way I’d married a small-town mechanic and stayed in what she thought of as a hell-hole. I knew she wanted more for me, because she’d given up so much for my father: left her own family, friends and dreams to stay here with him. I tried to tell her it was different. That I could still do my own job remotely, that I wasn’t giving up on my dreams, but that my dreams had changed. And so had his, my husband’s. It was ok to change your mind, I tried to tell her. But she never heard me. Now my best and only friend was on her side? “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Get that sour look off your face,” Annemarie snapped out, and I cringed away from her, hearing my mother in that tone. She softened her voice. “I just mean that you’re all alone out here. I worry about you. It’s fucking creepy in this house. It’s filled with ghosts.”
I felt my eyes widen, my nails digging into my palms. “You can feel him too?”
She stared at me. “Feel who? I just meant the memories. Della… what’s-”
Annemarie didn’t finish the sentence. Because we both heard it.
It was someone playing the harmonica.
The color blanched from her face. She knew that tune as well as I did. “Mannish Boy” by Muddy Waters. It’s what he was playing with the band the night we met. My mechanic with a musician’s soul, the man who gave up his dream of being a rockstar to become a lover and a husband and maybe, one day, a father. He’d wanted it to be our wedding song but I put my foot down on that one. It was, however, played at our ceremony. And now the tune was dancing through the window I was sure I had closed.
“What the fuck– who’s here?” She asked me, wildly. Because she knew there was no one around for miles. Not a neighbor. Not a goddamn dog. Nothing. I didn’t say anything. I, too, was stunned into silence. My hands clenched the table, white-knuckled, and my eyes locked on the window. Would he tap on it? Here and now? When she was here? In the daylight?
But the tune stopped. Annemarie was already bolting outside, her mug of tea abandoned. I slowly got up and followed her, in a trance. By the time I got outside she was in the dirt, her smart suit stained at the knees, holding something. She looked up at me slowly, and I could see the whites of her eyes. She was terrified. “Della,” she whispered, “what the fuck is going on?”
My eyes locked on the object in her hands and something like hope, like fear, ballooned in my chest. “What are you holding, Anna Banana?” Something about the old nickname seemed to shake her. Her fingers flexed and then she opened it, to show me.
The goddamn harmonica. But how? How? I had taken it to bed with me. I’d put it on my bedside table when I got up, so I could look at it before I went to sleep and right when I woke up every morning. How did it get here? Who was playing it?
I wanted to call for him. Beg him. But his name curdled on my tongue. I snatched the harmonica from her and looked every which way. But I didn’t see him. There were no footprints. Nothing. No one. Just the woods, which had gone quiet. And the wisteria, softly and slowly shedding its petals.
Come to think of it, it was a bit odd that it was still blooming. I could feel a chill in the air, but there were still delicate blossoms on the branches. My husband always said this place was magic. It was only lately that I had begun to believe him. Although whether it was dark or light, I didn’t know.
Annemarie stood, and my gaze shot to her. Her whole body was trembling, her hands opening and closing, like grasping starfish. Her green eyes looked terrified and devastated as she looked at me. “I didn’t believe Meemaw. I didn’t believe her when she told me. But it’s true.”
I looked at her, dazed. I thought my hand might be bleeding onto the ground, soaking it in crimson. “What’s true? What did she say?”
“That you’re haunted,” she intoned, “by your husband’s ghost.”
