Hated the sound.
Hated standing here staring at his damned brother’s grave.
And then he remembered the discomfort between Cathy and Dave at the lawyer’s office and how Dave had alluded to a pinky swear.
Gabriel looked down at Whiskey, vaguely pulling up a camping trip when he and Daniel were boys.
He let the pictures form and the memory become a video in his mind’s eye.
They were kids curled up in sleeping bags, lying there listening to the ghost stories the adults were telling around the campfire after the boys were supposed to be asleep.
Daniel had asked whether Gabriel wanted to be a ghost walking the Earth, going where he wanted. Gabriel had never considered that being a ghost was an option.
But Daniel, he had it all worked out. “I wanna be a ghost. I don't want to go on right away. Think about all the things you’d learn if you walked around spying on people, seeing what they do when they don't know anyone's looking. I want to be the one that makes them feel the cold and look over their shoulder, and I'm gonna laugh and laugh.”
Gabriel had lain there considering all the possibilities that would be open to him if he were a ghost.
“If I die first, I'll stick around and haunt you. And if you die first, you need to haunt me. Now, I'm not saying you have to walk the Earth for the rest of eternity as a ghost. We’ll wait until the other one dies too, and then we could go off to Heaven together.”
“And in the meantime?” Gabriel asked.
“We’ll let the other one know we’re around by banging the door every now and then, or turning on the TV or the radio, or flicking the lights and stuff.”
Gabriel laughed at the absurdity.
“Maybe you can have extra fun if I did it when your friends were around,” Daniel had said. “You could tell everyone, ‘Oh, that's my brother saying hello, wondering if he could pull up a chair and play the game too.”
“All right, here,” Gabriel said, sticking his pinky finger in his mouth and pulling it out dripping wet, and stretching it toward Daniel.
Daniel had done the same, and they twisted their fingers together. “I swear that when I die, I’ll haunt you until you die too, then we’ll go up to Heaven.”
Gabriel had forgotten all about that. The memory was a punch in the gut.
Was that what Daniel was thinking about on his deathbed?
And there was Whiskey with her head tipped back, howling like her heart was broken.
Gabriel wasn't sure he could handle all the sadness that Whiskey had on her face.
If Whiskey could understand that Daniel was dead, she might be glad. Everyone was relieved that Daniel was out of pain.
But glad didn’t mean without grief.
The pressure built in Gabriel’s chest, and he found himself panting. His eyes squinted tight, trapping the tears and holding them there to blur his vision.
The pain went on for long minutes as Whiskey howled.
He wasn’t going to stand on the side of the damned road as cars rolled past, losing his shit. He just wasn’t.
And he wasn’t going to collapse under the weight of his grief in public.
A car started to slow, and Gabriel thought they were going to pull over to check on him.
He wasn’t going to make it through a kind gesture.
So Gabriel pulled his phone from his pocket and sent Cathy a video of Whiskey howling.
“Guess where Whiskey dragged me on our walk tonight?” He slowly panned around to the graveyard, illuminated by the full moon, then focused back on Whiskey. “What the hell is she doing? I’ve never heard her make a peep before. Did she do this at your house? Is there an off switch?”
