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It had been four months since Raymond sealed himself within Bethesda.
The four walls of his flat were now a self-interred prison and life was a sentence that festered inside him like a slow-acting poison. He was dying. Of what, he no longer knew. Many times he’d contemplated expediting the process but he hadn’t the strength. The thought of facing the barrel of a gun, again, only haunted him. Only brought him back. Devoid of all feeling and emotion, he relented to drink it all away. For four months, he drank to forget. She was gone.
The changing of the season had rusted the leaves. Dembe still called on him, from time to time, to make sure he didn't starve but no words were ever spoken. Raymond needed quiet.
He sat rooted to the armchair staring out at purgatory. Or perhaps it was just the sombre fog, graying the evening light through the blinds.
In the dark and distance, he thought he heard the inspirited squeal of a child. A child.
Something deep inside brought him to his feet. He pulled at the armrests and slowly hoisted himself from the cushion. His unbuttoned vest hung loose as he shuffled across the floor to the window. Peering out through the wooden panels, his vision blurred, he could see three small figures toddling down the sidewalk. Wading through waves of copper and gold, two were draped in white sheets and another led in a pointed hat and a cape dotted with stars. It reminded him of something. That’s- It was Halloween.
As they faded down the street, Raymond receded back into the abyss. A familiar feeling lingered around him, trying to possess his thoughts. He needed another drink. His glass was empty.
He limped to the kitchen in search of another bottle. While clumsily rummaging through the cabinets, he caught himself in a reflection. The collar of his shirt was slack and his hair was outgrown and unkempt. With no foundational element, he had collapsed into rubble.
The bottle of scotch clinked like a musical note and the memory of a piano twinkled. Panic gripped him. Raymond rushed to turn and, in his fluster, his arm swept a transistor radio off the counter. It clattered to the floor and the speaker began to fizzle. That twinkle broke through and words followed.
“Take a look at me and you’ll see that I’m not who I used to be.”
Raymond didn’t need a reminder. He needed quiet. Using what cognizance he had, he leaned down to silence the sound.
"There’s a stranger dressing in my clothes that I don’t seem to know at all.”
Lifting it and fumbling with the dials, he failed to make it stop. He started to tremble and his breathing grew frantic. With no other option, he resorted to hitting it on the countertop until the music drowned out. Taking its place was the abrasive hiss of white noise. The empty expanse between radio frequencies crackled, assaulting his ears. Until.
“ fffzzzzzzz -ed- fffffzzzz -Red- fffffzzzz”
A faint but distinct woman’s voice called out his name. He would have dismissed it as inebriated delusion if not for recognising her gentle tone. A voice from the past. Bringing his ear to the speaker, he listened for her again.
“ fffffffffzzzzzzz”
Nothing. Nothing. He put it out of his mind as no more than a malfunction and pushed himself up. Absent-mindedly, his eyes passed through the kitchen window frame into the darkened room and caught a flash of white. A white blouse. The shape of a woman with dark hair stood facing the bookshelf, staring at the photographs. Her arms hung at her sides and her delicate fingers curled inward over blue jeans. Raymond froze and, in a blink, she disappeared.
“Elizabeth?” her name fell from his mouth in utterance, barely a whisper.
“ fffffffff- I’m here- zzzzzzz”
Her voice came through, again. It was soft and embracing. Her words nestled in his heart and Raymond could not move. He stared for the longest time into the air where she manifested and hoped that each time his eyes reopened, she would be there. Seconds turned to minutes and all that remained was the persistent fuzz of the radio in the dark. With a steadier hand, he found the tuner and twisted it off. Silence.
Pacing around the doorframe, he sought to fill the space where she stood. Against the hold of own vices, he wanted to find where her boots touched the floorboards, to see what she saw, to feel her presence, to understand. There was only one photograph in the space between all others. It was the only answer. A simple white frame and its keeping was the picture of Elizabeth. Her strands of free hair were floating in the breeze as she sat on a park bench, looking out at him. In her arms, those hands bundled a child and held her close. Agnes. They smiled at him, as warmly as the coats they were wrapped in and, in that moment, he understood. He wasn’t alone.
*
That night, he lay in bed having no idea how he got there. The only thing he knew was that her picture was at his bedside and the radio was ready. With one hand braced on the pillow and the other on the blanket, his outward palm waited and he blinked through the weariness that descended upon him. He fought to stay awake, through the steady thumping in his ear, to see her still. Her sheepish grin that lifted her cheeks as she watched him from inside the frame. Pitch began to claim him until a contrasting colour appeared on the bed. He turned and there she was, sitting on the mattress by his side.
“Elizabeth.” he reached out to her with what consciousness he had left.
The waves of her long brown hair cascaded and twisted over her white blouse as she looked down at him. She greeted him not with words but a reassuring gaze. She could not speak.
Raymond moved his pillowed hand toward the radio but she shook her head. Holding his flickering sight, her own hand lifted from the sheet into his. There was no weight. No flesh. Only a feeling as light as a feather that sunk beneath his skin and coursed through his veins. It flowed up his arm, rounded his shoulder, and into his chest. His heart tensed and he could no longer hold back the darkness. One final look into her eyes and he welcomed the cradling release of sleep.
“Raymond.” an African voice awoke him.
“Mm.”
“Raymond?”
“Uh. What?” Raymond groaned, opening his eyes and turning to his summons. “Dembe, I told you-” he paused.
Raymond realised he was standing and what he saw he could not explain. He saw himself, laying in his bed with Dembe standing over him. His hand was still on the pillow and the other still outstretched on the blanket. His eyes were shut. He watched as his oldest friend placed a hand on his shoulder but Raymond did not stir. Dembe pressed a thumb over his wrist and waited. His head fell and he descended onto the bed, taking the place Elizabeth sat last night.
Dembe glanced at the photograph on the nightstand. “Go to her.” his friend told him, almost choking, before taking his hand. “Be at peace. Goodbye, my brother.”
Raymond went to take a step towards the harrowing scene when her voice travelled behind him.
“Hey.”
He jolted, wheeling around as if he’d just been shocked. Elizabeth stood before him as clear and as beautiful as the night he lost her. Her face was still welling with tears but she met him with a welcoming smile.
“Elizabeth.”
“Well…I’m here.” her lips moved and sound followed, repeating the first words she ever spoke to him. She was here.
“What is this?” Raymond asked, desperately confused.
“You know what this is.” her solemn answer was enough.
He was gone.
“Elizabeth, I-” with glassy eyes, he shook his head and began to accept. “I’m so sor-”
“Don’t.” she stopped him, mirroring him. “It’s not your fault.”
He didn’t deserve her. The tears threatened to fall and the corner of his mouth faltered.
Seeing his pain, she walked right up to him and threw her arms around him. It was the realest sensation Raymond had ever felt. The closest touch he’d ever experienced. It radiated within him and he enfolded her. His hands found her wealth of hair and he leaned into her. To hold her again, was like a burst of sunlight on his cheek.
“It’s not your fault.” Elizabeth professed, again, absolving him of his guilt and his shame. “There’s no more room for that where we’re going.”
Their grip on one another loosened and they unfurled but still grasped at each other's arms.
Raymond looked into her deep blue eyes. In them, he saw all they were leaving behind. “What about Agnes?”
Her eyes dropped to his chest at the reminder of her daughter. A mother’s love was impossible to hide. It weighed heavy on her brow but she emerged from sorrow and returned to him. “She’s gonna be fine. I taught her everything she knows. Besides-” Elizabeth’s eyes flickered over his. “She’s her fathers daughter.”
A knowing look passed from her to him and Raymond inhaled the truth.
“You didn't think it’d be a secret forever, did you?” Elizabeth said.
“I-” his eyes wavered and mouth moved incoherently. “How-”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He stuttered. “Elizabeth, I tried-I just…didn’t know how.”
She placed her fingertips over his lips. “Stop.”
He closed his eyes against the feel of her, drinking her in.
“Everything is going to be okay.” she moved her hand over his cheek and pulled him closer until his forehead rested upon hers. “We’ll watch over her…and when it’s time, we’ll be a family again.”
The thought shuddered him. “Lizzy, I-”
“ Shhh. ”
Before he could express his heartache, Elizabeth was lingering closer. Her mouth fluttered over his and gently kissed him. Eight years of burden fell away and, for the first time, Raymond felt light. He softened in her hands and kissed her back. He took his time for they had nothing but and, even though his heart had stopped beating, he’d never felt so alive.
They quietly parted and, in a breath, the words escaped from deep inside him. “I love you. ” he finally confessed against her lips.
“I know.” Elizabeth whispered, combing her fingers through his tuft of unshorn hair. “Are you ready?”
Raymond didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to do.
"You once told me you were my guardian angel. Now, it's my turn." As if she could read his mind, Elizabeth guided him. “Hold my hand.”
Just like Central Park, like every time before, their fingers intertwined until they found each other. He took the chance, as he always did, to stoke the soft skin of the back of her hand.
They walked side-by-side as Elizabeth slowly led him out of the bedroom and out of time, rising up towards the stars, bringing him home.
*
On the bed, with his hand inside Raymond’s, Dembe looked over at the photograph of Elizabeth once more. In the reflection of the glass, he thought he saw two lights floating over the image of Agnes before fading away. That’s when he knew that he had found her.
In this life, they were always together. They were together, again, in the next.