Walk/Don't Walk

THE SNOW HAD left the sidewalks and streets slick, while clouds formed a low gray canopy. It was a typical January morning in Chicago. I emerged from my high-rise to head for the L and hurried to the corner--bundled up in scarf, heavy coat, and gloves. I didn’t want to be late. Not again. The last time almost cost me my job. I had arrived fifteen minutes after the hour, with my boss and the new client sitting in the conference room.

Fifteen minutes.

That was a mortal sin in my company. As I rushed in, with a breathy apology, the client greeted me with a smile and a strong handshake, but my boss scowled as he looked at his watch. Afterward, he pulled me aside.

“Wakerford is a potentially huge account. How do you think it looks when I talk you up as our best designer and you can’t even be on time for the first meeting?”

Even though it had all worked out and Mr. Wakerford was delighted with my work, I was bound not to let that happen again. On this morning, there was another new client and I had thirty minutes to make it downtown. I would have arrived in plenty of time, except that when the Walk/Don’t Walk sign changed, I saw him across the street. He stood there, tall, with thick dark hair and a square jaw, his 42-long physique discernible under a heavy camel hair coat. Even from across the street, I could make out his sapphire-like eyes sparkling as they always had. He was Armani material from top to bottom.

I froze when my gaze met his. How was this possible? Thomas had been dead for a year. I’d mourned him for most of the time since, took pills to sleep at night, and lost fifteen pounds. I stared. It had to be someone else—a look alike. What did people say? Everyone has a doppelganger somewhere. But then he smiled. Oh, I remembered that smile-his smile-how I’d fallen in love with it when we first met. Some friends had invited me out for drinks on a Wednesday evening, five years prior. We wound up at the Kit Kat lounge in Boystown. As I nursed my martini at the bar, a guy leaned over the counter next to me to get the bartender’s attention. His elbow bumped my shoulder.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said.

“No problem. Not even a flesh wound.”

He grinned broadly at my joke. I’d never seen such perfectly even teeth—and white, as though they’d never seen caffeine in his entire life. I sized him up at to be about my age, 32.

“Thomas,” he said.

I grasped his outstretched hand. It was smooth and warm.

“Robert. And I love your smile.” I immediately regretted such a stupid line. Right out of a Hallmark movie.

“Well,” he replied, “you give me something to smile about.”

He was right there with me in that Hallmark movie. I melted on the spot.

That was how I’d met my husband.

ON THIS FRIGID January morning, I stared at the figure across the street. Was it really him? I closed my eyes and counted to five. When I opened them, he was still there. I heard the click of the Walk/Don’t Walk sign. The signal switched from the little red guy standing with feet apart to the little white guy in mid-stride, with 30 seconds beginning its countdown.

I gingerly stepped off the curb, my gaze still locked on Thomas. His hands were hidden in deep coat pockets. Was he-was he waiting for me? Slowly, I made my way until I reached the other curb. I stepped up, just three feet from him. The world suddenly went silent, as though the only thing that mattered was this moment-us, together, on that corner. Up close, I took him in.

“Th-Thomas, is that you?”

He never broke his smile. “Yes. It’s me.”

“But, I--I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t.”

I took a step closer. Then another. I reached for his face, let the tips of my gloved fingers touch his cheek.

“The accident. While you were running. I--I buried you.”

“Here,” he said, as he moved in closer. “Let me hug you.”

He wrapped his arms around me and I felt a surge in my chest that pulsed and pushed in all directions. Was that joy I felt? Maybe joy mixed with-what? Not fear. I could never fear Thomas. But the situation was so strange, so beyond my comprehension.

“I’m hallucinating, again, aren’t I?” I said.

After Thomas had died, my initial grief was so great I had to be sedated. I kept seeing him in the condo, in the lobby, on the L. Ghostlike, he’d mouth words I couldn’t hear, make gestures I couldn’t understand. After a month, the visions dissipated, and bit-by-bit he became an aching memory, a face looking out at me from framed photos, a scent emanating from clothes I’d yet to donate to charity.

“No, Hon,” he said. “You’re not hallucinating. I’m really here.”

His touch seemed real, his embrace the same as it had always been. I pulled back and looked at him.

“What happened?”

He put his finger to my lips. “Shhh. I’ve come to take you with me.”

“With you? Where? I-I was on my way to work.”

He smiled again.

“Thomas, please. This can’t be real. Maybe I’m sick again. Maybe--maybe something triggered your image in my mind.”

“This is real.”

A revelation hit me. As he spoke, there was no breath that hung in the air. It was thirty degrees out, this was the dead of winter, and yet, as he talked, I could see no condensation gather about his lips. My eyes widened. There was only one way that could be. Oh, God! Was I going mad?

“Hon,” he said, “look behind you.” He jutted with his chin.

“Wh--what?”

I turned. The quiet that had enveloped us Big-Banged into a cacophonous riot. A hoard of people had gathered. Some were mumbling, others shouting. An ambulance siren pierced the air. A uniformed policeman barked orders for people to stay back. Horns blared down the block-signals from impatient drivers who couldn’t see what transpired at the intersection and why the traffic had backed up.

My gaze lowered to a crumpled figure lying on the street. Blood pooled around his head. His leather shoulder bag lay askew, a laptop protruding. A cab driver stood nearby, trembling in the cold.

“He stepped right in front of me! Right in front of me!”

The policeman leaned in and placed two fingers on the sprawled man’s neck. He closed his eyes and hung his head.

“Shit,” he muttered.

He stood just as the ambulance arrived, its flashing lights advertising yet another emergency on the streets of Chicago. EMS personnel jumped out, equipment in hand. They rushed in and, like the policeman, checked for signs of life. The haste with which they’d appeared gave way to a lumbering sadness as they pulled a stretcher and a black zippered bag from the back of the vehicle. As they lifted the limp body, his head lolled in my direction-eyes opened wide in a vacant stare.

I gasped. Then I turned to Thomas.

“That’s-that’s me!”

He nodded. “Now come. I’ve been waiting for you.”

He enclosed his hand around mine and we began walking.

“I have so many things to tell you,” he said.

He squeezed gently. My confusion and concern melted like the snow on the sidewalk, and I lay my head on his shoulder. We continued down the street.  

I smiled at the thought of my boss checking his watch.