Remember The Moon Page 15

  I found ways to present myself to Maya in the form of a blackbird or crow. I could only combine my consciousness into that of an animal for very short periods of time, but I enjoyed staring into our living room window from the roof of the garage, unblinking, spying on Maya and Calder and then being able to swoop down to the ground in one swift movement, my altered weightlessness both freeing and confining at once. A heady sensation, being re-united with the yoke of gravity when one is accustomed to being matter-less. I couldn’t be sure if she would notice any of these signs, but grieving people seemed willing and open to any sort of connection with the newly dead.

  Molly, in her email to Maya, said her friend raved about Liz’s accuracy, but she admitted her nervousness about making an appointment for herself. For a few days, Maya let the email languish in her inbox, perhaps afraid of unleashing emotions she had carefully put to bed after almost a year of widowhood. I had to cajole Maya into calling Liz, visiting her in a dream and employing dream Liz to walk along the beach with me, hoping she might convince Maya of her legitimacy. I didn’t anticipate that conjuring Liz for my dream was akin to calling her on the phone, pronouncing my desire to communicate with Maya.

  By then Christmas arrived, and Maya forgot about the psychic idea in her effort to make it through the holiday, hosting her parents and pretending all was as it had once been. When school started up in the New Year, Maya needed time to recover, but when I sensed she was ready, I visited her in my crow form each day as she ate her breakfast, cawing at her to make the phone call. It took a few weeks for Maya to muster the courage to call, but Liz was prepared, even telling Maya that I had already visited her and that she had been expecting Maya's call.

  Liz arrived at the house a few weeks later, a month or so after the one-year anniversary of my death, while Calder played at a friend’s. Maya nervously escorted her into the living room. Outside, the beginnings of tiny, new yellow buds popped against a mud-gray colored sky. The weak March sun spread its ochre hues across the oak floors inside the house, back-lighting the vase of dried flowers from the garden that Maya had picked in the fall. She offered Liz tea and tried to act nonchalant as she put the kettle on to boil and tore open sachets of tea. Liz did not fit the description of a stereotypical psychic. She looked like she had just stepped off the farm, with thick, sand-colored work boots, wide-legged, faded carpenter pants, and a loose-fitting men’s striped shirt. Her hair, a difficult-to-discern shade of grey-brown, shorn into a haphazard almost-mullet, was a long way from the run-of-the-mill, Bugs Bunny version of a psychic, hair pins flying as she peered into her crystal ball.

  “Have you been doing this long?” Maya asked.

  “I’ve seen dead people since I was a little girl.”

  “Did that freak you out?” Maya poured boiling water into the cups and handed one to Liz. Maya walked toward the living room and Liz followed.

  “Not really. I didn’t know that I was the only one who could see them. I thought everyone could. I guess I didn’t really understand that those people were dead. To me, they seemed no different than the live ones.”

  “Wow. That’s amazing. Would you like to sit here?” Maya gestured to a comfy chair opposite the couch.

  “Perfect.”

  Maya couldn’t see me sitting on the couch beside her, but I knew she could sense my presence, the downy hairs on her arms rising with goose bumps as they seemed to do whenever I came near her. She looked so small amongst the big brown couch pillows, where she sat clutching a smaller velvety indigo throw pillow on her lap.

  “So, your husband’s been very active. Apparently, he really wants to connect with you!”

  “I hope so. I’m really anxious to connect with him too.” Ok, so yeah, I’m excited. I want to be with my wife.

  “He’s here now.”

  “Really, where?” Maya said, glancing around the room, looking slightly alarmed.

  “He’s sitting right beside you.” Now Maya turned toward me and smiled nervously.

  Liz took a deep breath and closed her eyes and sat quietly for several minutes. I decided to stand up in front of her and sort of dance around so she could see me.

  Can you give me your name?

  Liz’s astral voice sounded higher pitched and more melodic than her speaking voice.

  My name is Jay.

  “Does his name begin with the letter J?”

  “His name is Jay.”

  “Oh. OK. I thought ‘J’ was the first letter. Funny. It’s his name and the first letter to his name. Good. Thank you.” Liz took a quick intake of breath. I sat back down on the couch beside Maya.

  Hello, Jay. How are you? Is there something you want to talk to your wife about today? I am at your service.

  Wow. Cool. Thanks, Liz. Yes. I’m new at this, but I want to get through to Maya.

  Alice appeared on the couch beside me.

  “What? You don’t think I can do this alone?” I asked her, a little annoyed.

  “I’m just here for moral support and to help with some of the protocols. The usual way to begin when you’re being read by a medium is to tell them the manner of your death. This is the easiest way they have of verifying to the person they are reading for that they have the right spirit.”

  How did you die? How did you die? Liz’s thoughts were loud and insistent, as if she were shouting at me.

  I took flight over Howe Sound locked into a BMW-cement boot, I said sarcastically.

  “Isn’t she supposed to know that?” I asked.

  Alice shrugged. “Not unless you tell her.”

  I concentrated on the car, the impact, it sinking into water, my limp body trapped underwater, arms and hair floating up, dead eyes wide open.

  “Oh, no. Don’t show me that. I don’t need to see that,” Liz said aloud and visibly recoiled.

  Oops. Sorry.

  “Shit! This is hard. I just want to tell her that it’s me!” I swiped at one of the pillows to alleviate my frustration, but the lack of impact made me more so.

  “You must be careful with your thoughts,” Alice said. “Sometimes certain images are just too powerful for the living to accept.”

  I couldn’t stop my memory from continuing and I watched as they hauled my body onto the deck of the boat, zippering it into a shiny black cocoon, one with little hope of bearing new life. Liz began to tap her chest, then placed her palm over her breast.

  “Something about his chest. Not breathing. And I see a great height. Did he fall?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess you could say that,” Maya replied. “See? She’s pretty good,” Alice said.

  Moremoremore... Liz begged now.

  Damn. I was so stupid. Please tell her how sorry I am.

  “His passage was quick, and painless,” Liz said. “He’s sorry he had the accident.”

  “Well she got that right at least.”

  “Oh, give her a chance,” Alice reprimanded. “She’s just getting to know you. Besides, isn’t that exactly what you want Maya to know?”

  “He did shitty things sometimes, had a foul mouth. He was very direct, and didn’t put up with a lot of crap. But he surprised you by always being truthful. He was tall, wasn’t he? Very statuesque, very driven. A great sense of humor, very sarcastic.”

  Maya smiled. “Yes, that does describe him well.”

  “She has your number,” Alice laughed.

  “Yeah, thanks a lot,” I grumbled. “But she did say ‘statuesque’.”

  “He was also very intelligent, talented and a real charmer...”

  “Ha! She does seem to have me figured out, all right.” I couldn’t hide my smugness. Maya closed her eyes.

  “Yes, he was all of that too.”

  I smiled, remembering our meeting in Pompeii and later having dinner in the moonlight.

  “Do you have some connection to Italy?” Liz questioned. I was impressed.<
br />
  “Ohmygosh! Yes! That’s where Jay and I met. Wow! That’s incredible!”

  I thought of the grotto we swam into that day. My foreshadowed death.

  “Hmm. A tomb? Why is he showing me a tomb? Or a cave? Is this maybe how he died?”

  “We swam together in a grotto when we met in Italy. But he also died in the water.”

  “Good. OK. Thank you. Maybe that’s why he showed it to me as a tomb. OK.”

  “He wants you to know he loves you very much,” Liz said, hiccupping another quick intake of air, as if she had forgotten to breathe for the last five minutes.

  “Is she just reading Maya's mind, or is she really picking up messages from me?” I asked Alice.

  Alice smiled. “She picks up pure thought, pure love,” she said.

  “Tell him I love him very much too,” Maya said, the sadness in her voice unmistakable. Her eyes welled up again with tears, and I tried to catch one in my open palm, but it splashed down onto her dark skirt. Another sunbeam broke through the clouds and streamed in through the windows, glinting against her fiery hair, casting her in a beautiful light. She gazed at the sunbeam with a look of rapture.

  “Is that him? Giving me another sign?”

  “Yes, it probably is. They love giving signs to let us know they’re still around.”

  “I didn’t do that!” I said.

  “Go with it.” Alice smiled. I looked at Maya, admiring her beauty. I wished I could talk to her directly and not through this very imprecise, indirect method.

  “There is a sense of confusion with this soul – a sense of not being delivered, as if he was in the midst of something and it’s been cut off and he’s not sure where he is.”

  “I’m not confused. I’m well aware of being dead.”

  “I think Liz senses that you are a developing soul,” Alice said.

  “Developing? Is that what we call it?”

  “Well, he did die unexpectedly,” Maya said. She looked down into her lap, clutching a tissue.

  Liz, I miss my family very much. I want to talk to Maya. It’s like I can’t quite connect to her.

  “I feel your loss, Maya,” Liz said. “He feels it too. He’s worried about you. He feels you have no sense of direction. You are holding him through fear. What you need to do is hold him through reverence, through marriage, not through fear, not through pain.”

  Wow. Did I somehow convey all that to her? She’s not that lost! “OK.” Maya sniffed. She was crying openly now. “I’m not sure I know how to do that.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset her,” I said to Alice.

  “You’re going to have to concentrate very hard, Jay. Think deeply about your message, and think only of it. The clarity of your communication stems from the clarity of your thought and of your love. Psychics are good at picking up the images of what is in your mind, but not the subtle ideas behind them. What might seem very obvious to you will be easily misinterpreted.”

  “You need to try and let him go, Maya,” Liz said.

  “I don’t think I’m ready to.”

  I wished I could hug her in that moment. To realize how much I was loved.

  Time to change the subject there, Liz. You’re upsetting her. She might not be ready to hear this yet.

  “Good, Jay. Think of Calder now,” Alice suggested. I thought of Calder sitting on this very couch.

  “A boy. You have a little boy,” Liz said. Maya nodded.

  “He’s been to see him. The boy has seen his dad.” I thought of my conversation with Calder just as he fell asleep.

  I entered another memory. I don’t remember how our game started, but Calder and I began punching each other in the arm, ending in an all-out wrestle, with me pinning both of Calder's skinny wrists in one hand while I clutched his squirming body between my knees. “Now watchya gonna do?” I taunted. I tickled him in the armpits until he choked with laughter. Then I picked him up by both feet and threw him onto the couch, giggling. It became our game.

  “He’s showing me your son. I don’t know if there’s a chair that those two used to sit on, but he sits in this chair where he used to hold this baby. Oh my God! He’s absolutely gorgeous! Those eyes! My God, that smile and the nose. What’s with the nose?”

  Maya smiled. “Yes, Calder is cute.” But the knife thing, Jay. What do I do about that?

  I thought of the meds that Maya wanted to put our son on and tried to convey my dislike for the plan.

  “He’s really concerned about Calder. Worried about his emotional state, but he feels he can’t help Calder because it’s you who needs to help him, Maya. Jay wants to help, but he can’t put his arms around you. He can’t communicate, and he’s trying very hard to be with you, but can’t get past your anger or your fear. He’s worried because Calder needs you now.”

  Jeez, Liz. Kind of ad-libbing here a bit, don’t you think?

  “Yes, Calder's therapist wants to put him on meds,” Maya said.

  Don’t do it, Lenie.

  “Your son is young?”

  “Yes, my son Calder just turned eight.”

  “OK. He talks to your son, is sort of his protector.”

  Protector. I guess that’s true. I am his protector. I kind of like that.

  I concentrated on the image of Calder drumming. I wanted to make sure that Maya understood how important drumming was to Calder in his healing process. Maybe she would see drumming as an alternative to meds.

  “Does your son play the drums?”

  “Yes! Yes, he does!”

  “Good. Thank you. He’s acknowledging that. He wants Calder to keep playing. It’s important to him. He just wants you to know that.”

  “OK. I’ll make sure he does.”

  And the meds...don’t forget to tell her not to put Calder on meds. “Nightgown. Why is he showing me a nightgown? Did he buy you a nightgown before he left this world?”

  “I wasn’t even thinking of a nightgown. Why did she say a nightgown?”

  “Maybe she connected meds with patient and patient with nightgown. Mediums can pick up thoughts sometimes even when you might not be thinking them. They can also pick up subconscious thoughts from their subjects because most mediums are also psychic. But not all psychics are mediums.”

  “Really? So are psychics frauds then? Do they just read people’s minds?”

  “No. Mediums are just more tuned into the thoughts of the deceased while psychics are more tuned into the living. This woman seems to be fairly balanced between the two.”

  “He did give me a nightie for Christmas last year,” Maya said, patting the velvet pillow like a kitten.

  “OK. Yes. Thank you. This is his way of letting you know that he has come to see you. His concern right now is that you acknowledge his presence in your life because his concern is that you will not be able to be there for Calder.”

  I don’t know what made me think just then of the flowers on the table at dinner that night at the pensione in Italy. White roses. I knew she would remember them, and if Liz mentioned them, Maya would know for certain that it was me.

  “You have a garden? What is the rose he is showing me?

  Do you have roses in the garden?”

  “I have a small garden. With a really lame rose bush.”

  “OK. Well, he’s acknowledging that. He wants to show you it’s really him.”

  “Damn! I tried to show her the rose in Italy! Not the stupid rose bush!”

  “Calm down, Jay,” Alice said.

  “This is frustrating!”

  “I know. It requires patience.”

  “There is something about a rose in the garden that means something to you and your son. He wants you to believe it’s really him. Something about the rose and the nightgown.

  He’s not giving me much more than that.”

  What do you need?

  Wha
t are you like, Jay? Give me a sense of what you were like when you were alive. Something your wife might understand. I need to tune in and get connected to you more. You have to trust me.

  OK. Well, we had a fight the night before I died. I was an asshole. Please tell her how sorry I am.

  Liz did another hyper-breath and opened her eyes to look again at Maya.

  “He’s telling me he was an ‘asshole’. That’s the word he is using.”

  Maya laughed out loud. “That sounds like him,” she said.

  Alice giggled.

  “Now why is that funny?”

  “Hey, you said it! You need to stop swearing so much, Jay,” Alice said. “It’s going to interfere with the purity of your communication.”

  “Well, it made her laugh. She definitely knows it’s me.” I felt oddly elated.

  Got anything else for me, Jay?

  I didn’t let Maya know I loved her often enough.

  “He really loved you, and didn’t say this as often as he should have. I think your anger at his death comes more from that than his actual loss. The loss of what wasn’t completely expressed, what wasn’t completely acknowledged between the two of you.”

  Maya nodded, more tears dripping onto the pillow in her lap. Liz leaned over and handed her a tissue.

  “I know this is hard to hear. It’s hard to take all this in emotionally.”

  Maya took the tissue and dabbed her eyes, leaning forward now, trying to regain control of the tears that were now streaming down her cheeks. “I guess I am angry. Angry that he had to go and die on us.”

  Suddenly I glimpsed Maya with another man. Marcus. The thought was devastating.

  “Is Maya going to marry again?” I asked Alice, who said nothing. She began to annoy me. “Is she going to marry Marcus? Why can’t you just tell me straight up?”

  “Because that’s for you to remember.”

  “Remember? God, if it’s Marc... ugh! I can’t think it!”

  “He’s telling me that you’re going to find new love. Or maybe it’s old love? Does that make sense?”

  “I am? Old love? What do you mean?” Maya looked wide-eyed.

  “Does the name Mark mean anything to you?”