“One of the benefits of death,” his father replied, his old confidence back.
“All right, I’ll hear you out. But then you have to let me sleep. I’m exhausted. Okay? You promise?”
“I promise.” Raymond pretended to spit on the ground to seal the deal. “Now, let’s see. Where should I begin?”
“By explaining how exactly you’re here?”
“Sorry, I’m not allowed to talk about that. It was the one condition for obtaining this short leave.”
“‘Leave,’ like in the army?”
“No, but sure, you can think of it like that.”
“So, you took a leave from the afterlife to come see me?” Thomas broke into a fit of laughter.
“Are you done making fun of me?”
“This is unbelievable! I’m talking to my father’s ghost in the middle of the night ... Go on, please. Continue. I have a feeling this is just the beginning.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I need your help to do something that will determine my fate for all eternity.”
“Of course! It all makes sense now. You were sent back to earth to save humanity, just like you used to save your patients. And like any good Don Quixote, you need a Sancho—and you thought of me.”
“Stop messing around. This is urgent.”
“What can possibly be urgent when you’re dead?”
“You’ll find out one day. A long time from now, I hope. Now, are you going to let me finish or keep interrupting me?”
Thomas agreed to stay quiet. He was convinced he was trapped in a strange dream from which he would eventually awake. This idea comforted him as he listened to his father.
“I’ll begin with saying that your mother and I hadn’t been close in some time ...”
“That’s not exactly breaking news. You left home ten years before you died.”
“I’m talking about another time. Not long after you were born. By that time in our relationship, our life together had become more like an arrangement between friends.”
“Great. If I had a therapist, a disclosure like that would guarantee them a very comfortable retirement.”
“It wasn’t like that before you were born,” his father said, ignoring this comment. “We truly loved each other then, but we grew apart. It was partly my fault.”
“‘Partly’ how?”
“I met another woman.”
“You had an affair, that’s your big revelation? You were able to seduce anyone who crossed your path, so that’s hardly a surprise.”
“You’ve got me all wrong. I was a flirt, yes, but hardly a womanizer. And besides, I never got to live out my great love, which may be why I’m unable to let it go.”
“It’s that anesthesiologist at the hospital who always followed you around making eyes at you, isn’t it? I always suspected there was something going on between the two of you.”
“You remember Violette?”
“Every time I visited you at work, she stroked my forehead as if I was a poodle and swooned, telling me I was the spitting image of you.”
“Well, it’s not her. We did have a brief dalliance, but nothing of consequence.”
“Are you speaking for yourself or for Mom?”
