I race around the house, gathering a clean bucket, tissues, a glass of water, and a thermometer.
“Everything okay in here? I heard yelling from the driveway,” Ethel hollers from the foyer. Her dirty gloved hands are clutching a basket full of cucumbers and tomatoes to her chest.
“We’re fine, Ethel,” I reply. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it handled.”
I appreciate her offer to help, but I want to…no,needto care for Natalie alone, if only to prove to myself that I can.
“Very well,” she says. I hear the front door shut behind her.
Relieved, I rush back to Natalie’s side.
“Open up,” I tell her, lightly poking her lips with the end of the thermometer. She frowns but eventually opens for me. Her temperature is 102.9 degrees, and I know that 103 or higher would be cause for concern. She should be admitted to the hospital if it gets any higher than it is. I can’t let that happen. If she’s taken to the hospital, I won’t be able to go with her, won’t be able to make sure they’re taking proper care of her. I need to nurse her back to health myself. If I can’t manage that, do I have any right to want to claim her as my own?
I notice a stain on her shirt, likely from her retching, and droplets of it linger on her chin. Taking her hand, I help her into a seated position, using the washcloth to clean her face. She leans into my touch, moaning quietly at the feel of my palm on her cheek. I’m reluctant to release her, but this isn’t about me. I go through her dresser and find one of the oversized t-shirts she prefers to wear to bed. “Arms up, gorgeous.”
With a sleepy look on her face, she follows my command. I toss her shirt aside, along with the washcloth, making a mental note to rinse them in the sink before I bring them downstairs to the laundry room. I remove her bra while averting my eyes. Despite having seen them, it seems wrong to peek at her perfect tits in this situation.
I pull the t-shirt over her head and kneel in front of her. “How do you feel? Do you think you’ll get sick again, or would you like to lay down?”
Natalie scowls and unbuttons her pants. “Why is it so fucking hot in here?” With her eyes half-open, she pouts as she shoves her pants down her legs, kicking them to the side and toeing offher socks. It reminds me of a child’s tantrum, and I would find it annoying it weren’t so fucking cute.
“Because you have a fever,” I remind her, amused.
She plops back down on the bed, yanking the sheet over her with a huff. I don’t feel right about leaving her alone like this, but would she be upset to find me in her bed without being invited?
Since she’s not entirely aware of her surroundings, I think it’s okay for me to get comfortable. I don’t intend on leaving her side until the sickness has passed. As quietly as I can, I remove my boots and get in next to her, covering myself with the sheet.
She turns onto her side, and her eyes flutter open. Her face is twisted in pain, and I wish more than anything that I could take it from her. “I feel like I’m dying.”
“You’re not dying, sweetheart. Not on my watch.”
A pregnant pause fills the air between us, then she asks, “What does it feel like?”
The question catches me off guard. “What?”
“Dying. What does it feel like?” Blood rushes to her cheeks, as if she’s embarrassed. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it.”
“No, it’s okay,” I promise her. “Do you want to know about before, or after?”
“Tell me everything.”
Knowing how heavy this is about to get, I move closer and pull her into my arms. She nuzzles against me, resting her head on my chest. “I died from tuberculosis––it was quite common back then––and because of the nature of the disease, my memories from the end are hazy at best, but I do recall struggling to breathe, coughing up blood, and having trouble sleeping because the crackling sound in my lungs was so loud. It was complete and utter misery.
“But toward the very end, the last hours or minutes of my life, it was a blur. I’m not sure how long it took me to die; I just know that one moment I was in agony, and then…the pain was gone.”
“Was there a light at the end of a long tunnel?” she asks.
I laugh at the common misconception. “No, nothing like that. There was nothing at first. I was just…here. Standing at the foot of my bed, looking at the vessel that once housed my soul. Eventually, the milkman found me; he came inside on one of his deliveries. He and a neighbor down the street buried my body in the forest behind the house. There wasn’t a funeral or anything, because by that point, everyone I cared about had already died.
“One day, I think it may have been a week after my death, there was a door. It just showed up in front of me. I was in the study, trying to move a book without shifting to my corporeal form, and poof! A door. Clearly out of place. It seemed like an invitation of some kind. I had no idea what was on the other side, heaven, maybe, or hell. Or whatever comes next for spirits like me. Maybe just eternal nothingness.”
“A door? Was there anything special about it? Was it white, with a glowing light behind it and a harp playing from the other side?”
I shake my head. “No. It was a nondescript brown door. Red oak, I believe, but there wasn’t anything particularly special about it.”
Her eyes widen. “So you didn’t open it?”
“Nope.”
