The closest I've been to death was on a ten-thousand dollar in a million dollar house.

I felt her standing there.

She reached out her hand to me, in her familiar pink.

Her hair is red once again.

She steps lightly over the liquor bottles and wine glasses on the hardwood floor.

In my ear she whispers softly.

"If you stay here, you're going to die. You're going to die."

 

October was going to be a fun month of ghouls and goblins. I had so many things I wanted to write about. I'd planned out occult anecdotes, things going bump in the night. Cute little advice sections about Halloween costumes. Funny memories of how my mom was always the villain in our family Halloween costumes (Cruella, Malificent, The Wicked Witch).

But as I collected these writing prompts, I began to realize something.

Many of these stories involve a person that is no longer around. My young adulthood is full of holes where once there was someone I loved very much. Writing about them was not only difficult, I soon began to realize it was painful. I had to start asking questions about that pain. I had to look at it in a way I'd been putting off for three years.

 

This time four years ago, I went with my dad to go visit my grandmother. What I had thought was going to be a regular family holiday was actually the trip to say goodbye. Those last years she was less of the fiery, polished Mid-westerner I had loved my whole life. Dementia had been slowing creeping up on her. She got confused easily, scared easily. She couldn't feed herself. She started blankly at her husband of fifty-six years like she'd never met him before. It felt like we were on opposite sides of double-sized glass. Both banging on the walls, able to see each other, but unable to reach the other. But in a moment of clarity, she did take my hand and tell me to be good. I told her I would be, that I had been. But that was, and would continue to be a lie.

 

In December of that year, we agreed her passing was a relief for her as well as us. Despite that agreement, my emotions collapsed on top of me. I was overwhelmed, but I didn't want to bother my dad. As the eldest child, he was dealing with his new reality so well. He was coordinating her service, his siblings, my grandfather, her estate, her bills, their house. He was being so matter of fact, so positive, and throwing himself into the work. So that's what I did. I threw myself into school. I went into the work. I wrote. I worked out. I sat through anthropology classes, and student hosted slam poetry nights. I kept the lid firmly on my pot, squeezing down tightly as the water began to boil.

My lid blew off in February.

I wept into Preston's shirt in the hallway one afternoon. I had the luxury of being in the theatre department, so my meltdown wasn't too disturbing to my peers. After helping me limp home, I confessed all the feelings I'd been suppressing.

I felt weak for not handling the event more stoically.

I felt guilty for not talking to my father

I felt guilty for wanting to "dump" my problems on my father.

I felt fear of growing old, getting sick.

I feared having children doomed to care for me.

I feared forgetting the faces of those I loved.

I feared oblivion.

 

Preston took my hand. He smiled knowingly at me with those ocean eyes. He kissed my forehead, stopped my shaking. That moment of tenderness was everything I needed.

Then he got up.

"Come on." He still had hold of my hand. "Let's go. Let's go get us drunk. You'll feel so much better."

 

When Preston and I met, he told me I had beautiful eyes. They were green. His girlfriend's eyes were blue. Bright blue. She threw a plate at him our sophomore year of college, after he'd assulted a girl at a party. I couldn't figure out which part of that was the rumor. He was at my apartment ever other day. He introduced me to German expressionist movies. We talked about Mucha. London was the city deemed the best for us. He wanted to try politics if acting didn't work out for him. My mother's pedigree surname was perfect for a First Lady. He always teased me about that over cocktails. Cocktails were a must after work. He made me feel like a grownup, a lady. I was his warm, sophisticate companion.

Burton and Taylor. My favorite actress, who I now realize Preston used to justify our "passionate relationship" when things started wrong.

 

Laying on that sofa that night, in that mansion was one of the lowest points in my life. That week, my acting professor had cornered me after class, concerned with my recent performances. This huge, frightening man pleaded with me to take better care of myself outside of the class room. I was looking tired, and grey. He asked if something was going on, if I had someone to talked to. I turned my inner dial and assured him. I was fine. I'd been getting over a bout with the flu. I'd get some rest that weekend and be ready for my Chekov reading on Tuesday. Don't worry. I'll be much better.

Right after that I hopped the Elwyn-Media line. Preston had a friend whose parents lived out on the Main Line. We'd go over there when they were on vacation and the house was empty. I never met her father, that's how many vacations they took. We crept around the house like teenagers, smoking and drinking. It was all the things I hadn't dared to do when I was an actual teenager. Time stopped once you entered that house. Friday and Saturday didn't exist. There was just bourbon, weed, and Bojack Horseman playing all hours of the night. I felt nothing. It felt amazing.

Somewhere around midnight, the three of us were sitting in the living room. Preston's friend had turned on the electric fireplace, setting the room in a warm glow. We drank her parent's anniversary gift, a bottle of Dom Perignon she'd found under some kitchen towels. Preston laughed like it was nothing. We dumped it into our empty stomachs right from the bottle.

"They're not in love anyway. It's not like it means anything. Nobody stays in love that long." Preston's friend tossed her hair.

Nobody? I drunkenly tried to do math. My parents were in love. That was thirty years. My grandparents were together for nearly sixty years. They probably didn't like each other all that time, but they loved each other through four kids, three strokes, and two years of dementia. That was love right? That many years wasn't just about comfort or ease. Not after what I had seen last year.

I sat quietly listening to them talk about the tragedy of our parents. Preston's friend wanted to die by thirty. Preston said he'd probably die by thirty anyway. Neither wanted to grow old. I remained quiet.

"You really must not want to get older, right Del?" Preston lit another blunt. He blew the smoke into the fireplace.

"Oh that's so sad. Preston told me. My grandma lives in Texas. I wish she'd die too sometimes. But that sucks. She probably left you some cool stuff."

 

I stewed for the rest of the night. I couldn't believe he told her all that. We finished the Dom and immediately found a bottle of cognac hidden in a desk. I've never drank cognac before. It burns my throat. It tastes like game hunting and hidden, off shore accounts. I hate it while I take great swigs. I nursed it while they continued drunkenly rambling about Hemingway. Everything started getting stretched out and distorted. I don't remember falling over.

The artificial flames really upset me.

How dare they be fake.

How dare they seem so warm and inviting without being real.

How dare they not be real, but still be able to burn my hand. The liquor burns my throat. The weed smoke burns my eyes. My whole body is on fire as I crawl to the bathroom.

 

I wake up cold. I'm back on the sofa, laying on my stomach. The fire place is still turned on, but I'm too far away to feel the warmth of it. They didn't even put a blanket over me before going upstairs. I know that's where they went. She'd been looking at Preston all night. Old friends my ass.

My drunk brain tries to listen for them. Creaking floorboards. Whispers. Sheets rustling. I hear nothing. I hear nothing but my brain screaming.

 

There she is. Standing over me. Looking the way she looked in photos long ago. My grandmother sits beside me on the sofa, her young faced filled with worry. I try to speak but nothing comes out. I can only lay there as she watches me. I feel a tear slide down from my eye, down my nose and onto the cushion. I have so much I want to say to her.

 

She speaks only one sentence. Then she's gone.

 

I run out of the house. I barely stop for my shoes and backpack at the back door. I tear through this cosmopolitan neighborhood in the dead of night. I make it to the station and toss myself onto the last train heading back to Philly. I still struggle to remember how I made it back to my place from Suburban Station.

The next day is Sunday. I ignore Preston's dozens of text messages and call my mom. I don't tell her about the ghost, or the hours leading up to it. I simply tell her I plan on coming home next week. Things haven't been going well. I might need a few nights at home, under the stars in a place far away from the Main Line. My next weekend is spent going to movies and eating dinner with my parents, watching horrible TV. The harshest thing to cross my lips is a few glasses of Fat Monk Wine. I finally get sleep. I promise myself this is the last time I'll have a lost weekend to that extent again with Preston.

 

Part of realizing you're in an unhealthy place is that you keep making promises that never pan out. I promised and promised I would be better while keeping the thing in my life that was making me worse. I remained worse until several events forced me to cut him out of my life. But that long process was jumpstarted by the one night on the Main Line that forced me out of that house and into the cold realization that even the dead knew where I was going.

That night she whispered to me what I would later admit was the truth, and not just the ramblings from beyond the grave.

 

"If you stay here. You're going to die."

I here it still. When I don't want to keep moving. When I think it would be easier to go back to how I was living before. It might be easier to not feel again. But I feel everything. Everything so strongly. Even her. Waiting. Should I fall into dangerous hands again. She waits.