I Died the Day My Husband's Girlfriend Did a Magic Trick novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Short Leash

Cora learns the rules of being a ghost at Abel's funeral home, with Hattie and a lot of banter, then sees her own kitchen, where Linus asks if she is dead and Imogen says not yet.

"You can stop screaming," Abel said. "I hear you fine."

It was after midnight, and we were in the back of a hearse.

He drove with both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road.

He spoke to the empty passenger seat, where I was sitting through the upholstery.

"Where are you taking me?" I said. "I want to go back to the hospital. I want to be in my body."

"Your body is in the ICU, on a ventilator, and a surgeon who owes me a favor is watching it."

He glanced at the seat. "You're stuck with me for now. Twenty steps, give or take."

"I don't believe you."

"Try it."

I went out through the car door and across the road.

The rubber band behind my ribs snapped me back into the seat so hard that my teeth clacked together.

"I told you," he said gently.

"Why twenty steps? Why you?"

"You grabbed me on that stage. Most people don't grab." He turned onto Cedar Street. "I think you tied yourself to the last person who tried to keep you."

"Are you saying I'm a ghost?"

"I'm saying you're not finished. That's the difference. The dead stay put. You can still go back."

He said it so plainly that I believed him.

"How do you know all this?"

"I've seen people like you since I was seven," Abel said. "It runs in my family. My grandmother has it, and my mother had it. It's good for business."

"That isn't funny."

"No. But you laughed at the funny part before I finished, so I'm told I'm doing fine."

I realized I had.

The Quincy Family Funeral Home was a big white house with a porch and a hand-painted sign.

A light was on in the kitchen.

Hattie was sitting at the table in her cardigan with her reading glasses on her nose and a teapot in front of her.

There were three cups.

"I take it she's here," Hattie said.

"On my left," Abel said. "Next to the fridge."

Hattie looked a foot to the right of me and nodded politely. "Mrs. Winslow. I'm sorry about what happened. Do you take sugar?"

"She can't drink it," Abel said.

"I know, dear, it's for the manners."

She poured the third cup anyway and set it on the empty chair.

"I was a magician's assistant in Atlantic City for nine years," she said. "I know exactly what box that was."

I stared at her.

"Ask her," I said to Abel. "Ask her how a person is supposed to survive that."

"A person isn't," Hattie said, as if she had heard me.

"In the real trick the blades pass through slots that never touch the body."

She tapped the table. "Somebody took the trick out of that box."

"Somebody put real blades in," Abel said.

"The police chief stood on the steps of the Rialto an hour ago," Hattie said. "He told the newspaper it was a prop accident, and that a stagehand mixed up the equipment."

"Which stagehand?" I asked.

Abel repeated it for her.

"A boy who has already left town, according to Imogen Rask." Hattie lifted her teacup. "She was very sorry about it."

The lights above the table began to buzz.

I hadn't done anything on purpose.

A coldness poured out of me.

The bulb in the ceiling fixture flickered, brightened, and flickered again.

"Is that her?" Hattie asked.

"That's her," Abel said. "Cora. I need you to breathe."

"I'm not breathing! I'm not alive!"

"Then think about something else. We have a customer in the cooler who's very sensitive about his lights."

I choked on a laugh that was half a sob.

The bulb steadied.

"Better," Hattie said, and drank her tea.

Abel pulled out the chair beside her and sat down.

"What do you want to do, Cora?"

I had died on a stage and spent a night in a hearse.

I knew only one thing.

"I want to see my son."

Abel stood up and took his keys off the hook.

"Grandma, keep the kettle on."

"I always do," Hattie said.

My house was on Maple Court, three streets from the Rialto.

Every light on the ground floor was on.

Abel parked at the curb and stood on the lawn beside the hydrangeas, and I floated up to the kitchen window, which was open a crack.

Imogen was at my stove.

She was wearing my blue apron, the one with the lemon print, and she was stirring my sauce in my pot with my wooden spoon.

She hummed while she did it.

Linus sat on a stool at the island with his stuffed fox in his lap.

He had washed his face. His pajamas had been put on inside out.

"Aunt Imogen?" he said.

"Yes, my love?"

"Is Mom dead?"

The spoon kept moving.

Imogen turned and smiled at him, tender and calm.

"Not yet, sweetheart," she said.

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