Page 19 of Earthly Ties

“I think it said eleven minutes.” Esther gives up on unlocking her tablet with no hands, picks up the tray with her sticky, doughy hands, and deposits it in the oven.

“Three times, but that’s inconclusive. She might have remembered on her own,” I report to my verbal journal, mostly out of habit at this point; I’m pretty sure I’ve run this experiment dozens of times and never remember any of them. Even if I have, the faint hope that Esther might actually hear me one day is worth clinging to. “I’ll have to keep trying and see if there are any statistically significant patterns. As provable as I can get without calculating a p value, anyway.”

Esther sets the timer with her elbows as she sucks the cookie dough off of her fingers. As fascinating as it is, I make myself look away, shame burning in my chest at how much I want to keep watching.

In death, I can’t feel arousal or sexual gratification. Yes, I tried.

Earlier this week, while Esther guided a discussion on pneumatics, one of the Gnostic orders of humanity, Harriet taught me to touch. I can’t feel my not-hands on my not-body, but at least I can choose not to pass through myself anymore. So, of course, the second Esther and I got home that day, I tested the hypothesis that ghosts could feel sexual pleasure. For experimental purposes.

Unfortunately, the hypothesis failed. I can make contact with my body, but I can’t feel my own touch, not even sensing where my hand is going under my shroud. Nor have I been able to feel anything else touching any erogenous zones, other than the searing pain of Esther passing through me, or the strangely empty chill when Harriet comes in contact with me. None of it is exactly orgasmic.

Honestly, testing if I can get off as a ghost is very human behavior. It’s easier to shake off the shame ingrained in me about sexual pleasure when it’s for science. In life, I could only work up the courage to rub one out, or sleep with someone, when I was drunk or dreaming (full credit to my mother for that religious trauma!). I feel like such a fucking perv for craving intimacy with Esther as much as I do. I can’t even get horny—or get off—and yet, I still want to be close to her. To kiss her and touch her like we used to do in my dreams. And yes, to lick the cookie dough off her fingers, and flirt with her while we wait for the cookies to bake.

But she didn’t ask to be haunted by me. Watching something as personal and intimate as Esther’s tongue and soft pink lips lapping at her fingers feels wrong. She doesn’t even know I’m here.

Esther bops around the kitchen in her usual state of undress. Her hips twist in time to the music as she washes the last of the dough from her hands. If I were corporeal, I’d absolutely smack her ass right now. It’s so cute, bouncing in her cheeky blue boy shorts. But that would burn, even if it weren’t morally uncomfortable.

“Eternal voyeurism,” I murmur with a quiet laugh. “Is this my Hell?” Watching Esther live her life, pretending I have a place in it? “Or my Heaven?” Forced into a committed relationship—albeit one-sided—with someone who would have been so easy to fall for if I’d ever spoken to her? The living Dr. Monae from a few months ago would have thrived in this relationship; dead Lucy knows how painfully raw the bittersweet heartache can grow.

This is undoubtedly a liminal state between life and death, perhaps even between punishment and reward. A feast before me that I’m forbidden to eat. The Ghost of Christmas Could-Have-Been, except I’ll never wake up on Christmas morning.

Mom would probably call it purgatory and tell me I deserve the depths of hell, because purgatory is too good for me. So at least I have the reassurance that Mom was full of shit.

In stark contrast to my own mother—if she could see me now—Harriet’s been a blessing, even if she doesn’t have all the answers to my many questions. She’s been around long enough to learn what other ghosts have experienced and help me get my feet under me, so to speak. So far, I’ve mostly just been able to feel solid ground beneath my feet. I haven’t quite mastered walking again, but I’m getting better. And I can rub my forehead without lobotomizing my not-brain.

Harriet even showed me how to lift the veil that I didn’t know I was wearing. She tied it around my hair, like she wears hers, and I can see so much more now. While I appreciate seeing Esther up close and in detail at all times, the general fog that constantly surrounded her was unsettling. Like I had tunnel vision, and Esther was always the center of it.

The most interesting part of the ghost experience is how young people seem. Harriet was twenty-three when she passed. I was thirty-one. The oldest ghost Harriet has met was in their forties. So why don’t older people haunt anyone? Are they more likely to move on? Do they have multiple Ties, or perhaps no Ties to the mortal plane? Or is it that we died before we were supposed to? Who decides that, if so?

Harriet doesn’t remember dying, either. In fact, her body was never found. Her husband filed a missing persons report, but he believes she just abandoned them. He told Syd their mom died, thinking it’d be easier for a child to process death than maternal abandonment.

The timer beeps. Esther jumps and searches frantically around her tiny kitchen.

“They’re under the dish towel,” I murmur.

Esther lifts the towel and puts the hidden oven mitts on. Again, this test was inconclusive on its own, but maybe she subconsciously heard me.

She takes the cookies out. They look…edible. If she scrapes off the scorched bottoms and edges, perhaps.

Esther is not a very good baker. But she keeps trying, and I admire that about her.

I wish I could tell her that. My throat grows tight, and that pressure behind my eyes aches with the tears I can no longer shed. Water signs are not meant to be ghosts.

I wish I could tell her a lot of things. I wish I had answered all of the questions Dream Esther asked me about myself. That I had asked her things in return. That we’d had those conversations in real life, not just my dreams.

I wish I could tell her that I’m haunting her.

That I care about her more than I’ve cared about anyone else in the world.

Nine

My landlord must be either very generous (or just disorganized) because I died four months ago, and they are just now getting around to clearing out my apartment. It’s not like I had auto-pay set up. They really let me go three months without paying rent?

I crane my neck to peer down through the sheer pink curtains at the dingy alley between the two brick buildings. The overcast skies leave the alley dimly lit, so it’s hard to tell what’s happening three stories down. I could easily stick my head through Esther’s windowpane for a better view, but that wouldn’t be very human of me. People don’t stick their heads through closed windows on chilly autumn days, and I’m unwilling to give up what little humanity I have left quite yet.

“Hey, Mom. It’s Esther.” My Tie’s singsong voice is more timid than usual as she leaves a voicemail. “Just calling to wish you a happy birthday. You probably won’t listen to this, but if you do, and if this is still your number, and if you don’t block me first, I hope you’re well.”

I try not to eavesdrop, but this is the fourth time Esther has called and left a voicemail for a friend or family member since I died. Other than work calls, she hasn’t spoken to anyone on the phone in the few months I’ve been haunting her. Despite her many attempts, no one in her life ever picks up.