“I don’t even know the meaning of the word anymore,” she said.
“Will you at least try?”
The old woman sat up and dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her housecoat.
“How does one even begin?” she said.
“Well, sometimes, if you pretend you’re happy, you can trick yourself into at least feeling better.”
“I don’t think I could do that.”
“Try by celebrating our lives,” Zia said. “Remember both your children with love and joy. There’ll always be sadness, but try to remember that it wasn’t always that way.”
“No,” the old woman said slowly. “You’re right. It wasn’t. I don’t know if you can even remember, but we were once a happy family. But then Ted left and I had to go back to work, and you children…you were robbed of the life you should have had.”
“It happens,” Zia said—a touch too matter-of-factly for the ghost of a dead girl, I thought, but the old woman didn’t appear to notice.
“It’s time for me to go, Mama,” Zia added. “Will you let me go?”
“Can’t you stay just a little longer?”
“No,” Zia said. “Let me walk you back to your bed.”
She got up and the two of them left the room, the old woman leaning on Zia.
“I’m going to wake up in the morning,” I heard the old woman say from the hall, “and this will all have just been a dream.”
“Not if you don’t want it to,” Zia told her. “You’ve got a strong will. Look how long you kept me from moving on. You can remember this—everything we’ve talked about—for what it really was. And if you try hard, you can be happy again…”
Donald and I waited in the bedroom until Zia returned.
“Is she asleep?” I asked.
Zia nodded. “I think all of this exhausted her.” She turned to Donald. “So how do you feel now?”
“I feel strange,” he said. “Like there’s something tugging at me…trying to pull me away.”
“That’s because it’s time for you to move on,” I told him.
“I guess.”
“You’re remembered now,” Zia said. “That’s what was holding you back before.”
He gave a slow nod. “Listening to her…it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better. I mean, I understand now, but…”
“Life’s not very tidy,” Zia said, “so I suppose there’s no reason for death to be any different.”
“I…”
He was harder to hear. I gave him a careful study and realized he’d grown much more insubstantial.
“It’s hard to hold on,” he said. “To stay here.”
“Then don’t,” Zia told him.
I nodded. “Just let go.”
“But I’m…scared.”