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She glanced at the seat. It was empty. If she’d expected to see any watery image of her husband, she was disappointed. She kept driving, wandering through the city in the predawn hours, circling back past the French Market District and seeing a few people on the street, some lights in restaurants where workers were preparing for the day. “Any advice?” she said, hoping to conjure up her husband’s spirit, but he didn’t appear, not even in her mind. “Oh, God, you’re going out of your mind,” she told herself, and drove home, never once touching her coffee.
Instead she told herself she could go down a worrisome path to crazy land where she talked to dead people she created in her imagination, or she could find a way to move forward with her life.
For herself.
For the baby.
Once home, she threw on her running clothes, eyed the disaster in the living room, but couldn’t face reading through the condolence cards and best wishes and messages of hope for the future. It was all just such bullshit.
As the sky started to lighten, she took off down her regular running path, along a course she’d carved out for herself in this quiet neighborhood of New Orleans. Her cottage was located in the Garden District and she ran along streets lined with live oaks and followed the route of the St. Charles Streetcar for several blocks, then cut over to the river. By the time she reached the still-dark waters of the Mississippi, she was breathing hard, her body sheened in sweat, the sun rising higher and chasing away the fog. The demons that haunted her nightmares withered away and she felt that with the dawn came a new beginning, for her. For her child.
“That’s my girl.”
She nearly missed a step when Jay’s voice whispered through her head, almost stumbled, and she slowed, half expecting to see him approaching, running to catch up to her, but, of course, he didn’t. “Pull yourself together,” she reprimanded, then picked up her pace again, listening to the sound of her feet slapping against the sidewalk and cursing the fact that she’d left her earbuds at home. She usually listened to music or a podcast while jogging, but she was just so out of sync these days she’d forgotten them, even left her phone at home.
She finished her loop, returning to her street and the little cottage she and Jay had purchased in the last two years.
With three small bedrooms, one bath, a wide front porch, and an attic that had been converted to an office where she spent hours researching and writing, the house had been perfect for them.
The backyard was large but manageable and private, with a tall fence and even taller shrubbery that created an oasis and would be perfect for the children they’d planned to have. At that thought she touched her abdomen and told herself it was all right that her child would grow up not knowing his or her father.
Kristi herself had been raised in a family that was far from traditional and she’d made it. This child would, too. She’d make certain of it.
Jay’s ghost was right: it was time to get on with her life.
First things first. She collected the mail that had piled up in the box and left it on the coffee table with the unopened envelopes. Then she disposed of all the flowers that had been delivered and were now dying, tossing the dried-out blooms into the garbage and pouring the dirty water down the sink. Next she tackled the live plants, spreading them around the rooms, adding water, and checked her phone, noting that she needed to text or call a few friends. Finally she hit the shower, scrubbed off the sweat and tears, shampooed away the rest of her lingering sadness, and rinsed the pain away—at least she hoped she did. That was her intent.
When she was finished, she towel-dried, gave herself a pep talk, got dressed, and eyed Jay’s clothes. She’d keep a few things—his flannel shirt she sometimes wore, his favorite tie and . . . Sadness threatened to overtake her, so she slammed the closet shut and headed to the kitchen.
“You can do this,” she muttered, snagging up the remote and snapping on the TV as she passed through the living room. She poured the dregs of her now-cold coffee from McDonald’s down the drain and found the makings for a smoothie by scrounging in her refrigerator, where piled-up casseroles and desserts vied for space, but weren’t what she needed. Still, she managed to find solace in the loud whir of the blender as the last kiwi, a few blueberries, a couple of leaves of spinach that hadn’t wilted were whipping to a froth along with an overripe banana and some yogurt that had been decidedly past its pull date.
Then she sat down at the table and, sipping her concoction, sorted through the mail. Bills, advertisements, and more cards. Condolences from faraway friends. She opened them all with a kitchen knife and read the kind words, heartfelt and touching, friends with whom she’d lost contact over the years and only kept in touch occasionally, sometimes with Christmas cards, others through social media, Facebook and Instagram and such. College and high school friends she’d barely seen in the past few years, people she’d worked with or who knew her father and had drifted away.
She set them aside and halfway through the pile found an envelope without a return address. Stranger still, there was no postmark, as if the card had been personally dropped into the box.
Odd, she thought, slitting the white envelope open to expose a card on deckle-edged paper, as if it were a wedding invitation. No words were on the outside, just an inked drawing of a single black rose.
What was this?
She flipped it open.
Inside, the card was inscribed with a single Bible verse written in careful calligraphy:
~For the wages of sin is death
Romans 6:23~
“What the—?”
Her blood turned to ice.
Who would send such a dark, damning message?
With trepidation, her skin crawling, she studied the card and envelope but caught no clue about who’d sent it. No—not sent it. Left it in her mailbox. Boldly stepped onto her front porch and left the card in her overflowing box.
Maybe it was a dark joke. A prank. After all, it wouldn’t be the first, but it was sick and, she thought, evil. The message cruel.
She turned the card over, but there was no information on the back and she felt as if it had been handcrafted, not purchased in any shop or store. The message had been created for her, about her husband.
