Part 3

Lily's Ghost
by Cheryl Drake Harris

(Page 3 of 3)

An hour later, he comes downstairs dressed in mismatched pajamas, a yellow top with white piping and black-watch bottoms. Tucked under his arm is one of his favorite books: Through the Looking Glass, a delightful 1930's version my mother gave him on his third birthday. Flushed from his bath, he nestles next to me in the chair, smelling of lemony shampoo and Ivory soap.

" 'The Walrus and the Carpenter,' " he says. And he proceeds to give me the book, which I open to Tweedledum and Tweedledee. There is something about the oysters Jaime loves; maybe it's the shoes.

I read the first two lines:

"The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:"

I continue, enjoying the rhyme and the bizarre characters, but Jaime is impatient through the next six stanzas, anxious for the appearance of the oysters. When they come, he chimes in, and slowly we say it together, enunciating each word:

"But four young oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat-
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet . . ."

By the time we finish reading, Jaime is sleepy, his thumb in his mouth. I put the book on the table and ease myself out of the chair. "Come on, sleepyhead, let's tuck you in."

His thumb stays in his mouth all the way up the stairs. But when I get him into bed, he pops it out. "They do have feet, Mum," he says. "I saw them in the pictures."

"You're absolutely right, Jaim', I saw them too, all in shoes." He nods, pleased with the affirmation. I kiss his hair. "I'll check on you later, make sure you're covered, okay?"

He hugs his plush blue octopus and nods, and with a sumptuous sound, he plugs in again, his mouth a cherubic seal at the base of his thumb.

We're going to have to work on that thumb, I think, but not for a while yet.

By the time I pick the turkey carcass clean and simmer the bones for broth, it is nearly ten o'clock. With doubled dish towels, I take the covered stockpot out into the shed and set it on top of the wood box where it can cool. For a moment, I watch clouds of aromatic steam float up into the cold air. Then I go in, lock the door, and head upstairs.

The dark of Jaime's room is palpable now; it seems to envelop me. His snore is a fine-tooth rasp filing rhythmically. I cover him and leave the door ajar so that I can hear if he wakes in the night.

I think how good a warm bath will feel.

Our bedroom door is open, and the lights are on. Ben is sleeping. I go in, lift my nightgown from the frayed boudoir chair near the window, and sit down.

The blankets lie in soft furrows at the foot of the bed. I gaze at his pale nakedness and think that I took the path of least resistance when I married him. He was dependable and stable, the kind of man who carried jumper cables in the trunk of his car and kept a miniature Swiss Army knife on his key chain.

We'd been in the same homeroom in high school. He'd dated my best friend, and I'd dated Christian Dunn, who, ironically, now lives next door to Ben's parents. We'd even double-dated, the last time after Christian had gone off to Bowdoin. The three of us drove to Brunswick to visit him and catch The Electric Flag in concert. We'd gotten drunk on sea breeze, a punch of vodka and cranberry juice, and sitting together in the stands of the gymnasium, as the bass of electric guitar thrummed and the strobe lights pulsed, Ben surreptitiously stroked my hip with his thumb.

When I saw him next, some years later, I'd just finished my residency and had volunteered for a commission as a Navy doctor. And by that time, Ben had broken up with my former best friend and had fallen into a long-term relationship with a woman who'd now decided it was time to find herself. He ended up back home after his father's death and was pressured by his brother into helping run the family business, a dry-cleaning establishment. Probably the last thing he had wanted to do. My love life had remained pretty constant all those years, until Christian Dunn decided to go to culinary school in New York City, where he took up with some sous-chef and promptly dumped me.

Copyright © 2006 by Cheryl Drake Harris.

About the Author

Cheryl Drake Harris is a former nurse and teacher who lives with her husband in Maine, where she is at work on her second novel, about a contemporary writer reasearching the life of Elizabeth Siddal, the wife of poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which Dell will publish in 2007.