I was home.

I wasn’t sure how I got there, or when, or what the events were that lead me to be sitting at the kitchen table while a cold breeze blew the papers strewn in front of me onto the floor. I wasn’t sure where the Man from Nagai went, or what had happened after we left the house at 181 Parkerdale Avenue, or if we had driven down the highway or taken the long way home from Ellis. 

All I knew was that I was home and the smell of Lily’s pot roast filled the air.

Like most of what Lily made, the pot roast would smell great but taste bland. She had forgotten some time ago how precisely to use spices-- not to mention the salt and rat poison incident-- and with an abundance of caution, she would compensate by using none at all besides the smallest hint of pepper. I’d complain, but the fact that she can even still cook is a miracle in and of itself.

I could feel her somewhere near me, though in the darkness of my house I was unsure where she might be. She likes to be hard to spot at times, needing her space.

“Lily?”

I waited. No sound emanated from within my house, save for the refrigerator humming and the oven kicking on and off. I heard the pot that the roast was in click slightly, the cover moving a bit from the heat inside the pot. One of the papers on the floor rustled and then was still.

Finally, deep within the bowels of the house came a sigh.

“It’s getting worse.”

“How long?”

“At least a few hours. The Man said you fell asleep in his car.”

The oven door opened, and I spotted pink hair lean down towards it. The pot was removed from inside and set on the stove to cool.

“Did you finish?”

“Yeah.”

“And they were found?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Lily took a knife out from one of the cupboards and started carving the roast. I could feel my mouth fill with saliva, though I knew it would be disappointed.

“I remembered something today.”

“Hmm?”

“The first time you were sent back.”

Lily thought for a moment, then shook her head. Sorry, Lily. I sometimes forget that these are the kinds of things you lose.

“We were at Cynthia’s and you started talking about Ghosts and Tethers. We were probably sixteen or seventeen, Ellis hadn’t happened yet. I was so . . . confused. I had no idea what you were going on about!” I stopped, unable to think of how to continue, before finishing with “Now look at us.”

I imagined Lily smiling as she placed the beef in front of me. It was so hard to get beef these days, I wonder how she does it? Though I couldn’t really see her, I knew she was sitting across from me as I cut a small slice of meat and chewed it. And we sat in silence for a bit, until I felt awkward and broke it.

“It’s good, thank you, Lily.”

“You know it’s almost time, right?”

Dropping my fork onto my plate, I stared straight ahead at the pink hair in front of me, straining as best I could to see her eyes.

“No, I--”

“No, you and I both know it is. I’m getting more scattered by the day, Freddy. I--”

“No, you aren’t. You can’t--”

“I am. I haven’t smiled for months, though that is always the first to go. Then I realized I forgot how to make meals. Sometimes I can’t even remember how to work that stove! I can’t stand the light, and that makes it even harder. And, I mean, Fred . . . I can’t remember anything. I can’t remember how we met. I can’t remember where I was born. I can’t even remember what I did yesterday! Freddy, I just-- it’s time. You and I both know it is.”

“But we can’t! We’ve done this so many times, what if this time you don’t--”

“But we don’t know that that’ll happen. Sometimes faith is best. Carpe diem.”

At that, I thought I saw a flicker of a smile, though it must have been my imagination. Ghosts can’t smile.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“And what’s the alternative? Really, Freddy, what’s the alternative?”

“I’ll lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“But I will! Lily, if we do this that’ll be the end. You know what happens when Ghosts are Tethered, right? They’re gone, poof, right into the wild green yonder. No more starlight! No more memories! No more pot roast!”

I picked up the plate of beef and, as though to prove my point, I threw it across the room. The plate shattered and the beef hit the wall with a sickening slap, before slowly sliding down towards the floor.

I sat back in my chair and silence again filled the room.

“Freddy?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you done?”

“How can I be?”

Silence, again. You would think we could have a conversation like this without it devolving into an argument.

“It’s been twelve years.”

“I--” I felt her finger brush up against my lips.

“Twelve long years, Fred. How many times have I been Replaced? A hundred? Five-hundred? A thousand?”

“Six-hundred and eighty-five”

“That’s my point. I’m getting worse, you’re getting worse. We’ve had a great run, seriously! I mean, how many other Ghosts can say that they could cook a pot roast even after five or six Replacements? And I’m still going strong, but if we don’t get a handle on this soon I will really be gone, Freddy. And there won’t be anything you or I can do about it. I’m not like Sonia, y’know? I’m just a copy of a copy, there’s nothing real about me. Replacement might give me another few months, but what if by then I’m just a shell? And you . . . Hell, you can hardly stay awake now. What if you fell asleep for longer than a few hours?”

I knew she was right. Lily was always right, and that is the thing that probably irritated me the most about her. She always knew the correct answer. Even before she was a Ghost, the truth was always being whispered to her from the beyond. She would just know what the answers were, she would know what the future held before the past had even finished its own creation.

Lily was right this time, of course. But . . .

“No buts,” she said, stopping me.

“We have to try again.”

“No.”

“I have to try again.”

Silence, once more. But this silence was different. It wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t a pause. This was the deep, insidious silence. The silence that seems to invade through the skin and crawl up into every orifice. This silence was a mist instead of a rock, easily penetrated but even still present. This was the silence that formed a current in our marriage, eating and chipping away at rock-hard vows like erosion from a rushing river.

No, even earlier than that. This is the silence that started when we were just kids, up in the Catskills. This was the silence that formed as we built forts and dug for old Ghosts. This is the Silence. The true, real one. Not just the break in conversation, but the fissure in life. 

And we needed someone to create a bridge across it, and I was too stubborn or stupid.

“We’ll try one more time.”

I looked up and saw her eyes. Those stunning blue eyes warming up the darkness of the house. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Fred. One more for the road. Number six-hundred and eighty-six. Carpe diem.”

“Carpe diem.”

“But you have to promise me, Freddy. If anything . . . happens . . . you have to Tether me. There’s no other way, otherwise, I’ll be lost forever.”

“I promise.”

“Okay,” and I imagined that smile that wasn’t really there, “Believe in our Ghost, dahling”

The hunk of beef grew cold on my kitchen floor.