The Passed Note Issue 3 February 2017 | Page 40

go through that once more tonight.

“Does that mean you’ve decided to go back?”

An eternity of numbness or an eternity of disappointment. The white world was sounding pretty promising for once. But the thought of making a decision so permanent made me ill. . . if ghosts could be ill.

“Let me see Mom and Dad first.”

Paul Michael checked his watch. “It’s after one so they’re definitely asleep. Want me to wake them up for you?”

I shook my head. “This is easier.” I walked down the hall and through their bedroom door. Paul Michael waited respectfully outside.

My parents hadn’t been in the best place when I left. They were starting to notice the severe differences in personality that only come out after twenty-three years of marriage. There was no romance left; any comradery they shared was in the joint task of getting Laura to go to bed. They weren’t at the point of sleeping in separate rooms, but they were about as far away from each other in bed as possible.

I climbed in at the foot of the bed the way I did through my brief stint as an insomniac in high school. I was able to lie flat on my back without bumping either one of them. Too much space between them.

I longed to feel the sheets beneath me, extra soft because Mom used two capfuls of fabric softener instead of one. Unable to feel, I stared at the circling of the ceiling fan and listened to their breath. My mom’s slight nose whistle. My dad’s occasional jolting snore.

“Keep hanging in there, guys.” My voice caught in my throat, as the emptiness between them hollowed out a pit in my stomach. “Keep hanging in there.” I should have had something better to say after more than a year in the afterlife. But there weren’t words for it.

I took a few minutes to lay there and attempt to give off some kind of spiritual presence, unable to summon the courage to reach out and touch them. Mom whistled. Dad snored.