Five

The voice that said it was Margaret Garfield, and the face that went with the voice, were swimming around in his brain now. At least it felt like it was swimming around. He tried to follow its movements with his own inner eye, but he only caught glimpses, like one of those peripheral vision tests where they never tell you where the little green light is going to flash next, but you see it, here and there, now and then, as it briefly appears. So too with the voice that said it was Margaret Garfield. He didn't know whether or not to believe it. After all, so far it had only told him about things he knew, the things he remembered about her specifically. He would have to ask her some questions, that only she would be able to answer outside of his knowledge. The trouble was, the questions he wanted to ask her weren't necessarily pleasant, and he didn't want to upset her.

"Tell me about you," Margaret said, but Tommy didn't want to talk about himself.

"I didn't do anything ever," he said and it made him feel sad. "It seems like nothing ever turned out the way that I wanted it to."

"We're all facing an ending we're not going to like," she said. "Believe me. You're probably ahead of the game. Happy endings aren't for living creatures."

"How did?" he started to say, but then he stopped himself. She guessed at the question.

"Cancer," she said. "Skin cancer. I guess I must've gone out in the sun way too much, or something like that. I spend a whole lot of time trying to be tan. Pretty stupid, huh? Well, I was pretty damn tan when I died. Fifty seven years old but tan as could be."

"Fifty seven?" he asked. "You don't look that old."

"Thank you," she said, and it seemed like she genuinely meant it.

"That would have been what? Sixteen years ago now?"

"You could tell me," she replied. "I've got no way to know. I'm just here. Apparently you stick wherever you are when you go. That's the rumor among us. No one really knows."

"Damn," Tommy said. He was already annoyed at his nephew for not letting him stay home and die like he wanted in the peace of his own proper surroundings. He was missing his couch and his own traffic noise. He didn't like all the sounds going on all around him in there, and the smell, except for the lavendar, was making him want to throw up.

"I know," Margaret said, "I wanted to die in my own bed, too, but my daughter, she thought they were going to fix me right up. She said 'never lose hope, mom, never give up'. I say give up and lose hope. It's easier that way. The ending's going to suck either way so you might as well grow a pair and deal with it. Sorry to be vulgar. I get riled up just thinking about it. Kids never listen. What about yours? Is he?"

"My nephew," Tommy said.

"Almost as bad," Margaret told him. "Believe me, it's worse when your own kid does it to you."

"I never had any," Tommy said.

"Oh, that's too bad," Margaret said, contradicting herself. "I mean, I enjoyed being a mom when the kids were still kids. It was later, once they began to grow up, and they wanted to take over. Especially when I got sick. Then it was all them trying to boss me around."

"I never knew you had kids," Tommy said, carefully broaching the subject of her past, promising himself to tiptoe around the possible bad stuff, the stuff that he thought that he knew about her.

"Oh yeah, right after high school. Me being stupid again. Married at nineteen, mother at twenty. Then again at twenty one, and twenty three. After that, who had any time to do anything else? Stayed at home, raised the kids, volunteered at the school, drove a pack around to all those 'activities' that were supposed to make them all healthy and well-rounded and stuff. Mostly it just filled the time. Next thing I knew I'm there in my forties and nothing, I mean nothing, to show for it all. Thought about maybe I should go back to school, to do what? But anyway, that couldn't happen. Had to get a job all at once. Husband, you know. Dear old hubby, found himself a new life, even tried to put it on like he was doing me a favor. Sorry again. You don't need to hear all this? Bitterness just goes with being a ghost."

"I guess I should just grow a pair and deal with it then," Tommy joked. She continued to flash around in his skull.

"Can't you sit still?" he said.

"What do you think I've been doing?" That would be Jimmy Blanks. "I've been sitting here all night."

"They said you were a junkie," Tommy blurted out all at once, "and a whore."