“How dare you!” she exclaimed, feigning outrage. “I’ll get you back the next time you need my advice, you’ll see. Fine, I’m leaving. I’m already late. Don’t have too much fun without me!”
She hummed as she left—an obviously deliberate, and successful, attempt to annoy her son.
Thomas stepped into the office and rifled through both drawers of the desk before finding the pack he was looking for under a pad of paper. He opened it and was surprised to find, rather than cigarettes, six masterfully rolled joints.
Thomas had only smoked pot once in his life. Back when he was a preteen, his father had traumatized him with warnings about the devastating effects of drugs on young minds. Wielding photographs and recent studies, he’d presented irrefutable proof that the consumption of illegal substances could damage the nervous system and dash Thomas’s hopes of becoming a concert pianist. Having a surgeon for a father was not without its drawbacks.
Since transgression is an integral part of life’s lessons, however, Thomas had risked it anyway—just once, on a weekend trip to Normandy with his friends. Thomas had waited until the second night to commit his act of rebellion, to make sure those who had smoked the night before didn’t present any neuromotor deficiencies. To be absolutely certain, he had made Serge and François complete a series of tests, including a three-legged race, a cup-and-ball game, and darts. As revenge, his friends made his first joint extra-strong. Thomas spent most of the evening with a goofy smile on his face as he admired what appeared to be a cow nestling between two of the ceiling beams in the manor they were staying in.
But tonight Thomas felt an irrepressible urge to smoke again, and since the joint he was holding belonged to Colette—his mother’s best friend, who had just celebrated her seventieth birthday—he figured it couldn’t be too dangerous. Besides, he’d only take one puff, two max. The end of the paper cone crackled as he moved the lighter’s flame closer. The first puff filled his lungs, and since he’d never really quit smoking, he exhaled with a feeling of deep enjoyment. The second delivered the calming effect he needed, and the third would be the last, he swore. But then came the fourth. Thomas felt his head start to spin, and he stubbed out the joint in the ashtray. He staggered as he stood up to get some air.
As he grasped the handle to the French doors, which remained closed, he heard a voice behind him suggest it would be unwise to lean over the balcony in his current state. His blood instantly froze in his veins, because he recognized that voice.
It was his father’s.
2
This was much more than a simple high. This was a feeling of vertigo, terrifying for a man who hated losing control of himself. The precision of Thomas’s movements determined his future on a daily basis. This was the case for any pianist, just as it was for surgeons—surgeons like his father, whom he’d just heard speak from beyond the grave.
Thomas clung to the glass, fixing his eyes on the balcony of the apartment across the road, trying to keep his body from swaying.
“You can let go of the handle. No one has ever fallen through a closed door,” the voice joked.
“You warned me about this,” Thomas sputtered. “What have I done? What was in that joint? I’ve damaged my neurons permanently!”
“Calm down please, Thomas,” scolded the voice. “You smoked a joint—not your first and surely not your last. I’ll confess, my warnings were a bit over the top when you were a teenager. But I was afraid you’d try hard drugs. Anyway, the fact that you’re hearing me tonight has nothing to do with that.”
“‘Nothing to do with that’?” repeated Thomas, his face still pressed against the glass. “I’m hearing the ghost of my father! Oh God, everything’s spinning. I’m done for.”
“Leave God out of it. And the ‘ghost’ talk, too, if you don’t mind. You’re having a panic attack, which isn’t surprising given the circumstances. Do you remember the little trick I taught you to cope with your stress before going onstage? Place your hands over your mouth, then take deepbreaths through the nose. The CO2 will do the trick, you’ll feel better in no time. If I could hold you up, I happily would, but I don’t have energy enough for that. It already takes a lot of work to be able to talk to you.”
Thomas felt his legs give out as he slid down the glass of the door. Once he reached the wood floor, he curled into a ball and tucked his head between his knees.
“Come on, Thomas, stop acting like a child. It was just a joint.”
“The first time I smoked, I saw flying cows, and now I’m hearing my father’s ghost. Why can’t I just be like everyone else? Get drunk without bloating up like a whale afterward, or get high without feeling like I’m going to die?”
“That’s ridiculous. Everyone suffers when they overindulge. There are those who own up to it, and those who prefer to brag, that’s all.”
“Please make the voice stop!” begged Thomas, covering his ears.
“I was just trying to reassure you. No need to be snippy.”
But Thomas didn’t find it reassuring in the least to hear a dead man speak as if he were in the same room.
“If you would just look over here, you’d see for yourself that your senses aren’t playing tricks on you,” continued the voice.
Thomas took a deep breath and looked up. In a dark corner, he could make out his father’s familiar silhouette gazing warmly at him from the big black leather armchair where he used to like to sit and read. The only word that came to mind was trapped in Thomas’s throat:Dad?
The anniversary of his father’s death, stress about tomorrow’s concert, his general state of exhaustion, and a joint he shouldn’t have smoked. Maybe all those factors in combination were enough to make him believe something that was unbelievable?
“I’ll sleep it off and everything will go back to normal tomorrow,” he whispered.
“One day, you’ll have to explain to me what you think is ‘normal.’ Take, for example, the fact that a handsome young man your age—the spitting image of his father, really—who earns his living as a virtuoso pianist, spends the night before a major concert alone, and in hismother’s apartment at that. If that’s your normal, then you can keep it. Come over here so I can get a good look at you.”
But Thomas remained paralyzed by this vision, which was as upsetting to him as it was terrifying.
“Have it your way. I’ll try to come over to you, but my movements are still pretty erratic. They should improve over the next few hours. That said, my notion of time isn’t what it used to be.”
