Tammy and John-John

John lumbered down the stairs, unable to sleep without Eileen by his side. Eileen, his third wife, had gone to stay with her sister. She was deciding whether to leave him for good. 

At the bottom of the stairs, John’s head jerked, and he let out a low sound of fear. His first wife was sitting in the easy chair by the sofa. She was smoking. 

He closed his eyes and reopened them, but she was still there. He realized he couldn’t smell the scent of cigarette.

  “Are you a ghost,” he whispered. 

She shook her head. “No. I’m a spirit. I’m dead, definitely. But a ghost is a dead person who inhabits earth. I don’t generally spend my time here.”

He nodded. 

“Tammy?” he asked quietly. He wanted to make sure. She looked like Tammy. 

She smiled easily. “Yes, John-john. It’s me,” she said. 

Her pet name for him made his teeth grind. He felt rage and repulsion flood into him. It must be Tammy. She made him feel vicious in a way no one had done before or since. 

“You’re a fucking asshole, Tammy!” he yelled. “You’re such a fucking asshole,” he said again because it felt so good to have the words land in the ears that deserved to hear them.  

She raised her eyebrows gently. “I guess you’re still upset with me,” she said.

“You blew your fucking brains out, Tammy! In our house! Where our teenage daughter lived!” He yelled out the decades of outrage and horror that had petrified inside him. 

Tammy nodded. “I did.” Her face reflected sorrow. 

“Who does that? Go kill yourself somewhere outside the house! I had to find you. I had to replace the furniture because your brains were stuck to the leather, you selfish fucker!” he growled. 

She was watching him intently, focusing on him in a way she had not often done when she was alive. She looked away briefly to put out her cigarette in an ashtray that was not normally on the side table. Neither he nor his current wife smoked. 

Tammy looked back at him with clear eyes. “I’m so sorry, John. It was an awful thing that I did. I know it was a nightmare for you and Hillary,” she said. And then she stopped speaking, and waited. He waited too. But she didn’t resume speech. The time passed between then.  

Her tenderness in this moment was the same as he remembered from their early years, but her direct acceptance was very different. She had always been so defensive. She would fight off anything you said if it could be construed as a criticism towards her. He’d gotten into the habit of fighting her.  Her spirit’s easy acceptance and simple sorrow now left him like an angry bull with no one to charge. The energy was high and bloody in his body. 

“I hate you,” he said through gritted teeth. Her head jerked back a bit as if she’d been struck. 

“That hurts me to hear,” she said sadly. 

His own head jerked back in surprise. This was new, too. He had never been able to hurt her when she was alive. She would only circle with her words and emotions as if she wasn’t just fighting him but her mother and her father and her abusive brother and all the people in her town where she grew up, every one of them who thought she was trash. He took some deep breaths. He found that the ability to hurt her allowed him to feel less anguish inside.    

  “Why did you do it?” he asked.

“I didn’t have any moments that were without pain. And I didn’t have any hope that it would change,” she said simply.

“You were addicted to pills,” he said.

“Yes. And to alcohol,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders. That he’d understood. “Was the physical pain real? Or did you make that up?” he asked. 

“I was in constant physical pain. Since long before we married. Long before the pills and liquor. And it got worse after Hilary. You were away. I was depressed. The physical challenges of an infant. I never got back to any equilibrium,” she said.

“I didn’t believe the physical pain was real,” he said, looking at her with the same suspicion of her ailments that had always hovered in their marriage.

“I know. That’s what made me feel the most hopeless and alone,” she said without guile. 

For the first time, his long-held hatred started to dissipate. He could feel it miraculously seep out of him like sink water dropping down the drain. He looked out the window expecting to see dawn, but it was still a deep darkness outside. 

“I appreciate you coming here tonight, Tammy.” He meant it very sincerely. He paused and thought for a while. “Why didn’t you come sooner?” he asked.

“You never wanted to speak with me before,” she said simply. 

He looked at her in confusion. She explained. “Tonight. In the shower, you said out loud, ‘I wish I could just fucking ask her why,’ “ she said. “After you said, ‘Why do these women keep leaving me?!’ ”

“I’ve asked that a thousand times!” he said.

She shook her head. “Never. You always wondered why. But you never wanted to ask me before.”

He stared at her. “That can’t possibly be true,” he said.

She shrugged and spread her hands. He looked closely at Tammy. 

    "Are you kidding me?” His jaw hung open stupidly. “Never?” He asked. She shook her head ruefully. He started laughing.   She laughed with him, which he found wonderful. Again, she shrugged and spread her hands, her face kind as she revealed his own shortcoming without any judgement. 

     "Oh, my god.” He sat down heavily and leaned back against the couch cushions. “Wow,” he said. “I’ve never wanted to ask you before,” he said again. He was silent and she left him to his silence.  “I never wanted to ask you before” he repeated to himself. “Because I was never willing to listen,” he said, awareness shoving downwards from his head to his heart to his gut. He felt choking in his throat but the emotion, having been shoved down for so long, came out more like gasping than crying. 

Tammy moved to sit next to him and pulled him into her arms. The feeling of her was cool and unsubstantial, more like fog than flesh. But his own heavy body felt firmly held and his skin felt warm where she touched him. He started to cry in earnest. To sob. To heave out this flash of awareness that had eluded him for the six decades of his life. 

When he stopped weeping, his body spent, Tammy eased him down onto the couch and covered him with a blanket. 

“I’m sorry, Tammy,” he said. 

“I’m sorry, too, John-John,” she murmured. He felt a light sweep of her against his cheek and in his hair. 

When he awoke on the couch in the morning, he felt clear and alive. He wanted to call Eileen. He wanted to listen, to hear what she had to say.