Mark's back ached. He got up and sat in the window seat, looking out at the rain. He closed his eyes. Heard the sound again, dirt hitting the coffin (though of course it never did, the coffin was inside the vault and they had all left by then anyway) the screaming. Screaming from inside the coffin. Elayne's fingernails, cut short for the funeral, scratching, tearing at satin lining, digging into wood, splinters to her bone. Elayne.
Mark jerked awake. Robby's warm little body lay on him. He wrapped his arms around the child. "She did too come back, Daddy."
Mark closed his eyes. "Only in dreams, son. Only in our dreams."
That evening after feeding the kids, Mark caressed the black and white keys of the baby grand. He had barely played it since the accident; his fingers were too stiff and missed notes. But he had always played "Memory" from Cats for Elayne on their anniversary.
Which was tonight, full moon and all.
He barely touched one of the keys, and the strings whispered a "G" note. It was only slightly off key, remarkable since they hadn't tuned it since moving here. He touched another key. "E," it whispered.
Would she come if he played?
No. He was starting to believe it himself, Robby's private little myth. It made things easier for the boy, thinking Elayne was around, watching things, making certain the children were well. Which they were not. Robby barely left the house, and never went to the garden. The baby was sick all the time, puked up more than he ate. Still that green stuff, too.
At least her husband had saved the baby. That was terrible, too; the poor man had to cut the baby out of his wife's dead womb. He refused to talk about it, except to say it was a good thing he was a doctor, albeit retired. The baby was a couple weeks early, but healthy; McCoy still hadn't named him. Daddy had taken to calling him Arnie, after his own father, and the name was sticking.
"Perhaps her spirit is unquiet."
"Why?"
"You should ask her, or her husband." He lapsed back into silence, smiling at the moonlit clouds.
Raindrops slid down the window, starting, stopping, colliding, picking up momentum, sweeping off the edge of the window at speed. Elayne was probably getting soaked. Mark had bought the most expensive coffin and vault, both guaranteed waterproof. Now that was a situation ripe for fraud; who would check on the coffin's dampness? He could imagine water dripping into the coffin, rolling down the dried petals of the white rose, soaking her white dress, finally puddling under her body and ensuring mold's clammy victory over the embalmer's art.
Elayne. Mark reached over and touched the pillow on his left. Her pillow. He hadn't made the bed since it happened, slept on top of the covers. The indentation of her head was still there, though fading and smoothing. Soon she would never have been, except for the children, and all her little echoes. Her diet sodas. Her pantyhose, left to dry on racks in the bathroom. He'd throw all those things away soon. It wasn't good to dwell on her so much, or so everyone said. And Robby kept asking when Mommy was coming back.
Stilling the Dead
A Helen Highwater Story
