I knew it was Kate standing in the garden. Her green sundress was faded, her skin was still so pale. She had always been pale, the summer sun could only succeed in turning it a bright red before the creamy whiteness returned. Her skin seemed translucent, the thin blue veins visible even from where I stood, looking out our bedroom window. They ran down to her bare feet and crisscrossed down her arms and up her neck. I was sure they probably lined her face. She had her head down and to the side, her long straight black hair hid it from me.
It was mid-morning in early April. There was a chill, but Spring was already here. Swathes of yellow, pink and purple daffodils crowded around Kate’s ankles. I could remember the many hours she spent planting bulbs, weeding and watering. It was her version of meditation, she would tell me, smiling. They were very resilient, surviving despite my complete negligence. I had not even been able to go near the garden since November, since the funeral.
I stood looking at my dead wife for almost an hour, as still as she was; my bare feet on hardwood, hers in mud. The spell broke, she lifted her head and locked onto me with her violet blue eyes. I sprinted to the back door, sliding across the hallway floor, twice almost sprawling on the floor. I was barely aware of the incoherent sobs coming from my chest. She was still looking at the bedroom window as I leaped down the back porch stairs and grabbed her into my arms, lifting her off the ground.
We stood there, my face buried in her neck, sobs muffled, her thin body lax in my arms like a doll. The noon sun was getting warmer, but I couldn’t let go. For the first couple of months after she died, I saw Kate everywhere. I rarely left the house in those days, and was often drunk to the point of oblivion. I saw her every time I turned a corner; I saw her dressing, reminding myself of those favorite curves of her breasts and hips. The worst was feeling her weight next to me in bed. I spent January on medication, convinced I was hallucinating. I stopped taking it in February because, even if they were just hallucinations, I missed them.
I put her down on the ground and held her face in my hands, searching her all over. She was looking at me, but her stare was vague. The veins did cross her face, but her eyes were brighter than even I remembered. Maybe she hadn’t died, maybe none of it had been real.
“Kate! Where have you been? What happened?”
My eyes glanced down to her neck, and I suddenly let go and took a step back. I saw the chain holding both our class rings. I had buried her with them.
She finally looked at me in full awareness. She grabbed both my arms, sinking her nails into my skin. I jerked, involuntarily from the pain, but she held me fast with a strength she never had in life. She pulled me close and put her face inches from mine. “I’m not going back Mike,” she said slowly and intently.
She let go of me, reached down and grabbed a purple daffodil. She twirled it and hummed as she went past me into the house.
I watched her shower and dress, choosing another sundress, blue this time. All of her things were where she had left them. I hadn’t been able to touch anything. I sat at the kitchen table watching her make spaghetti. Still humming to herself. We ate in silence. She ate; I watched her, at first in grateful awe and then in a growing strange fear. She stared at me. Watched my every move. Her eyes were bright and cold.
Lying in bed next to her that night, her eyes still on me, shining in the moonlight. I had dreamed so many times of her, I wanted only her. I pulled her close, hands tangled in her long hair. Before she kissed me and took me, she whispered, “There was nothing there. I will send you first before I ever go back.”
Fairy Musings 
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