Cleo

Several days after the funeral I assured Mum we’d be okay. She nodded uncertainly and climbed into her Japanese hatchback. Steve’s mother phoned from England. I sighed when she said she’d been in a theater audience to see the famous medium Doris Stokes. Apparently Doris had called her up onstage and said she had a message from Sam. Doris told her Sam wanted us to know he was all right. I’d nodded impatiently when Steve passed this on. Every spiritual medium says the same thing. Doris went on to describe a strange new setup Sam was in. Like boarding school, but more fun. Just as I was about to make derogatory comments about English mediums and their tendency to re-create images involving pubs, tearooms and scenes that were quintessentially British, there was one more thing. Steve’s mother said she had no idea what Doris was talking about, but perhaps it made sense to us. Sam said it was okay. Rob could keep his watch.

The Intruder

A cat doesn’t go where it’s invited. It appears where it’s needed.

Forever. Sam was gone forever. How long was that going to be? Was it some kind of infinity? The symbol for infinity is a figure eight. If I waited long enough in some universal bus shelter would Sam spiral back to me?

Never. I’d never see him again. Not unless I believed in heaven, reincarnation or the boarding school of Doris Stokes. I couldn’t imagine Sam at boarding school, even one run by angels. He’d find out what the rules were and break them straightaway so he could be expelled and sent home.

If any of those other realities, present or future, existed I had no access to them. Nevertheless, I liked to think I’d inherited some of my dad’s connection to the nonphysical world. One of his favorite quotes from Shakespeare was: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Dad often spoke of the near-death experience he’d had as a young man on an operating table. He’d shot up a tunnel of sparkling light to meet some wonderful people at the top. He was overjoyed to be there, but then a voice told him gently, “I’m sorry. You have to go back.”

Hurtling down that tunnel back to the ordinary world was, he said, the biggest disappointment of his life. The experience left him open-minded about ghosts, nature spirits, Ouija boards, any form of spirituality that wasn’t what he called “churchianity.” He’d met too many people who’d claimed to be Christian while demonstrating none of Jesus’ more admirable traits.

Dad certainly was an unusual person. With his delphinium blue eyes he had a habit of looking not so much through people as around them. He often gave the impression of carrying out a conversation simultaneously with the person and their invisible companions.

Some people are happy to die on a golf course. Dad managed his equivalent during the interval of a concert he’d taken Mum and me to when the boys were still small. Having just heard his favorite Bruch violin concerto, he turned to me and said, “God, the acoustics in here are great.” His head suddenly drooped over his chest and he let out a cry of pain. I put my arm on his shoulder and asked if he was okay. He raised his head, gazed at a point above the stage and smiled ecstastically. This time whoever was at the top of the tunnel was saying, “Come on up!” and Dad couldn’t wait to get there.

While it was a shock for us, it was a perfect death for Dad. He’d been ready and willing. Longing for him to return seemed nothing short of selfish. But Sam was another matter. I searched for signs Sam might still be with us. If a curtain trembled there was always a breeze to account for it. On the wall I saw a shadow that resembled Sam’s head, but it was simply the branches of a tree fern waving outside.

The only message we found were the words “Dumb Bell” scribbled in green felt pen in his handwriting high on a bedroom wall that Steve had started wallpapering. Sam would’ve had to climb a ladder to get up there to accomplish his graffiti. It was typical of our son to dispel expectations with a joke. If he was telling us anything it was he thought we were idiots for wallowing in our misery.