Was it a lesson of ego that she was taken from me, or a punishment for all the families I failed to comfort in the waiting room? I was so sure. I thought they wouldn’t need my sweet words when my deeds saved their loved ones…but Alette had a different magical medicine, didn’t she?
“Am I to learn from you or mourn your passing? What am I supposed to do now? How can I continue to be Dr. Stein when your death now defines me?” I scream. I want to kick over my chairs, swipe everything off my desk, and destroy the room in a fit of temper. But grief doesn’t act like anger, does it? It won’t burn out if I throw a tantrum.
No, it will fester. Drive me mad.
I bury my face in my hands as I collapse in my desk chair. My elbows hit the table. I have no more tears to cry, so I heave and moan.
“Are they gone yet?”
“Leave me be,” I croak.
“I can’t,” says the feminine voice. “No, I won’t. I can’t stand to see anyone sad, but you? Please, no. I would have soothed your pain immediately, but I wasn’t ready to face everyone. Not yet. Not when I don’t know the rules. But I couldn’t stay away…not from you.”
The air catches in my lungs. Through the watery blur of my tears, a ghost stands in my office. I jump to my feet, knocking over my chair. Have I lost my mind? Is this what it means to be delirious with grief? You see the dead? Alette wears a glittery ballgown and a crown of flowers made of light. Tiny photons dance around her. She’s an aberration…but it’s still her.
“Frank, please believe it’s me. I don’t know how. My body is in that grave…but I’m here. Please believe. Don’t send me away.”
I run around the desk to stand before the ghost. My face tingles when she rests her palm on my cheek. I tremble with fear as I raise my hand to cup hers. If she vanishes because I dared to touch her… She stays. The weight of my robotic gloves sits on her hand as if she were corporal, but she’s not. If I focus on the wall behind her, I can see through her. However, if I hold the image of her features…her beautiful face is before me.
“How?” I whisper, allowing my scientist’s mind to grasp for straws.
“I asked for a miracle, and you gave it to me. No more pack. No more pain. No more threat of surgery. I don’t need to eat when it causes me such agony. Frank, don’t cry. I’m free.”
“I wasn’t aware I was crying. Oh, Alette, I have so much I want to tell you. Oh, I’m so sorry. First and most of all, I’m so sorry.”
“You aren’t listening,” she says tartly. “I don’t want your apology. I came to you for help. My corporal form comes andgoes within Haunted Health, but I don’t exist outside of these walls.”
“Of course, I’ll do whatever you want,” I say, taking her hands in mine. “Name it. It’s yours.”
“I want the life we were building. I want the dates. I want the hospital work. Mostly, I want to explore what it means to be us. Can you do that? Can you fall in love with a ghost? Because I fell for you a while ago…”
“Yes, Alette, yes!” I shout, picking her up and twirling her around. “A second chance? I don’t deserve one, but I’ll do my best to be the one you need.”
“Just be you,” she says, kissing me hesitantly. “Don’t let what happened to me make you forget who you are and the responsibility you have to the patients in this hospital. More than a warm shoulder to cry upon, they need your gifts. The thankless, invisible job you do behind the operating doors is your calling.”
“I don’t know,” I confess. “I’m so scared. What if I kill again?”
“Then you will prove that you aren’t a monster, Frank. You’re human.”
“I don’t want to be human, Alette, just like you don’t want to be a ghost.”
“Says who? I chose to spend eternity as a ghost—your ghost.”
Chapter 10
Alette
“My ghost?” His smile shines through his tears. It’s shock. He’s swaying as if on the brink of collapse. I doubt he thinks he’s conscious. It’s hard for me to believe, too, and I’m in a ghostly body. Walking through the wall was a trip, but I can deal with not being corporal as long as I can be in his arms, something I made sure of when I struck my bargain for returning to this realm. He can touch and feel me, though he is the only one who can.
“Yeah, notice how I didn’t say yourvirginghost,” I say to lighten the mood. “I died with my virginity intact thanks to you.”
“If it makes you feel better, my surgical choices made me a forever virgin, too. I never meant to kill you—”
“I know, sweetheart,” I reply, shushing him gently. “We didn’t know we didn’t have time for a long courtship. I imagine you would have found a thousand ways to woo me within these hospital walls as you bent over backward trying to convince me to get surgery. You would have been the most charming gentleman until I tricked you into bed.”
“Tricked me?”
“Tricked, seduced, bedazzled you with my feminine wiles,” I say, kissing away his tears between the words. “Instead,I just tied us together for eternity. How do you like that? You thought you were operating without consent…Well, I got one better over on you. You’re the only one who can feel me. I can’t interact with any physical objects. What you love most, you must share. Frank, your hands are now my hands.”
