She sighed and lowered her hand to the book. Over her OKAY the pencil scribbled,
Iambeevee
“My God,” Caroleen whispered, closing her eyes. “You think I need to be told?”
Her hand was involuntarily spelling it out again, breaking the pencil lead halfway through but continuing rapidly to the end, and then it went through the motions three more times, just scratching the paper with splintered wood. Finally her hand uncramped.
She threw the pencil on the floor and scrabbled among the orange plastic prescription bottles on the table for a pen. Finding one, she wrote, What can I do? To help
She wasn’t able to add the final question mark because her hand convulsed away from her again, and wrote,
touseyourbodyinvitemeintoyourbody
and then a moment later,
imsorryforeverythingplease
Caroleen watched as the pen in her hand wrote out the same two lines twice more, then she leaned back and let the pen jiggle in the air until this bout, too, gradually wore off and her hand went limp.
Caroleen blinked tears out of her eyes, trying to believe that they were caused entirely by her already-sore wrist muscles. But—for BeeVee to apologize, to her…! The only apologies BeeVee had ever made while alive were qualified and impatient: Well, I’m sorry if…
Do the dead lose their egotism? wondered Caroleen, their onetime need to limit and dominate earthly households? BeeVee had maintained Caroleen as a sort of extended self, and it had resulted in isolation for the two of them; if, in fact, they had added up to quite as many as two during the last years. The twins had a couple of brothers out there somewhere, and a least a couple of nieces, and their mother might even still be alive at ninety-one, but Caroleen knew nothing of any of them. BeeVee had handled all the mail.
Quickly she wrote on the calendar page, I need to know—do you love me?
For nearly a full minute she waited, her shoulder muscles stiffening as she held the pen over the page; then her hand flexed and wrote,
yes
Caroleen was gasping and she couldn’t see the page through her tears, but she could feel her hand scribbling the word over and over again until this spasm, too, eventually relaxed.
Why did you have to wait, she thought, until after you had died to tell me?
But use your body, invite me into your body. What would that mean? Would BeeVee take control of it, ever relinquish control?
Do I, thought Caroleen, care, really?
Whatever it might consist of, it would be at least a step closer to the wholeness Caroleen had lost nine weeks ago.
Her hand was twitching again. She waited until the first couple of scribbles had expended themselves in the air before touching the pen to the page. The pen wrote,
yesforever
She moved her hand aside, not wanting to spoil that statement with echoes.
When the pen had stilled, Caroleen leaned forward and began writing, Yes, I’ll invite you, but her hand took over and finished the line with
exhaustedmorelater
Exhausted? Was it strenuous for ghosts to lean out or in or down this far? Did BeeVee have to brace herself against something to drive the pencil?
But, in fact, Caroleen was exhausted, too—her hand was aching. She blew her nose into an old Kleenex, her eyes watering afresh in the menthol-and-eucalyptus smell of Ben Gay, and lay back across the daybed and closed her eyes.
A SHARP KNOCK AT the front door jolted her awake, and though her glasses had fallen off and she didn’t immediately know whether it was morning or evening, she realized that her fingers were wiggling, and had been for some time.
She lunged forward and with her left hand wedged the pen between her twitching right thumb and forefinger. The pen began to travel lightly over the calendar page. The scribble was longer than the others—with a pause in the middle—and she had to rotate the book to keep the point on the page until it stopped.
The knock sounded again, but Caroleen called, “Just a minute!” and remained hunched over the little book, waiting for the message to repeat.
It didn’t. Apparently she had just barely caught the last echo—perhaps only the end of the last echo.
She couldn’t make out what she had written. Even if she’d had her glasses on, she’d have needed the lamplight, too.
“Caroleen?” came a call from out front. It was Amber’s voice.
“Coming.” Caroleen stood up stiffly and hobbled to the door. When she pulled it open, she found herself squinting in the noon sunlight that filtered through the avocado tree branches.
The girl on the doorstep was wearing sweatpants and a huge T-shirt and blinking behind her gleaming round spectacles. Her brown hair was tied up in a knot on top of her head. “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.” She was panting, as if she had run over here from next door.
Caroleen felt the fresh air—smelling of sun-heated stone and car exhaust—cooling her sweaty scalp. “I’m fine,” she said hoarsely. “What is it?” Had she asked the girl to come over today? She couldn’t recall doing it, and she was tense with impatience to get back to her pen and book.
“I just—” said Amber rapidly—“I liked your sister, well, you know I did really, even though—and I—could I have something of hers, not like valuable, to remember her by? How about her hairbrush?”
“You want her hairbrush?”
“If you don’t mind. I just want something—”
“I’ll get it. Wait here.” It would be quicker to give it to her than to propose some other keepsake, and Caroleen had no special attachment to the hairbrush—her own was a duplicate anyway. She and BeeVee had, of course, matching everything—toothbrushes, coffee cups, shoes, wristwatches.
When Caroleen had fetched the brush and returned to the front door, Amber took it and went pounding down the walkway, calling “Thanks!” over her shoulder.
Still disoriented from her nap, Caroleen closed the door and made her way back to the daybed, where she patted the scattered blankets until she found her glasses and fitted them on.
She sat down, switched on the lamp, and leaned over the phone book page. Turning the book around to follow the newest scrawl, she read,
bancaccounts
getmyhairbrushfromhernow
“Sorry, sorry!” exclaimed Caroleen; then in her own handwriting, she wrote, I’ll get it back.
She waited, wondering why she must get the hairbrush back from Amber. Was it somehow necessary that all of BeeVee’s possessions be kept together? Probably, at least the ones with voodoo-type identity signatures on them—DNA samples, like hair caught in a brush, dried saliva traces on dentures, Kleenex in a forgotten wastebasket. But—