This Is For Audrey

I saw my cousin Audrey five times after she died.

The first time was at the wake. I remember looking down into her child-sized coffin and thinking that her head looked just fine. Her skin was really pale but otherwise she basically looked like she always did, her curly blonde locks flowing down her shoulders. I stood there for a minute or so, feeling awkward, and then I went and took a seat next to my mother. She was praying silently with her palms pressed together in her lap and her eyes closed, so I did the same.

I mentally recited The Lord’s Prayer and then a Hail Mary in my head and then I didn’t really know what else to do so I recited them both again. Those were the only two prayers I knew. I kept my eyes closed and my hands pressed together after that and just thought about Audrey for a while.

Audrey was twelve years old, just a year younger than me. She was my favorite cousin. (I had sixteen cousins.) Me and Audrey always had fun together and she was chaotic and unpredictable. She also had some quirky habits and mannerisms. She liked practical jokes and she made me laugh good and hard on many occasions. Even though my eyes were still closed, there were warm tears starting to run down my cheeks before long. I didn’t think I would cry but I did. I loved Audrey. I don’t think I fully realized it until just then.

Audrey could be bright like the summer sunshine on a day that was all clouds, but she also had her dark side. We would go to sleep after laughing hysterically together over one thing or another and when she woke up the next day she might look at me like we had never met. I got used to it. It’s just how she was. I knew she would come around, eventually.

Sometimes she would go for a swim in the pond behind our house by herself, even though my mother had a strict “Buddy System” policy when it came to us kids swimming in the pond. Sometimes she would just wander off into the woods behind our property and not return until sunset. Sometimes she liked to pluck the heads off of the roses out back - she always picked the prized blue ones that my mother worked so hard to cultivate - and then she would stand there on the edge of the roof of our house, dropping the petals one-by-one, trying to spell out some secret message on the stone tiles below, maybe? I don’t know. It was hard to truly know her completely. She had a fence.

My cousin Audrey and her family visited our big old country house in Fairfield, Connecticut a few times every year when I was growing up. They always came for our 4th of July barbecue and family reunion. Her father and my mother were very close so we drove up there to Boston a few days after her death for the wake and the funeral. My Uncle Nick was my mom’s older brother. I liked him and my Aunt Kate. They were always really nice and friendly to me. But their younger son? My cousin Nathan? Not so much. I saw him at the wake but we didn’t really speak. We said some brief words together right after the funeral the next day but it was all forced. I tried to offer my condolences for his sister but I’m not even sure that he heard anything I said. There were a lot of other relatives there, of course. I just moved on.

Me and my mother drove back home to Connecticut in the rain. I missed Audrey. I had no brothers or sisters. I didn’t know who my favorite cousin was anymore.

**********

The second time I saw Audrey after she fell from the roof of our house and died was about six months after her funeral, on another broody and rainy night sometime in mid-April. I was asleep in my bedroom when I felt someone jostling my shoulder. I just thought it was my mother and I looked up with an angry scowl, assuming that I was being disturbed for some silly infraction like an unwashed cereal bowl left on the counter or something like that. 

But when I looked up, I saw Audrey standing there beside my bed. She looked much like she always did but without that silly little half-grin she usually wore. She wasn’t translucent or anything like that but sometimes she kind of flickered for just a millisecond, like some old worn-out motion picture film, but otherwise she looked perfectly normal. She didn’t speak much, but when she did I heard it in my head, not through my ears. I don’t know. It’s hard to describe.

She took me by the hand and gently pulled me up from the bed. I followed her to the door. I remember how I tried to tap her on the shoulder - my mother was a light sleeper and would surely hear our footsteps in the hallway - but my hand just passed right through her seemingly firm frame. I realized with an odd sense of fascination that she was capable of touching me but I was not capable of the same. I tried to touch the back of her arm as we walked down the hall just a short time later and my index finger disappeared into her triceps. She looked over at me, unsmiling, and led me into the room where she always slept whenever she stayed with us.

Once inside, she let go of my hand and nodded towards the window that led out onto the roof. She said nothing. 

Not knowing what else to do, I looked out at the rain-soaked rooftop and when she nodded at me I tried to lift the window. The moisture had swollen the old wooden frame and it let out a sharp screech before I had it halfway open and I heard the sound of the door to my mother’s bedroom just across the hall and her footsteps coming towards us. Just when she pushed open the door to the guest bedroom my cousin Audrey disappeared. 

I stammered out some lame explanation and went back to bed.

**********

The third time I saw my dead cousin Audrey was about six weeks later, in late May. It all went much like the last time. She awoke me during the night and quietly led me by my hand to a bedroom down the hall. This time she led me to the bedroom next to the one where she always stayed when she came to visit. The bedroom where her younger brother Nathan always stayed.

We walked into the room and again she silently pointed to the window leading out to the roof. And again, not knowing what else to do, I tried to open the window. She stopped me and just pointed at the bed.

**********

The fourth time I saw my dead cousin Audrey was just over a month after that. It was July 3rd, and everything played out in much the same way. She woke me up during the night and led me down the hall by the hand. This time the windows were open in the bedroom where she always slept. The weather was good and my mother was airing out the guest bedrooms before everyone arrived the next day for the barbecue. Audrey stepped out of the window onto the roof and looked at me, waiting expectantly. I followed her.

She walked to the edge of the roof. I was hesitant at first but I stepped up next to her and looked down at the place where she died, her skull crushed on the stone tiles below. She took hold of my upper arm and closed her eyes and passed her hand before them, from above to below. I closed my eyes as well, though I was far from comfortable in that moment.

Suddenly, it was broad daylight. My back was turned and I was dropping dark blue rose petals down onto the tiles below, trying to spell out “Why?” Just some vague question I didn’t even understand, and it was then that my little brother Nathan came rushing across the roof, shoving me off the edge. My curly blonde locks flowed up over my face, obscuring Nathan’s angry visage looking down at me for just a second before the backside of my head smashed down on the stone path skirting that side of my aunt's old country house there in the woods of Fairfield, Connecticut.

**********

The next day all of our local relatives arrived for the annual 4th of July barbecue and family reunion. I remember seeing my cousin Nathan getting out of the old black 1957 Buick that his father, my Uncle Nick, used to drive. It was a nice car. Sometimes I would wash it for him and my uncle would give me a buck and I would be happy. (That was a lot of money for a kid back then.)

After supper that night a bunch of us kids went swimming together in the pond. I volunteered to be Nathan’s “Buddy” for the swim. I entertained him and waited until the rest of the kids got tired and climbed back onto the dock and toweled off and went back to the house. Then I taunted him a bit, telling him he couldn’t swim out towards me at the deep end of the pond, behind the tall reeds, where no one could see us. Nathan was never that smart. He did it. I was bigger and stronger than him.

“This is for Audrey,” were the last words he ever heard.

Dripping wet, I ran up to my family gathered on the rear lawn of the house, drinking cocktails.

“I think something happened to Nathan! We were just swimming together but now I don’t know where he is!”

Everybody bought it. Me and my mother had to drive back up to Boston a few days later. I did not cry at the wake this time.

**********

The fifth time I saw my dead cousin Audrey was last night. It has been almost seventy years and I am an old man now, but she still looks the same.

I felt a hard, painful lump under my armpit when I was in the shower two weeks ago and it appears to be growing fast. There was some blood in the toilet these last few days. I was going to see my doctor about this but I kind of knew it was already too late.

When Audrey came and took me by my hand as I rose from bed last night I had a vision of what might lie ahead. I saw us laughing together. I saw us chasing after my old golden retriever Buck, dead for so many decades now, out on the lawn under the summer sunshine. I saw her blowing out the candles on her birthday cake and then looking at me with that devilish smile. I saw us getting into all sorts of delightful fun.

She led me by the hand down to that room where she used to sleep and I opened the window. We both stepped out onto the roof and I walked over to the edge, just above the stone tiles where she died. She curled one little index finger towards her chest, twice, beckoning me to lean down.

When I did she gave me a little kiss on my cheek and then she handed me a dark blue rose blossom.

I smelled it and I smiled at her and then I just leaned and fell backwards off the edge of the roof to the stone tiles down below.

I miss you Audrey, but I'll see you real soon. We're gonna have some good times again. I know it's been a while, but me and you are gonna get into some trouble together. Keep that stupid little half-smile on your face. I love you, Audrey.

It's gonna be me and you again. Just like it used to be.

THE END