“Anyone But Her”: Spirited chat about widowers’ new girlfriend portends mystery

Chapter 1: 1979

My mother first spoke to me from the grave on an August night shortly after my father began dating Peggy. Mom arrived on a whisper, laden with intention.

“Suzanne.” Her voice broke through the stillness in my room. “It’s me.”

Reflexively, I opened my eyes—but it wasn’t with them that I saw her. I simply knew she was there—and for a moment, it felt like time before. Like she was just checking on me before turning in for the night. I was fourteen years old, and until February twenty-second, my mother had checked on me every night of my life. Leaning close, whispering that she loved me, that I was her everything. 

A smile broke across my face. “You’re here!”

“Shh.” I felt rather than saw her press a finger to her lips. “You’ll wake him.”

Her attention turned to my six-year-old brother, Chris, who was tangled in a crimson-colored sleeping bag on the floor. Chris had his own room, next door to mine, but ever since we lost Mom, he often wandered into my room like a sleepwalker and collapsed on my floor. He slept fitfully and woke up crying, crawling into my bed and letting me hold him as he talked about nightmare demons, trolls, dragons—all of whom, Chris explained, waved firearms but never actually shot anything. “They just look like they will,” he said. 

Chris rolled over, his breath ragged, but didn’t awaken. “But you finally came,” I whispered to Mom. “I knew you would.”

“I expect you did, my little seer.”

Mom had always called me her “little seer.” Our Queen Anne Victorian house in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood was built in 1888, and inside its walls spirits regularly appeared to me like decades flowing through the ancient rooms. Not far from home was Cheesman Park, which had been built on a desecrated paupers’ graveyard; rumors of ghosts abounded. When I was small, Mom would take me on twilight walks in the park. “Tell me what you see, Suze,” she’d implore.

Toddling after her, using my limited vocabulary, I’d attempt to explain that I didn’t actually see ghosts with my eyes. Rather, I envisioned some essence of them—something more than light but less than human. Energy, you might call it, an energy that manifested in impressions, whispers, shadows cast on floor or field.

“I believe you, my little seer,” Mom would reply. “I wish it happened for me, too.”

Since her death, I’d been expecting Mom to show up. Not alive, but more real than she’d been since the night six months ago when a lowlife junkie named Robert Shelton entered Zoe’s Records, Mom’s hole-in-the-wall record store on Colfax Avenue, demanded all her cash, and wound up shooting her three times in the chest.

One, two, three.

I felt those three bullets—a lot. Felt their searing heat. Since Mom’s death, I always slept on my side. I couldn’t be chest up—too vulnerable. And I couldn’t be chest down. Too painful. 

I closed my eyes, knowing I could better focus on Mom’s ghost that way. She spoke more distinctly than any spirit I’d ever sensed, using Mom’s warm, round voice—like the sun speaking. I felt the presence of her long, honey-brown hair and amber eyes, her narrow shoulders and wide hips. Three scarlet blossoms, like red anemones, burst across the front of her faded flannel shirt. Knowing she sensed me sensing them, I heard her say, “I’m sorry about those. I can’t seem to make them go away.”

Opening my eyes, swallowing the lump in my throat, I said, “It’s okay.” 

I felt her hand brush across my forehead. “You’re beautiful as ever, Suzie Blue.”

“I’ve been waiting,” I said. “Why didn’t you come sooner?”

“I couldn’t.” She paused. “You know, when I was alive, I was uncertain what the afterlife would bring, but somehow I didn’t think it would be this. On this side, nothing’s in your control.”

“That must be a hardship for you,” I said, and she laughed.

I pressed a hand to my chest. “I miss you so much, Mom. It’s not the same without you.”

“I think that’s why I’m here. Because of tonight.”

“What about tonight?”

Mom paused again. “I saw your dad with that woman. That Peggy Hicks.”

“Oh,” I replied.

Dad and Peggy had been dating for a few weeks. It seemed hasty, but it wasn’t as if Dad and Peggy had just met. He’d introduced Chris and me to Peggy back in December, when our parents temporarily split up—a “trial separation,” Mom had called it. Over dinner the week before Christmas break, he’d told us Peggy had been his girlfriend in high school and they’d reconnected at their twentieth reunion in the fall.

“Are you seeing her now?” I’d asked. 

“No.” Wiping his mouth, letting his napkin flutter onto his plate, Dad stood. “I’m disinterested in dating. I want your mother back. You know that, Suze.”

Yeah. I knew that.

But then Mom died.

For several months after my mother’s funeral, Peggy appeared every week or two, bearing food. If I answered the door, I thanked her but said little else. When Dad was home, he’d invite her to chat. Sometimes I overheard him throwing out one of his obscure little facts, like telling Peggy when she brought a blueberry pie that he was glad it wasn’t cherry because Zachary Taylor, the twelfth U.S. president, had died from eating too many cherries in one sitting. When he talked like that, Peggy’s laughter was hearty, echoing through the halls of my mother’s house.

As spring crackled into summer, there might have been an uptick in Peggy’s visits; it wasn’t something I’d paid attention to. I was too busy stumbling through each day, feeling like my head and heart were on fire, to notice who brought us covered dishes of meatloaf or macaroni and cheese. 

Then one July night, Dad told me he was having dinner with Peggy. He whistled as he high-stepped toward the garage. From the back door, I called out, “Dad? Is this a date?”

He turned, his eyes meeting mine. “If it is, then Clotho, the spinner of fates, will decide its outcome,” he said.

Now, in my room, my mother said, “Honeypie, I don’t want your dad to be lonely. Despite everything we went through, I’d never want that. But this woman…there’s something about her.” After a beat, she asked, “What do you think of her, Suzie Blue?”

I shrugged. “She’s okay.”

“Actually…” Mom’s voice lowered. “She’s not.” 

I felt her rise, step over Chris’s sleeping form, and touch his forehead the way she’d touched mine. He didn’t stir. Her energy moved toward the window, and it seemed she was looking out on the street.

“Peggy is not okay,” she repeated. “And I think I’m here because I need your help fixing it.” 

“Fixing it? What do you mean?”

I felt her turn to face me. “Last year, after their high school reunion,” she said. “After I met Peggy, I told your father—and it was a joke then, Suze, a joke—I told him that if I died, I wanted him to remarry. I said he could marry anyone he wanted, anyone at all, except…”

I waited.

“I told him that he could not marry Peggy.” In an instant, she was across the room; I sensed her heat beside me and I leaned toward it.

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Suzie Blue?” Mom asked. “I told him he could marry anyone but her.”

Chapter 2: 2004

The footsteps I heard were light, as if they belonged to a house cat or a stealthy fox. Stevie heard them, too; she whined and strained against her leash. Our new house’s deadbolt had been locked when we arrived; I’d opened it with the key we received at closing. The rooms were empty, the August air inside close. Despite the house’s age, I sensed no spiritual presence; what I heard was earthly. Had to be an animal, I thought, bending down to stroke the soft fur behind Stevie’s ears.

Turning to my husband, Brett, as he stepped inside the house, I asked, “Did you hear those footsteps?” 

He shook his head. “Footsteps?”

I glanced at our blue merle Australian Shepherd. “Stevie heard them, too.”

“I’ll look around, Suze,” Brett said. 

As he went down the hall, Stevie and I stepped forward, her toenails clicking and my footfalls echoing on the hardwoods. I pressed a hand against my collarbone—an ancient, ritualistic practice of mine. The house, a Denver Square, was about two miles east of my childhood home. With its square shape and simple layout, the Denver Square was unlike my family’s ornate Victorian, yet its character reminded me of my childhood home. The original woodwork and built-ins. The stained glass. The front porch running the width of the house.

Stevie tugged on her leash. In the kitchen, I opened the back door to let her into the fenced yard. But when she put her nose to the threshold, I pulled her leash back.

On our doorstep was something lumpy and gray. Appearing behind me, Brett said, “I didn’t see anything.” His gaze followed mine toward the floor. “Ugh, what’s that?”

I crouched, examining what was before me. Then I looked up.

“It’s a rat,” I said. “A dead rat.” 

I last lived in Denver in 1982. That fall I began my freshman year at the University of California, Berkeley. Not once did I look back.

I visited, of course. Spent brief vacations with my family. Assured myself that my baby brother was thriving, robust as a favorite houseplant. But every year I scoured the Bay Area for summer jobs and internships so I could stay in California, with no retreat to Colorado. 

At Berkeley, I resolved to embrace the intellectual, the pragmatic. I joined student government and majored in business administration. I met a boy with kind eyes and strong shoulders, the type of boy that girls call on when it’s raining and they need a ride, when some other guy dumps them and they need someone to tell them what a loser that guy is. After graduation, I married the boy. Brett and I had two kids and bought a house in Mountain View. He was a software project lead; I managed the call center for a midsize hardware firm that specialized in printers and scanners. I organized playdates and coordinated the neighborhood block party. I volunteered at a food bank and served as PTA president for my kids’ school.

I patted myself on the back until the Dot Com crash and ensuing proliferation of tech outsourcing cost Brett his job. We hobbled along on my modest salary until I, too, was laid off. Then we began using credit cards to pay our bills. We were barely hanging on when Brett was thrown a lifeline—a job at a Denver-based internet securities company. A prior colleague of his, Nicole, had recently made the move and recommended him. He flew out to interview and they extended an offer on the spot. He told them he needed to discuss it with his wife.

Back home, Brett told me it was an incredible opportunity and there was no reason not to go. “I know it’s Denver,” he said. “But enough time has passed to soften…everything.”

I didn’t reply.

“Caitlin needs a fresh start,” Brett said. “And The Children’s Hospital there is supposed to be excellent. A great resource for Austin.”

I thought of our children. Caitlin, our fourteen-year-old—the same age I’d been when my mother died. Caitlin, with her hooded, overly made-up eyes, blood-red lipstick, and penchant for black clothing. Her hostility and detachment.

Then there was nine-year-old Austin, with his inability to sit still, constant interrupting of conversations, overblown meltdowns—things most children outgrew by his age, but not our son. Austin had been diagnosed with ADHD and put on Ritalin, but he still struggled. His behavior, combined with his small stature—he’d been held back in kindergarten but was still the shortest in his class—meant he was frequently picked on. When it happened, he flew off the handle, which only exacerbated things. 

Convinced there was more to it than ADHD, I’d been researching other mental health conditions. Austin didn’t meet the qualifying criteria for autism, but there were other, rarer disorders. If we knew what it was, could it be treated?

The more I dug, the more intrigued I became by the genetic aspects of mental health. Sometimes, I learned, certain family members only have genetic markers for a condition, while in other relatives the condition manifests. I couldn’t deny my own oddness, particularly when I was younger. Had I passed something on to Austin? Once, hesitantly, I’d asked him if he ever saw ghosts. He laughed and said ghosts were stupid and not real.

When I learned that some conditions are more prevalent in males than females, it got me thinking about my father. Like Austin, Dad had weird speech patterns and trouble reading situations. He’d never received a diagnosis—hardly surprising, given the times, as well as the life of privilege he’d been raised in. Surrendered to an orphanage as an infant and adopted shortly thereafter by my well-heeled grandparents, Dad had everything handed to him on a silver platter. His idiosyncrasies were simply excused. 

But what caused his eccentricity? Where did it originate? Dad had no interest in finding his birth family, saying his upbringing was unbelievable and there was no reason to probe the past.

I had reason. And living in Denver, where Dad had been adopted, meant proximity to information that might provide a clue—one that could lead to a diagnosis for Austin.

For me, Denver meant the past would encroach. But we were a family; it wasn’t only about me. So I wrapped my arms around Brett and said, “You’re right. There’s no reason not to make the move.” I kissed him. “We should go.”

Later, clipping Stevie’s leash to her collar, I led her through the back gate, into the alley. Brett had placed the dead rat, loosely wrapped in a plastic grocery bag, on top of the debris in the dumpster behind our house.

Reaching forward, I tugged at a corner of the bag. It opened and the rat’s body rolled out. I leaned in to examine it. I’d sensed something earlier but didn’t want to say anything to Brett or the kids. Plastic bag over my fingers, I parted the animal’s neck fur, unsurprised to see an angry red slash from ear to ear. My fingers twitched, and I gripped Stevie’s leash. 

That rat didn’t die from a predator attack, natural causes, or even poison. It was killed by a person, and it was killed with a knife.

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Type of Story: Review

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