Page 56 of Earthly Ties

I wonder if I’ll have the sense to know when I should move on. Esther doesn’t need me as Syd did with Harriet. Sure, she’s lonely and wants my company, but she’s not as isolated as I was. While I was too stubborn, too traumatized to even try, Esther cares about people. Cares too much and about too many people, in my opinion. Not enough people seem to care about her in return.

And that’s the crux of it. Why I don’t want to move on. What happens when Esther gives up and stops caring, like I did? What happens when someone starts caring for her in return?

I have mixed feelings about her lack of dating life. On the one hand, I’m selfishly relieved. That would hurt—seeing my Tie fall in love with someone who isn’t me. I am my mother’s daughter in some ways, after all. On the other hand, she should be loved, with or without her ghost coworker potentially watching her every move.

Perhaps I should let myself move on.

If I’m being honest with myself, I’ve been sticking around for the chance to be close to Esther. I pretended it was rooted only in curiosity about the afterlife. And look where my curiosity has gotten her. Esther has been forced into a codependent, impossible relationship with a ghost. Harriet stayed close to Syd, because she wanted her child to be happy. I’ve stayed close to Esther because I needed a taste of what happiness might have been, only to find Esther just as lonely as me. Now, I’ve stayed close long enough to learn that my greatest desire is her happiness.

Perhaps if—when—Esther finds someone who cares about her as she deserves, I’ll move on. Or at least pretend I’ve moved on, even if I haven’t.

For her sake.

As we walk home from campus, Esther sighs and checks her phone.

“Expecting a call?” I ask. Esther’s not normally tied to her phone, but she’s been checking it a lot today.

“No.” Esther tucks it back in her pocket. “High hopes for one, but low expectations.”

I wait, but she doesn’t continue. It’s unusual that I have to prompt her to elaborate. “Got a hot date or something? Is it Angel?”

“Oh, god, no!” Esther snorts as she unlocks her apartment building. “It’s…um…my birthday today?” I freeze at the bottom of the stairs. “Just kind of hoping someone in my family calls. Parents. One of my sisters. An aunt? Third cousin twice removed? One of my old friends? Anyone.”

How does this girl keep breaking my heart? There’s none of the usual pain as she walks through me to march up the stairs; I’m too stunned by her casual vulnerability. “Esther—”

“I know it’s stupid.” When I catch up to her, she’s furiously chewing her lip. “I know I shouldn’t want them to call me. But I always call them, and every year, I just want them to remember I exist. Maybe this birthday will be the day when they miss me enough. I just want someone to care that it’s my birthday.”

“It’s not stupid. You love them. And you want them to love you.” Wasn’t that the true joy of the chocolate cake? Not the dessert itself, or ordering what I wanted before Angel could take the opportunity from me. But so the servers would sing happy birthday. So someone would celebrate me, even if it was just long enough to light the candle and clap.

Esther’s heart is too big to be real sometimes. I don’t know how she survives all of the love and hope she carries. She cares about everyone, even me—the virtual stranger who haunted her dreams and now haunts her life.

Esther doesn’t respond. She just kicks off her shoes and flops onto her bed, still in her outside clothes. She must be so stuck in her head if she hasn’t taken her pants off yet.

“Ring ring!” I say. “Ring ring!”

Esther looks in my general direction with a roll of her eyes. “What?”

“I’m calling you. Answer your phone.” I hold up my hand to my ear, nodding at her to pick her hand-phone up, forgetting she can’t see me. “Ring ring! Don’t make me leave a message. I hate leaving voicemails. I get so anxious.”

Esther laughs and shakes her head, before she puts her hand up to her head. “Hello?”

I burst into the Birthday song—the version that my Dad used to sing. I put my heart into it, even though my singing voice sounds even worse than when I was alive. I can’t imagine that my deep demonic ghost voice singing Stevie Wonder off-key is pleasant, but a smile graces Esther’s face either way.

Esther politely lets me finish, before thanking me softly.

“How was your birthday?” I continue with my fake phone call. “Are you doing anything fun to celebrate?”

With a groan, Esther rolls on her back, kicking her feet up in the air as she tugs her pants off. Still holding her hand to her ear like a phone, she blushes but plays along. “My birthday was pretty good. I had ice cream with my coworkers. They didn’t remember it was my birthday, but there was ice cream, at least.”

“You should bake yourself a cake! If I was there, I’d make you one myself.” I perch on the table next to my plant. “The afterlife doesn’t have ovens, unfortunately. Or food.”

“No food in the afterlife? Are you sure you’re not in Hell?”

I laugh and continue on chatting, like I imagined other people do; I never spoke on the phone like this when I was alive. But my East is smiling again, and I’d talk for hours on a hundred fake phones if it made her feel a little less alone on her birthday.

How could I even consider moving on?

Twenty-Six