Without a Shadow of a Doubt

   (TW: Contains cursing, death, murder)

I heard his screams; I heard the phone call, and I heard the sirens in the distance. I couldn’t comprehend any of the words echoing throughout the bedroom. What the hell was happening? Peter, my current boyfriend, was ashen and screaming. None of this was right, none of this was real. It couldn’t be real. The yelling wouldn’t stop, and my head began to pound.

“Grace! Grace! She’s cold, she’s cold oh my God, she’s cold. She’s not breathing! She’s not breathing!” His phone was on speaker and a woman's calm voice kept asking him questions.

"Have you done CPR, sir? Sir?" The blase voice echoed through my head.

Peter screamed as he picked up the body, “Shit! Holy shit!”

I was standing by the bedroom door, watching in confusion.

“A spoon, a spoon just hit me on the foot.” Peter’s body trembled with adrenaline, and he let out a deep grunt as he placed Grace on the floor. Her blonde curls spread out as her head stayed tilted to the side, stiff.

"Sir? Sir are you still there?" the voice was annoyed.

“Grace! Wake up, Grace, fucking wake up!” There was foam and blood in her mouth.

“She’s so cold!” I heard him yell again as he tried to do chest compressions.

"Sir, is CPR working?"

No dummy, it's not working, I thought to myself as I watched the scene continue to unfold.

“It’s not working, it’s not working! Grace!” Peter was screaming, panic choking him with every outburst. “It’s not fucking working!”

I watched the sweat on his brow drop onto the delicate body. It lay motionless on the carpet fully dressed in leggings and an oversized Tulane hoodie. Foam spilled out of the mouth onto the carpet, red and blotchy. He stopped his compressions and sat back on his heels.

“I think she’s dead.” He whispered into the phone. “Grace is dead.”

I couldn’t focus, I was staring at Grace. My world began to spin, dark then light, this wasn’t right. None of this was right. God, why did my head hurt so badly? The thing is, I'm right here. So, I don't understand any of this.

Because, after all, I am Grace.

---

I stood at the edge of my bed and watched as Peter hung up the phone and screamed. He punched the wall and screamed again. Then, he stopped. As if a new personality had taken over his body, he was calm and composed. No more tears. No more screaming. He just sat up, pulled out his phone, and sat casually next to the dead body while his phone rang; to be very clear, apparently, this was my dead body.

“Okay, I called.” He said in a dispassionate voice as if he weren’t sitting next to a fresh corpse.

“Yeah, yep. All done.” He continued.

What the fuck? What’s done? I wanted to ask.

“Naw, don’t worry about her brother.” He looked over at the body and scrunched his nose in disgust. My mind was swirling. Benjamin? What about Benjamin? Who the hell was Peter talking to about my baby bro?

“Good. Call him and let him know. Alright. Later.” He pressed end on his iPhone and used the wall to help himself rise off the floor. Once he was standing, he adjusted his pants and looked down at the motionless body.

“Destroying you was definitely worth it, Grace.” His malevolent smile made my post-mortem stomach drop.

The paramedics arrived moments later, and that was the last time I ever saw Grace Evans. As they took my body away in a black bag, I had an idea. This was a dream! This whole thing had to be a very real, very terrible dream. I began to pinch myself, hit myself, anything to make myself wake up. Nothing happened. So I ran to my bathroom and gazed into the vanity mirror.

No one was looking back.

“No!” I screeched, but no one heard me.

I ran back into my bedroom, panic, and anger overwhelming my soul. I turned the corner too sharply and instead of going past my bedroom door, I went through it.

No! I can’t do this. I can’t go through walls. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m not allowed to go through walls. I stood in my bedroom again and started touching my body; I looked at my hands. Everything looked the same, and I felt the same, too. Was this really death?

---

Death was a funny thing. There were boundaries I had to learn and the resident ghost I met upstairs was more than willing to fill me in on our death conditions. It'd been three days, and much to my surprise, though it shouldn't have been, my condo building was very much a haunted mansion. I mean, I should have known since it was over 100 years old. Anyway, after a failed attempt to leave my condo, I learned that I couldn’t leave since it’s where I died (somehow).

My brother, Benjamin arrived a week after my death, along with his fiancé Norah. In life, I despised that woman, in death, it wasn’t much better. She wasn’t a bad person, per se, she was just the bitch who made my brother fall in love with her. She didn’t care about status, expensive jewelry, or Saks, and quite frankly, we had nothing in common. Case in point, she’s in my deserted condo wearing UGG boots from the 2000s, running shorts, and a t-shirt with a hole in the side. Dear God, bro. What were you thinking when you asked this woman to marry you? But I digress, what can a ghost really do?

They were sitting in my dining room drinking my Tito’s with some limoncello when I overheard them talking about my funeral arrangements.

“Her body is still with the coroner. It’s getting messy, Peter knows the coroner personally, and I heard from Grace’s friend Heather that he’s lawyered up.” Ben took a sip of his cocktail and looked over at Norah, fuming.

“Lawyered up? What a fucking prick. You only lawyer up if you did something.” She muttered with agitation.

Wait, she’s concerned I’m dead? Did I skip a chapter in our relationship? I asked myself as I watched the two of them interact.

“Yeah, well, when you're connected in this fucking city, you can make things very difficult for other people. Even if he didn’t do anything directly, I think he knows what happened without a doubt.” The venom was palpable within my brother's words.

“Babe, we can’t go accusing anyone, but I agree. I think he knows more than he’s letting on. He ran to his daddy to get lawyers and stay out of trouble.” She rolled her eyes and then turned to where I was standing by the table. Her eyes widened, and She was visibly stunned. Ben didn't notice and continued his rant.

“Yeah, when your daddy is a state representative it doesn’t hurt.” He looked up from twirling his cocktail and noticed Norah staring at an empty chair.

“Nor? Nor what’s wrong?” he asked curiously.

She didn’t respond.

“Nor!” his voice boomed.

I was staring at Norah, and she was staring at me.

“Can you, can you see me?” I asked cautiously.

Norah’s eyes widened even more, and then a raspy word left her lips.

“Yes.”

---

Once Norah explained to Ben that she could see me and talk to me, things became interesting.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that my brother’s annoying fiancé was the only one I could talk to. Talk about a cruel joke. But at least I could indirectly talk to my brother.

I learned that Peter didn’t tell my family I had died. He told them that my next of kin was Cindy Lester, the woman who I did truly tell everyone was my mom, but, yeah, she wasn’t. So, bro didn’t find out until my friend Heather called him.

Then, I told him about the phone call I heard Peter make after he called 911.

“Grace, did you hear who was on the other end? Don’t you have some ghostly powers or something and see and know all now?” he asked with a hint of sarcasm.

“Sorry, bro.” I told Norah who was relaying my words to Ben. “I’m not a god. But he did tell someone that they didn't need to worry about you and that whoever was on the other side needed to call someone; a "him", so we know it's a guy.”

Nodding along, Ben rubbed his chin.

“Well, it’s obvious then isn’t it?” he said with an eerie calm. I could see his muscle tensing on the side of his neck.

“What?” Both Norah and I responded. She gave me a sideways glance, tentative and curious. I stuck my tongue out at her.

“Peter is involved. We knew he knew something, but what was it Grace said he mentioned before he left the room?”

“Destroying you was definitely worth it, Grace,” Norah repeated.

“Yeah, dipshit should lawyer up,” Ben replied in disgust.

“But Ben, we can’t prove any of this. We can’t exactly take a ghost’s testimony to court.” She looked over at me, “No offense, Grace.” And shrugged. I rolled my eyes and folded my arms across my chest.

“So,” Ben continued. “he told someone it was done, and not to worry about her brother.” He scratched his head, “Then he says it was worth destroying her. What, killing her?” He looked over to where I was standing even though I knew he saw nothing but blank space.

“Grace?” he asked.

“She’s listening,” Norah replied.

“Grace, why did he want to kill you, what motive did he have? Y’all weren’t married.”

I thought about it for a second, when something started to click.

“Oh my God,” I whispered to myself. Norah tilted her head waiting for me to continue.

“I never told anyone, okay?” My eyes were pleading with Norah, and she understood. “Okay, so, my business partner, Cole and I were trying to find buyers for the business.”

“The studio?” Norah responded with surprise. Ben’s ears perked up; he was watching Norah.

“Yes, Norah. The studio.” I rolled my eyes trying to keep my patience with her. “Anyways, we didn’t have many bites, and things haven’t been, umm,” I felt like I was choking on my words. “they haven’t been good. In fact, they’ve been terrible. We were going bankrupt.” I hung my head in shame.

Norah gasped and Ben pushed her for the new information. After she caught him up, I continued.

“There was a life insurance policy out on me, and Cole. If one of us died, it was 8 million dollars right to the other party.”

“Oh my God, Grace. No.” The sadness in her voice made my still heart hurt.

“I think he called Cole. Cole had joked with me just the other day that if one of us died, all our problems would be solved. We both were collateralized to the teeth with the studio. I guess he wasn’t joking after all.”

The fury that radiated from my brother while Norah caught him up again, made the hair tingle on my cold arms.

“They’re going to pay! Grace, you hear me? They won’t get away with this.” He was seething.

“But Ben, and Grace," she looked at me. "what about the other guy, the "him"?” Norah asked.

“Good point,” I added. Well, if he was talking to Cole, and he knew how bad things were because I hinted at being overwhelmed and upset, I think, honestly, the only other person he could be speaking about is his roommate.”

“She thinks the "him" is Peter’s roommate. Do you know who that is?” Norah asked Ben.

“Yeah, he’s the asshole who owns a bunch of strip clubs on Bourbon.” Ben was talking through clenched teeth. “Fuck, Grace. You sure knew how to pick a crowd, didn't you?”

I narrowed my eyes and threw my hands on my hips. “Fuck you, Ben. I’m the dead one here. Let’s stick to the pertinent information.” Then I glared at Norah, “You better tell him exactly what I said. She held in a chuckle and relayed my message to my baby bro.

“Fuck you Grace, you may be dead, but I have to deal with this shit now.” He groaned and ran his hands down his face. “Ok, okay, so those three have something to do with how you died. Actually, wait." He paused and looked towards my side of the table. "Grace, how did you die?”

It’d been over a week since Peter found me. I was confused at first, but then little pieces of the night started to come back to me. I remembered parts of my last night, that now, looking back, were one bad decision after another.

Norah turned to me with sad eyes. Maybe she wasn’t so bad. Maybe, if there’d been time, we would have actually been friends.

I held her stare, and with a slight lift of my chin, I told them how I died.