Walking Ghost Phase (5 page)

Someone—Emily remembered only that the voice was female—had once said how much she resembled her mother. Now half-moons of black flesh painted the cusps of her mother
's eyes. Streaks of gray ran the length of her blond hair, more frizzed than her usual straightened style. Emily decided not to ask if she had slept.

“
How are you feeling?” her mother asked.

Emily crumpled into the chair and exhaled.
“My head hurts, my back hurts, my skin hurts.” She rubbed her scalp. “Even my hair hurts. How can hair possibly hurt?”

Her mother folded the letter, concealing the government letterhead.
“Maybe you'll feel better once today is over.”

“
I doubt it.” Emily leaned across the table and looked at the empty street. “When are they supposed to be here?”

“
Nine. Do you want to go for a walk? You have time, and if they show up before you get back—” Her mother smiled. “—they can wait.”

Emily glanced at the bottom of the f
ront door, at her tennis shoes, which she had worn the soles down to a paper-thin layer of rubber over the last three months. The walks were her escape from a house absent of meaningful reminders—a chance to recognize someone, remember the things her mother wouldn't tell her.

Their neighbor, Ralph Thomas, always waved when she stepped on the sidewalk. Thomas, who was in his fifties, lived alone, and he wore the same red suspenders every day as he slung garden hoses around the lawn, watering dirt that never seemed to grow a blade of grass. If Emily left her house to remember, she supposed Mr. Thomas left his house to forget. Michael Thomas, the man
's only son, was one of the seventy-four Washington victims from their town. Emily assumed he knew about her trip, so to avoid the subject, she would simply tell Mr. Thomas how nice his lawn looked and go on her way.

Emily covered miles of cracked sidewalk, looking at the strange houses, trying to connect them to a lost memory, but the cookie-cutter designs swarmed in her thoughts. Even the
For Sale
signs, which decorated every other front yard, were identical. Jack McDonald, realtor extraordinaire, probably owned a swimming pool full of cash.

As she continued on her walk, the curious eyes of people who still held onto t
heir homes peered at her from behind windows. Unfamiliar cars sped by, and unrecognizable names decorated mailboxes. A few miles later, she would arrive at the turnaround point of her walks. The particular house always marked that point. Something about it compelled her mind, beckoned her to take a closer look.

Grass had grown above the top of the chain link fence, dangling over the sidewalk. Dirt stains blotted the white vinyl in patches of brown and red. Still, a mental image passed before her eyes—freshly cut grass, glossy windows and a pure-white exterior—but when she walked around the side, she found the same neglectful overgrowth in the backyard. Throughout her trespass, the interior lights never sparked to life. Movement never flickered from inside the windows. Someone had apparently abandoned the house and not placed it in the clutches of Jack McDonald.
But it seemed like such a nice place. Cozy even.
After her visit, she would head straight home, her memories still as fragmented as the day before.

Emily looked at her mother and curled her sore toes under her feet.
“I think I'll stay inside. I doubt one more walk will do any good.”

Her mother smiled.

Emily patted the folded letter. “But since it's my last day here, can you finally tell me about the rundown house? I swear someone I knew lived there.”

“
Honey, we repeat this conversation after every time you visit that house.”

They had. The military sent along a brochure of guidelines for her
mental well-being and safety.
Parents and Guardians rule number one sucked the most.
Do not volunteer any lost information.
The military reasoned that the stress of not remembering something was healthier for the mind than being told and still not remembering. “Yeah, but—”

“
I've cried myself to sleep because my little girl is suffering with a broken mind, but those doctors gave me specific instructions. Yes, I agree with you. Those rules might seem unbelievable but so does the sight of my child alive and sitting here in front of me after a doctor said she would die in a week. This entire time, I've never lied to you. Everything you asked, I either told you I didn't know or I said I couldn't talk about it.”

Emily sighed.
“I just want to fill in some of these blanks. After I woke up the other morning, I spent an hour wondering if Dad liked the lawn mower you bought him. That was twelve years ago. Twelve years, Mom. I keep a damn teddy bear on my dresser to remind me he is dead, but I still expect him to come home each night. And I haven't had a single visitor in three months. No one has called for me. Was I a social outcast or something? Where are my friends? Did I even have any?”

“
You did. They loved you very much.”

“
Loved, as in past tense? Are they dead? Did they die in the attack?”

Her mother gazed through the window, not answering.

“You can tell me that, can't you?”

Her mother
's lips creased into a slight smile. It was a hint Emily doubted she could forget even if she underwent a dozen more treatments. The conversation was over. No ifs, ands or buts unless Emily wanted to find herself sentenced to her room for the day.
Wait
, she thought.
I'm not fourteen. She can't ground me.

Then her mother chuckled as she looked outside. On the other side of the street, a recreational vehicle, off-white with Holstein spots of brown rust, idled in front of the neighborhood park, beneath the outstretched branches of a large oak tree.
“We haven't had guests at the park in awhile,” her mother said.

Emily huffed.
Way to change the subject
. Still, she also stared; her mother was right. Before Washington, families traveled from miles around to visit the humble patch of grass and picnic tables. Now the foot-high overgrowth buried any semblance of a place where children once laughed and played, where her father had pushed her in the swings every Sunday after church.

Her mother tapped the window.
“Look, look.” Her voice sounded less beaten.

Near the back of the RV, a little girl, about six years old, hopped barefoot in the knee-high grass. Her blond hair glowed golden in the dawn sunlight, fanning out in all directions, and her white T-shirt collar stretched halfway down her chest. A moment later she stopped bouncing, rubbed her eyes and smiled at the woman who stepped out of the RV.

Emily's mother trembled, rattling the ice cubes around the glass. Outside, the woman lifted the girl as they both laughed. After she set down the child, they bounced a red ball to each other.

Emily
's mother banged the glass on the table. “Why did this happen to us? Why do they get to enjoy today?”

Emily stared at the floor, searching for the right thing to say. Her mother watched the street often, as if she waited for someone. Maybe she expected Emily
's father to walk through the park. Perhaps she saw squealing children and laughing parents, and imagined herself as one of them—complete.

Her mother banged the glass again.

“Mom?” Emily leaned back as her mother raised the glass. When the bottom of her hand came down, a shrill pop reverberated inside the dining room. Glass shards shot outward, sprinkling across the table and falling to the floor. Emily leapt forward and grabbed her mother's wrist. “You're bleeding.” She squeezed her fingers under her mother's grip. “Open your hand, Mom. Let go.”

Then her mother
's eyes seemed to sink into her face. Her jaw quivered as if she wanted to speak. Now Emily's eyes watered from the pungent smell—burnt diesel fuel. An ancient, green military transport, something she thought only existed in history books, idled in front of the house.

“
They're early,” her mother said. Her voice was low, almost inaudible.

“
And they can wait.” Emily dug her fingers into her mother's closed fist and pried open the death grip. Blood-laced shards clinked on the floor. “The kitchen,” Emily said. She tugged at her mother's wrist, but she didn't budge. “You need a bandage. The hell with them.” Emily pulled harder, and this time her mother's feet inched forward, appearing to surrender to an instinct that wanted to maintain balance. In the kitchen, Emily flipped the faucet handle upward and guided her mother's hand under the spray. A threadlike string of blood slithered out of the gash.

Then the first booming knock came. Sprinkles of ceiling tile snowed on the carpet. The windows rattled.

Her mother's pinkish hue faded. “They're going to steal you away.”

Emily
's knees wobbled, knocking into each other.
Stay focused
. She grabbed a clean dishcloth, placed it in her mother's palm and squeezed shut her hand.

The knock came again. Emily gently released her mother and walked to the door.

Where did three months go?

He stood in the doorway, a young man of maybe twenty, Hispanic, not a wrinkle in his fatigues or a hair of stubble on his face. A black band etched with the letters MP adorned his right arm. Patched above his left pocket was his name, Vasquez. A blond-haired male MP, Douglas, lingered to the side and tapped his fingers against his belt, beside the handle o
f a black pistol. A shadow soon crept over Emily until she felt the touch of her mother.

Vazquez lifted a clipboard
below his nose. “Emily Heath?”

Emily swallowed hard.
“Yes.”

He spun the clipboard around and showed her a copy of the consent form she had signed in Washington.
“Do you concur this is your signature?”

Emily
's tongue crawled into the back of her throat, and she pushed her chin down to avoid choking.

Vasquez nodded, apparently taking that as a
Yes
. “Do you agree that, although you may have been under a level of duress, you were of sound mind when you signed this form?”

Emily turned to her mother.
Level of duress
? she thought.
Is he joking?

“
No,” her mother said. “She was scared. She didn't get a chance to talk to someone beforehand.”

Emily didn
't disagree.

Vasquez pushed the clipboard toward Emily and tapped his pen on a signature line.
“Then sign here. An Army psychiatrist will assess your status upon our arrival.”

Emily
's mother whimpered. “No.”

“
Sign, please.”

Emily
's hair seemed to lift off her scalp, seeking an escape. The thought of what might happen if she took his pen raced through her mind: alone with a stranger poking and prodding her, asking her questions—intimate questions she couldn't answer. “If I say no, can I change my mind later and still meet with someone?”

“
No,” he said.

So much for keeping my options open
. She looked at her mother. “I don't need to sign.”

Vasquez stared at the clipboard.
“All necessities shall be provided by the United States Government. You are not permitted to bring any form of contraband other than medicines required for the next seven days.” His eyes crept above the paper. “Do you have anything that meets those needs?”

Before
he could finish the word
medicines
, Emily was already digging inside the pocket of her sweatpants. She pulled out her hand and showed him the inhaler. Vasquez examined it. Emily did too since she couldn't remember the last time she used it.

Vasquez nodded.
“The transport is waiting.”

Emily turned to say goodbye, when her mother
's arms swallowed her. Tears dripped on Emily's shoulder, plastering the shirt to her skin.

“
I'm so proud of you,” her mother said.