Part 1

Alice and I fought clean. Well, we rarely fought. But when we did it was dealt with cleanly: not like most couples. Dennis, my buddy, he was a dirty fighter. He struggled tooth-and-nail with his fiancé, and they were due to be married for God’s sake. I mean, he would never lay a hand on her, he’s a stand-up guy in that sense, but when they fought it wouldn’t matter who was around. His fiancé could have tears in her eyes and be struggling to speak through hiccups, but there was no relenting for Dennis. I could never do that. If I saw tears I’d be finished, forget ‘right,’ case closed. Dennis never directly called me a pussy for it, but he did insinuate. And after all of those hardnosed insinuations I thought I’d better learn to stomach tears, like a “man.” I thought Alice might even like it. Like I said, we rarely fought anyway, but for when we did, maybe I ought to do it right— right? My buddies seemed to think so, Dennis most of all.

She traced her fingers around my skin while we loafed in bed like two sick people, half-dead and tangled into each other with rubbery limbs. The skin she traced was covered in my tattoos: deep red roses and grey skulls which cluttered the flesh of my right arm. That collection stopped at my elbow, because I hadn’t decided how I’d connect it to the other scattered pieces: an American traditional fox, the shape of New York, an embarrassing cliché quote, a cracked bell.

Although most of my body up to my neck was covered in tattoos, it was my left arm that drew the most attention. It was blacked out entirely with ink. Unless I’d dipped it in tar it couldn’t have been blacker. The piece reached from my wrist to my shoulder, and easily caught people’s eye when I wore t-shirts.

On the bed, Alice switched to caressing the covered arm, and then looked at me for a moment. I sensed her eyes scanning my face and poised for the start of another argument over the tattoo. It’s been an enigma to her since I’d decided to get it. I could never tell her my reasons, she would never understand. And so we fought over it, and sooner or later she might start to cry. She wouldn’t cry at my half-hearted explanations, but when the conversations miraculously turned toward our old mistakes. They were like ghosts haunting my passive words and her tense eyes. Then I would quit talking and keep that resolve until the first tear dripped from her eye and my weak-will failed. I’d comfort her, and apologize while secretly wishing I had the courage to explain the purpose of the ink covering my arm.

I wouldn’t do that again, I told myself. If she decided to raise questions again, I would be strong in my conviction of not explaining myself. I’d face that first tear with all the conviction of an executioner with a job to do. I’d take no pleasure in seeing her weep, but I wouldn’t give in. Strong and silent, that would be the new me.

But, it wasn’t— not because I gave in again— but because the damn fight never came! That night she rubbed the black arm with nervous curiosity, like she’d done when it first healed. Instead of starting another inquisition, she sprung up on the bed and perched in front of me.

“I want my first one,” she said. “It’ll be Alice . . . in Wonderland.”

“I get it, because your name is—”

Before I could finish she pecked my lips with hers. Here I was, ready to see her cry, faced with the complete opposite. Her nose wiggled and strands of her long hair fell in front of her face. Her pale eyes caught mine glancing down her shirt. Her skin was pale, clean. With no tattoos she was the contrast to me, the inkless and the inked.

“You should make her hair black, in the tattoo,” I said. “That way she looks like you.”

Her mouth opened, I assumed out of astonishment, but she said, “That’s my idea! I told you that.”

My face scrunched in disbelief, as well as an attempt at recollection.

“It was the day we got out of work at the same time, and caught the same train. I said I’d give Alice black hair and blue eyes like me. And you just made that dumb grunting sound that let me know you weren’t listening, like right now while you check me out.”

My eyes darted up at the realization that I was caught. She grinned. I leaned in for a kiss, but she sprang up full of life. Her hips swung while she walked away from me. I watched her.

She said, “Maybe I’ll get it while we’re up in Boston. You said you knew some good artists up there.”

“Dennis can show us some too.”

I heard a subdued moan from the kitchen of my apartment. When she came back she was clearly annoyed.

“He’s still coming?”

“Yeah, is that a problem?”

“Dennis is a dick. Do you see the problem there?”

“Dennis is fine. You just have this aversion to him for whatever reason.”

“How about: he has a demented superiority complex?”

“How about: there’s no such thing as a superiority complex, you’re thinking of an inferiority complex.”

“There is so such a thing! Anyway, how about: who cares? He’s just a dick.”

“You’re the one who talks about him for God’s sake.”

She returned to the bed, shrugging in a way that indicated the conversation was worthless. I prepared to change the subject, but I was interrupted. Rather than pecked I was kissed softly. When our lips released I opened my eyes to find her already looking in mine. Her hand rested on my blackened arm as she spoke of having to leave, of feeling crummy. I offered to nurse her if she stayed. I was a professional, after all, but she refused. She said she needed to see her father before returning home. She bundled into her warm clothes, all of which were as dark her hair, except for the wool hat. Her knit-hat was still on the bed. I tossed it to her before she was ready, but she still caught it. She shot me a slick grin and proceeded to the door. Before she was gone I called to her. She returned with curious eyes. I reminded her to pick up oil for me to put in her car, because I’d have no time between shifts to get it.

With that neutral comment she was gone.

As the door slammed, I got up to walk about my apartment and complete whatever chores seemed easiest. I was tired, losing resolve by the moment. Even the few dishes in the sink made me moan in annoyance. I decided instead to quit for the night. I looked in my bathroom mirror and pulled on the skin under my eyes to examine the lines that developed on my face.

Before bed I stepped outside and lit a cigarette. I placed the filter between my chapped lips, pulling deep while it burned. Alice would surely be furious if she knew I still smoked. There was no arguing with a fellow nurse over the idiocy of it. We’d both seen enough patients to know what they did. We’d both worked in rooms filled with the sounds of wheezing and oxygen machines. In college half of our cohort smoked, including Alice and me. By the end of the year I’d become the last holdout, and Alice and I had started dating. I reminded her how I first asked her out during a smoke break and resisted everyone’s nags to quit— until our friend, Dr. Buttar, hid a dead smoker’s lung in a bag he told me held a sandwich.

Since then I’ve smoked sparingly. 

I realized how much space I had in my bed to myself. It’d been several days since I slept without Alice. I spread out joyously. My open window let cool air blow into the room.

Naturally, every ounce of tiredness magically vanished the moment my head hit the pillows. I flopped around, growing unnerved the more time ticked by toward the long day approaching. I lifted my left arm to examine it in the dark. It looked like my hand was floating over my face, the arm practically invisible. I stared a while before going to the bathroom.

Before opening the cabinet for my last resort, pills, I saw my weathered face in the mirror again. Averting my eyes, I brought the pills back to bed.

In time I started to drift away almost entirely, feeling the medicine do its job. My bed swallowed me whole, and for a while I seemed to stay caught in between awake and sleep.

On the cusp of falling away entirely, I was interrupted by ringing and vibrating on my bedside table. First I was disappointed, thinking my alarm was already going off, but I soon realized it wasn’t time for work. Morning hadn’t come yet and someone was calling me. I figured it would be Alice, hoping I was as sleepless as her. This outcome seemed like a sure thing, until I answered and heard her father’s voice.

His words made no sense to me at first.

But I soon deciphered what he said through my own disbelief.

“Mark. She’s dead, Mark.  Alice killed herself.”

Part 2

I was completely still, all night, until the tip of the sun peeked over the horizon.

With my windows open I could hear the sounds of the city outside that carried on as if all was well, as if it were a regular day. My stillness broke at this. It turned to rage. Suddenly I was filled with an intense hate at the audacity of the world to spin as if nothing were wrong, as if she weren’t gone. I stood and slammed the window shut with both hands. I tried to cry after that, but my insides seemed frozen like my body was before. I pushed for tears to well up, until finally realizing I only needed to try to picture her face to unthaw every emotion struggling to surface. The smile she gave the night before flashed into my head. Suddenly I fell apart. It wasn’t only that she was gone, but that she felt so close. I felt her lips on mine just hours ago, and now . . . at that thought I fell to the floor, pulling down a rack of DVDs with me.  

I pulled myself up as if my life depended on it. It was then I understood how badly I needed to move, stay busy.

As the morning broke, I found my spare key to Alice’s apartment. I drove to the west side of town with the irrational belief that her things needed to be cleaned and collected as soon as possible. My hands gripped the wheel of my car with the tightness of an amateur driver. I should have expected traffic. It was rush hour after all. I treated one driver with greater scorn than any of the others, blasting my horn with total hatred at his bumper. He gently ignored, staring blankly forward like a drone, soulless.

Alice’s apartment was in the basement of a house. The entrance was down a cement stairway in the backyard. My resilience died as I left my car. My hands shook and stomach quivered in fear. When I reached the stairs and started my descent, my fear was replaced.

As I passed the tiny slit of a basement window, a slight movement inside piqued my attention. I stopped immediately and peered into the dark basement, but saw nothing through the thin passage the window allowed.

When I reached the door I realized before turning lock that I could hear music, big band swing and a singer that was probably Frank Sinatra.

I burst into the apartment.

The music was coming from the kitchen. She stood facing the stove, struggling to open a jar. She wore only what she usually slept in: a white v-neck and black underwear. She spun around quickly when I entered and gave a pleasantly surprised look. She probably would have asked for help with the jar she couldn’t open, but every ounce of scorn erupted in me immediately. I shouted with no concern for her landlords above.

“What the FUCK do you think you’re DOING!”

I demanded she tell me if she thought she was funny. The pleasant surprise on her face sunk into defensive rage. Her screaming voice was much louder than mine, so it overtook as she answered.

“I’M TRYING TO COOK BREAKFAST, WHAT THE FUCK IS THE PROBLEM?”

I’d never known Alice’s dad to be a joker, couldn’t imagine him turning into a prankster at the age of sixty-two. I wondered if someone could be so good at voice imitation they fooled me into believing they were a man I’d known for close to three years. It seemed unimaginable.

Shouting between us continued for an appropriate amount of time before dying down so I could explain myself. Then the shouting reignited.

She was as confused as I was. She explained that she had stopped to see her father the previous night and kissed him goodbye after the type of pleasant and short conversation that made up all of her visits. As her frustration with me turned to hopeless confusion I thought maybe I’d dreamt the call. Maybe my sleeping pills had had a stranger side effect than any listed on the bottle.

“Call your Dad,” I said, hoping he could give some clarity.

She rushed to the bedroom to find her phone, but emerged fully clothed rushing past me with a determined stride. I asked her what was going on.

Without breaking pace she said, “He’s here. I can see his car outside.”

The front door was still open from when I’d burst through it. She was outside before I’d even begun to follow. By the time I ascended the stairs she was on the front lawn of the house, striding across the lawn towards her Dad, who was climbing out of his car. I watched her call to him. The words seemed to not register. He walked inexorably in my direction, ignoring her existence. Frustrated, she stepped towards him, extending her arm to grab him by the shoulder.

What I saw next made me put my hand to my mouth in horror.

Alice’s father broke through her, the way a linebacker breaks an offensive line. Her body was flung backward effortlessly and she tumbled into the grass and dirt below them.

She gave a high-pitched grunt and a helpless whimper, the terror of which was only amplified by the expression on her father’s face . . . it was unchanged.

He never stopped walking toward me, even as his daughter lay helpless on the ground. With my hand over my mouth, my eyes caught Alice’s. I stayed this way as he reached me, and I was caught off guard when his arms wrapped around me in embrace. His voice was low.

“I know, Mark, I know,” he said, holding back tears. “There are no words.”

As he embraced me, Alice rose from the ground. She’d become furious, justifiably, and rushed toward her father, screaming. After a flurry of curses he let go of me, but he never turned around. She gave a hard slap on his back, but it also went ignored. Its impact seemed completely irrelevant to his sorrowful eyes. The fury drained from Alice. She returned to the same hopeless confusion she showed just moments ago in the apartment.

Instead of screaming, she gave a weak plea.

“. . . Dad?”

He spoke. For a moment I believed it may have finally been a response to her, but I was wrong. He was talking to me again. He told me a story that made his voice crack and eyes well up in tears. Despite Alice’s objections from behind him, he said he’d gotten a call in the middle of night that she was dead. He’d gone and identified her body. Alice tried to grab both his shoulders and shake, but with all her strength she couldn’t move him.

I spoke up finally, fighting through disbelief.

“Paul . . . for God’s sake,” I said. “How can you not feel her?”

“What?” He looked up at me.

“How . . . can you not see her?”

I looked past him, into Alice’s eyes. She appeared petrified as she contemplated her powerlessness. Paul broke into comforting assurances. He said he understood my shock, he felt the same way: as if Alice was still with us. He guided me into her apartment. She followed us, listening to her dad speak. I didn’t dare keep speaking to her, or about her. She stood with us feeling her own body, as if in wonder that it was still there. Circling her oblivious father, it was clear he couldn’t see her. Worse, it was clear he hadn’t gone insane.

After her dad mentioned funeral processions, Alice decided she would try to grab a glass from her cupboard and throw it against the wall. She scurried to her kitchen while her father and I sat together. I stood to follow. Paul asked me what was wrong. I assured him it was nothing as I found Alice struggling with all of her strength to open the cupboard door. I moved to help her reflexively, opening the thin door with total ease.

Alice and I stared at each other silently as I took out a glass and handed it to her. She took it in her hand before I let go. We maintained determined eye contact. I held my breath and let go, but exhaled quickly as the glass plummeted, almost taking Alice to the ground with it. She let go when it jerked her arm and we both cursed as the glass exploded on the floor. Paul, only hearing me, entered the kitchen. He looked at me with pity, saying he would clean it up and that I should go home. I objected.

We wound up cleaning the glass together, while Alice drifted around the apartment failing to move anything of weight.

At one point she sat with us on the couch, fidgeting so much that I struggled to listen to Paul as he mourned aloud. Alice had graduated from terror and confusion to a state of manic energy as she frantically touched her own face. She spoke rapidly.

“I’m right there, I’m in the bowl. I can see myself,” she said, patting her arms and legs. “I’m right here. I can feel myself and my . . . my clothes! Mark! I can move my clothes, I can take them off!”

She’d started to tear loose the buttons on her shirt when I snapped, “Stop.”

Alice and her father both looked up. He looked more surprised because he was in the middle of reciting a memory of when Alice was young. He didn’t get offended, instead assumed that it was too difficult for me to keep hearing about her. He stood up and headed toward Alice’s room. She objected loudly, trying hard to push me off the couch.

“Wait, what is he doing? Stop him! I don’t want him going through my stuff!”

I held her back, trying desperately not to respond to her for fear of Paul having me hospitalized. Alice’s new powerlessness definitely did not suit her. She kicked and flailed frantically to break loose. I yelled to Paul, asking what he was looking for. He responded by calling me into the room. Alice and I went forward.

He’d laid a dress on top of her unmade bed. It was yellow with a floral pattern and long sleeves. She’d worn it a few times, usually on early autumn weekends that we spent at weddings. The three of us looked down at it. Paul said softly that whatever we put her in had to be long sleeves, to hide the wounds on her wrists.

He had told me over the phone where she’d ‘been found.’ And after seeing the dress I wondered if it would do any good to ask Alice herself, why would she do it? Why now? Why her car? Why? The thought were broken by Paul.

“What do you think? Did she like this dress?”

I hesitated, thinking about the answer for a moment before realizing I didn’t have to. I turned slightly to Alice with my eyebrows raised.

“I mean . . .” she started “It’s a nice dress. I wouldn’t say it’s something I’d wanna be . . . buried in.”

I relayed the message: not the best option.

“I still have our things from before we sold the house,” he said. “Maybe some of her Mother’s old dresses will fit.”

“NO!” she exclaimed. “No, God, No! Mark, come to my closet, now! Can you open it for me, please?

I sifted through dresses and asked Paul if he thought black would be an appropriate color. We both agreed that it is what she wore most. She attempted to disagree, saying she wore just as much yellow. She asked me to stop once my hand reached a deep maroon one. I turned to her and saw a faint smile. I remembered glimpses of her in the dress at Dr. Buttar’s wedding, the way she looked that night as we moved through the beautiful hall.

Alice agreed the dress would do, so I showed it to her father whose face grew flushed and sorrowful again. I told him the story of the wedding while Alice listened. He put his hand on my shoulder assuring that we would get through this together. I agreed while looking over to Alice. Seeing her father’s pain had taken a toll on her. She put her head on his shoulder, but he stood up. While gathering his things he asked if I wanted to go with him to be with family. I refused.

As he shut the door Alice and I turned to one another, finally alone to contemplate the utter strangeness we found ourselves in.

She took a deep breath.

“I’m . . . dead.”

Part 3

We sat for hours debating what could be going on. Alice kept saying it must all be a dream, in one of our minds, but it seemed like she found it even hard to believe herself. Once she abandoned that idea, she grew more imaginative. She said that she must be a ghost: that’s why she couldn’t be heard and why she was unable to move or hold anything in the real/non-ghost world. I agreed, half-heartedly, that her being a “ghost” would explain most of the strange things that were happening. But she could sense my hesitation. She demanded I speak my mind. At first I resisted. I was afraid to hurt her with my honest analysis of the situation, but soon I wondered what difference it made and I told her the truth.

I said that it was more than likely I’d lost my mind. The only explanation that made more sense than being asleep, or seeing Alice’s ghost, was that the news of her suicide had broken something vital in me and I was now compensating by talking to an image of her that I was making up in my head.  

As I told her she jumped off the couch of her apartment with a dropped jaw.

She screamed, “NO,” before reaching down and slapping me in the chest with all of her might. Luckily I didn’t feel it. She saw quickly that she couldn’t affect me physically, so instead she proclaimed loudly, “No! . . . I’m not a fucking vision, okay! I’m Alice, I’m here.”

“How do I know that, though?” I replied.

She was intensely annoyed, “You should be able to tell from talking to me that I’m me! Don’t you know me at all?”

 “Oh, for God’s sake!” I called out. “Do you know how much I’m going through right now? I don’t need you scolding me on top of it!”

“How much you’re going through? I’m a fucking dead person!”

In the midst of our yelling I formed half an idea. Her father had described the upcoming wake and made sure we picked out a long sleeved dress, so the ceremonies must have had an open casket. I told Alice that it would only make sense for me to attend, and that going might provide some answers.

She agreed to my guilty dismay. I did think I was losing it: that I hadn’t completely come to terms with Alice’s suicide, and that once I saw her body lying in the casket reality would take hold of my life again. Until then, it seemed she would linger with me.

For the rest of the day we walked up and down one of the more crowded streets near her apartment testing to see if she was truly gone to the rest of the world. She yelled in people’s ears, slapped them in the face and did her best to bang on the shop windows, but still she went unheard and unnoticed. She even flashed some construction workers who were taking a smoke break, but they paid no mind. Either Alice really was invisible, or those workers were some of the most chivalrous in the world.

We spent the rest of the night at her apartment, watching TV like any other Tuesday. I tried to organize some of the clutter scattered atop the tables, but she would yell frantically at me to stop. She said it seemed like I was giving up on her along with the rest of the world, treating her as if she were dead.

I was her last connection and her only respite from an indifferent and unlistening world. Though she hid them well, I spotted the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

Alice liked to put up a tough front, but really she cried often. Usually it was only in front of me, especially during some of our worst fights. Around other people she only stiffened her lips and used her quick wit to cut apart my arguments. She didn’t cry in movies, even though she did watch them with such intensity that it seemed she should. Once, while she rubbed my blacked-out arm, she said she might cry tears of pain while getting a tattoo. I’d seen tears of joy sneak down her cheeks at Dr. Buttar’s wedding and her Father’s sixtieth birthday. The other, more somber times, I usually never saw tears because she buried her face in my chest and soaked them into the cloth of my shirt.

Before we slept that night I was able to make her smile by blowing on her lightly to see if she would fly away. She laughed while swatting at me to stop and I admired her before shutting off the light. In bed she rested her hand on my inked arm and caressed it the same way she had the previous night, before she’d become invisible. I could feel her touch, but it was faint.

In the dark while I thought, she said, “I love you.”

I closed my eyes and wrapped my arm around her. I could feel without a doubt she was still there, and I squeezed tightly. My fleeting thoughts in the dark were of how I hoped she would still be with me in the morning. But then it occurred to me, almost against my conscious will, that it may have been better if she wasn’t. I pushed those thoughts out of my head hoping to not be infected by them and then laid sleepless until day broke again. She may not have slept either. I didn’t ask.

The lack of rest was showing in my face and it could easily be mistaken for grief. When we arrived at the funeral parlor most of Alice’s extended family was standing outside. Her aunts and uncles had dug out their default wake clothing, dark and respectful. All of her cousins were present besides one, Brian, who had just turned ten years old. I wondered if they’d even told him what happened, or if he walked to his bus stop that morning like it was a regular day.

Heads turned as I drove past the small congregation. Someone must have recognized my car and pointed it out. Their eyes were all full of pity anticipating my approach. I purposefully parked in the farthest spot in the lot, to prepare myself for what I thought would be the unveiling of the truth: that Alice was dead and my grief was tearing me apart. I found it hard, however, to get into that mindset as Alice acted aloof in the seat next to me. She wore the same clothes I’d found her in the day before, because everything else hung so heavy on her that it yanked her to the ground like gravity was turned up 10 notches.

“Well, I feel underdressed . . . not that it matters,” she said.

One by one, her family members broke from the crowd to wrap their arms around me. Their faces were red from tears that had passed or were currently falling from their eyes. I returned each embrace until reaching the center of the crowd. There was Alice’s father. He seemed more gathered today, probably in an attempt to keep his composure in front of the others.

The ink on my skin was mostly covered by my shirt, but occasionally peeked out at my wrist. Family members nearby glanced at it, but tried not to stare. Only a few had seen my arm since its completion, but the others likely heard about it through family gossip and had conversations about their perplexity over it.

Alice stood with me at the center of her grieving family. She looked from face to face, but focused the most on her father. She spoke in my ear, saying he looked this way when her mom died. She urged me to pull him aside, away from the crowd that he was trying to remain strong for, because she knew he would only be worse off for pushing down his sorrow. I agreed, but as I was about to motion him aside the crowd began to move into the funeral home. Paul hurried off ahead of me.

I hesitated to walk forward. Alice stood next to me and I motioned for her to go first.

She responded, “Hell no! You go first! I don’t wanna see my dead body.”

I argued with her in a hushed tone, saying I didn’t want to see it either but we didn’t have much of a choice considering our situation.

I ceased my whisper when one of Alice’s aunts turned around to check on me. She extended her hand to mine while assuring me that I was not alone. As our hands clasped I assured her it was okay, I didn’t feel alone.

The hallway before the reception room was lined with couches and armchairs. Cushions varied in earth-tones: brown, tan, and green. The low tables held tissues and unbranded white breath mints. Automatically I reached for a handful of mints and shoved them in my back pocket. As the entrance to Alice’s room grew closer, the hand on mine squeezed tighter. I turned to her aunt for a moment of consolation, but then looked for Alice— the Alice only I could see. She was still next to me, but her eyes were fixed forward. She had stopped blinking. I brushed against her lightly with my finger, hoping she it would comfort her. Although it didn’t break her gaze I exhaled, glad I still felt her there.

The crowd of her family members parted in the middle. I felt their eyes turn to me. Alice’s father wrapped an arm around me and escorted me toward the casket. Alice followed closely behind. I could hear her sharp breathing.

I could see the grand limousine of a coffin, its wood glistening with polish. As I got closer I could see every detail and crevice of the white cushioning on the inside of its open half.

Every detail was apparent, because the one thing I couldn’t see was a body: Alice’s body.

Her father approached the empty-casket. I watched him reach into it and caress nothing before kneeling and beginning to weep. I turned around with wide dumfounded eyes to find that Alice— the one I could see before— was also gone.

I searched frantically among the crowd for her dark hair, and then I turned back to the casket. She was nowhere to be found, inside or out of it.

I started toward the door of the reception room. While I made my way there I felt more than one of Alice’s relative’s hands touch my arm. It must have seemed like the sight of Alice’s body was too much for me to handle, but my terror was for a reason I would never be able to explain to them.

Earlier I’d come to terms with the idea that I might have been seeing Alice as a result of not being able to come terms with her death. I’d expected this delusion to end once her body was in front of me.

While it would hurt to say goodbye, at least I could begin to grieve like a sane person.

With no Alice at all, no body and no ghost, I felt as empty as I did the moment I’d first heard that she was gone. All the hope seeped from me as I turned down the hallway.

Then a soft voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Did you see me?” she said. “Am I dead?”

Alice was curled up on a couch. I broke into a harsh and frantic whisper.

“What the fuck are you doing!? Where did you go!?”

I received some concerned looks from guests that were beginning to arrive. To avoid them I yanked the weightless Alice into a single-occupant bathroom at the end of the hall. She leaned heavily on the porcelain sink. My tone of voice softened a bit.

 “Where did you go? I thought you fucking disappeared.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was about to look at . . . my coffin and I — I don’t know, I just feel so weak all of the sudden. And now I’m scared to look.”

It looked like extra weight had been slumped over her shoulders. I placed my hands under her arms and lifted her whole body. She still felt more like a balloon than a person.

I put her down before telling her about the coffin. Talking with her lifted in the air somehow felt inappropriate.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re not in there. At least, I can’t see you.”After hearing myself say those words I paused and I started to talk more to myself than to her. “Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with me . . . I’m losing my mind.”

 Alice wound up and slapped me across the face when she heard me say that. I hardly felt any impact. That frustrated her, so she gave more useless slaps and yelled, “No! Stop! Fucking! Saying that! I’m still here God damnit!”

I held her arms down before she wasted what little energy she had left, but Alice never liked restraint. Now that she was strengthless she hated it even more. She gave useless kicks and yelled to let go. I did my best not to match her volume. There was a knock on the door. One of Alice’s aunts called in to see if I was okay. I assured her I was, before holding Alice calmly.

“Just save your energy, and let’s get through this.”

We reentered the reception room together, where Alice found an empty coffin just like me. We stood next to her dad. He said he was glad he decided to go with a dress that belonged to her mom. I politely agreed.

 “It looks good on her.”

Alice’s shook her head, “You wouldn’t say that if you could actually see it.”

The room filled quickly. Soon there was a line of sobbing, darkly dressed, mourners queuing up to give tight hugs to Alice’s dad and me. Each one expressed how sorry they were. We stood next to the coffin as mourners approached it two at a time. A gray-haired woman from Alice’s neighborhood stared inside. She said, “Oh my, she looks nothing like herself.”

 I looked along with her, “You’re right, not at all.”

Alice squirmed her way through the crowd toward me. She had been walking around counting the people who came in and noting who looked the saddest.

“There’s a line out the door. Is it weird that I’m flattered?”

I did my best to stay focused on the other people, but her presence was distracting. She still looked exhausted, but managed to scurry around like a little kid, eavesdropping on conversations and exploring all the wonderful possibilities of being unseen. I watched her until someone caught me by surprise. Their hands clutched my shoulders.

Dr. Buttar’s large-cheeked smile somehow conveyed both sadness and joy. And he only let go of my shoulders momentarily so that he could wrap his arms in a bear hug around me. I was much taller than him, but also skinnier. I wondered for a moment if he’d pop me like a grape. His wife was right behind him, but she didn’t have the same powerful hopefulness as her husband, so couldn’t muster a smile.

 The two of them hardly left my side for the rest of the night. Alice wished they could hear her, wished we were all in this together. She stopped drifting through the room and hung on every word they said, occasionally prompting me to ask a question or offer comfort in a way she saw fit.

A pastor from a local church asked everyone to take their seats so he could deliver a sermon. I’d drifted far away from religion, but his words were familiar. The nostalgia of them made me uneasy. My fingernails crept onto my left arm and began scratching hard at the shirt sleeve. Dr. Buttar was sitting behind me and he leaned forward to cover his hand with mine, stopping the scratching.

I stood up quickly after the service, ignoring Alice, not motioning for her to follow me.

I’d been harboring a notion to try to run away, from her and all of the confusion that accompanied the ghostly vision of her.

I was stopped toward the back of the room by Alice’s aunt. She grabbed my arm.

“Mark. Hold on, I’d like you to meet Kaitlyn, she’s my boss’ daughter.”

 As I stopped, Alice slammed into me and fell to the ground. Apparently she’d been following close behind in a hurry. I spun around, before turning back toward the girl with a scattered look. Kaitlyn stepped forward, seeming unsure whether to smile or frown. Her eyes darted to what semblance of tattoos were peeking from underneath my funeral clothes. She blushed after shaking my hand and offering her condolences. Alice’s aunt began to rattle off the girl’s accomplishments. Apparently she thought it was a good idea to counteract my grief by setting me up with another girl. She didn’t realize how poor her timing was.

 Picking herself up from the ground Alice muttered, “What the fuck!?”

Kaitlyn said, “I never knew Alice, but she must have been an angel . . . and so lucky to have someone like you that cared about her so much.”

Alice seethed. Her whimsical energy had drained, so dark circles formed under her eyes. She grumbled, “She’s kidding me right?”

I tried to get out the door before the situation could get any more uncomfortable, but another obstacle was in my path almost immediately. This one wore a red tie.

It was Dennis. He blocked the doorway with one arm, grabbed me with the other. His casual greeting was offset by his fiancé’s teary eyes. She hugged me softly and made her inside. He motioned me toward the back door. His first words being, “You could use a smoke.”

Alice’s eyes shot to me.

 “I think I’m alright.”

“I don’t know about that. You look like hell.”

“Babe,” His fiancé called. “Aren’t you going to come up with me?”

“I’m talkin’ to Mark,” he snapped. “Can you not see this as a time to leave me alone?”

 I averted my gaze, inhaling deep as his fiancée’s voice became staggered and apologetic. Alice murmured something about being right— about Dennis being a dick.

Out in the parking lot the sun had already started to go down over some dull gray buildings. We stood covered by cool shade. I took a cigarette from Dennis’ hand, slightly embarrassed as Alice stood next me.

Dennis pointed out I could, “Smoke again . . . without any trouble . . . damn. I bet you can feel her giving you grief from the other side.”

 Alice rolled her eyes. “Go ahead, I’m already dead, who am I to talk?”

The way Dennis sucked on every drag reminded me of when he’d first starting smoking in high school. And while I made sure to blow my smoke in the air, he had no qualms about facing the entrance, making some late arriving mourners walk through his clouds. Most of them kept their noses to the ground, so they didn’t notice me. I decided to stomp out the half-burnt clip and go inside as quickly as possible.

“So fucked up, man,” Dennis muttered, stopping me.

“Yeah,”

“Leaving you like this.”

I didn’t respond.

“Can’t imagine how you’re doing, ya know. Can’t believe she’d do this to you. It’s . . .  I don’t know, not right. You been sleeping okay? I hope— maybe even better than before.”

Alice seemed like she no longer cared enough to mutter unheard curses at Dennis. She leaned on a railing rubbing her eyes continuously. Soon the rubbing became aggressive, and moved from her eyes to her cheek, and down to her arms. While Dennis continued to speak between puffs, Alice grew frantic.

Her voice broke, “Mark, Mark! I can’t feel myself— Mark, I can’t feel myself.”

I moved toward her. Dennis kept talking.

“You two had some rough years, though . . . you got that arm to show for it, am I right? I mean you never told me why you got it, but I think it’s kind of obvious. You needed some kinda release, am I right, especially dealing with her,”

I stopped listening and followed Alice. Behind me, Dennis must have asked where I was going. He tried to regain my attention by grabbing my arm. No sooner did his hand clutch around the ink did I swat it away. My open palm found the center of his chest, and gave a firm shove. He was too surprised to react. By the look in his eyes my point was clear before I said, “Fuck off, man.”

I took Alice’s hand to lead her through the lot, but had to lift and check that it was in my grasp. My chest thumped. I could barely feel her anymore, as if my skin went numb at the touch of hers. I squeezed harder, panicking, and led us to my car.

She asked where we were going. I didn’t answer. I didn’t know.

I drove away from the funeral home before anyone could try to stop me.

Part 4

The engine screamed at the pressure of my foot as I weaved through traffic. Alice was crumpled in seat next to me. She curled into the fetal position and closed her eyes. I reached out to nudge her, but she didn’t respond. She turned toward the window. Streetlights passing outside strobed over her face. I gripped the steering wheel with tight angst. I still had no end in mind. I wouldn’t have stopped until I ran out of gas, had I not heard quiet weeping. Alice was quivering. I pulled over. I’d made it several miles down the interstate, but couldn’t have said in which direction. I said her name, but my voice couldn’t break through whatever sorrow was surrounding her. She’d been like this before, when she was alive — or, when she was alive to everyone else. There were nights where life would become too much for her. Her goofball personality would subside entirely, drowning in a tide of desperation. Sometimes there were nights I couldn’t stand her brokenness. I hated that feeling, hated my own frustration with her.

 Now I finally understood: I was broken, too— made that way from the nightmares that surrounded us tonight and nights before this. Beyond the shock, denial, and idiotic humor we used to shield ourselves from the dizzying realities of life and death, I realized I’d given up.

“He’s right,” Alice spoke, finally. “He’s right about me. I could only be the most selfish and worthless thing in the world to do this to you— to do this to everyone.”

She had been listening to Dennis. For the first time I felt more than a non-specific pity for his fiancée, I felt a rage on her behalf and I said, “Hey . . . Dennis isn’t right about a fucking thing in this world.”

She didn’t answer. I asked her to look at me, hoping to stare into her eyes with reassurance, but she still didn’t move. I shook at her stillness and got so afraid that I pleaded,

“Alice, please. Please look at me.”

“I can’t.”

I paused, stricken with terror. My lips parted as I realized what she meant. And when I leaned over to move her face for her, I hesitated at the thought that my touch would destroy her like a frail pillar of salt. She didn’t fall apart. My hands went numb on her cheek, but I could still slowly shift her face towards mine. When our eyes met, hers were pale white. She was blind and tears rolled down her cheeks.

She begged, “Can we go home?”  

I started the car immediately. I followed rolling, empty, and dark roads for what seemed like forever and no time all at once.

At home my things were where I’d left them the morning Alice’s father called me.

I carried her inside with ease. If my neighbors could still see her, they may have thought she fell asleep in the car. I made her open her eyes repeatedly, hoping the color would return. She said felt tired and asked me to put her in my bed.

I ripped my tie off and paced back and forth, wondering who to call for help, growing desperate when no ideas turned up.

I stopped in my tracks when I glanced at my bed stand and saw the sleeping pills.

The bottle was still full. It glimmered for a moment, seemed like the easiest answer in sight. But before I could fixate on it Alice called my name weakly from the bed.

“Mark, can— you hold me?”

Most of my panic melted away at her quiet voice. I ignored the pill bottle and climbed into bed. I held her close, placing her head on my arm and squeezing her tightly. I caressed her body, like she used to mine, hoping to catch the slightest feeling of having her entirely with me.

“I’m sorry, Mark,” she started. I urged her not to talk, but she continued. “I don’t remember doing it, ending it, but I know I’ve always thought about it. Sometimes I used to lie in bed or drive around for hours thinking about doing it— thinking about where I could go where no one I cared about would have to find me. I don’t think I could have made it for so long without you. And I thought . . . I don’t know, I thought I’d be okay. I thought I could never do it to you, leave you like this— like I am right now. I don’t know what happened. I thought I was getting better. I thought I was learning how to be alright.”

She released what sadness she was holding back and used what little energy she had left to cry. While she wept I held her against the place on my chest that she always seemed to fit most. I only let go when I couldn’t hear her cry anymore. She touched my arm after, caressed it just like always. She couldn’t see it anymore. I exhaled slowly, feeling a familiar release in my chest of letting go. I spoke in a whisper, motioning to the blacked-out arm.         “Do you remember the random tattoos I had before? That cat thing, those weird faces, the upside down cross— well, none of those meant anything to me. And this doesn’t mean anything, either. It’s not like the rest, it’s just some ink on my skin. I did those stupid ones for the same reason I did this stupid one . . . just to feel it. I wasn’t trying to cover anything up. I just wanted it to hurt.”

I watched her blink to be sure she was still there. Then I continued.

“I never knew how to tell you that before. I didn’t wanna scare you and I didn’t want you think there was no hope for me. I wanted to be strong for you, always. I’m sorry, Alice.”

“I wish you’d told me that when I was alive.”

Finally, I cried. And as I wept I took the back of her head in my hand. Through tears and my shattered voice I said, “I don’t want you to go.”

And suddenly, I couldn’t hear her anymore. First her lips moved with no sound. Then she stopped speaking entirely. Her pale eyes looked right through me. I squeezed tightly, shaking as I did, holding her there in my bed. I’d drifted away almost entirely. My bed swallowed me whole as I held Alice. I looked at my bedside table, but wouldn’t let her faint body go from my hands.

It felt like the end. And the end felt like drifting to bed— hanging on to her with all of my strength while caught in between awake and sleep.

On the cusp of everything disappearing entirely, I was interrupted by ringing and vibrating on my bedside table. My phone was on full volume.

Morning had come, and my alarm was sounding off.

My eyes shot open, as I sensed the emptiness in my arms, and I reached desperately across the bed only to find empty space. The sun was up and Alice was gone.

I sat up to peer around my apartment, messy as usual, and with a stack of unwashed dishes piling in the sink.

I turned to the table beside my bed and saw the pill bottle.

My hands shook as I reached for it and prepared to go back to sleep.

I prepared to leave a world that didn’t have Alice in it.

As I lifted the bottle I felt a familiar feeling of shock. Something I thought I knew the weight of was unexpectedly weightless. The pills were gone. A sudden bang on the door made me jump in fear and drop the bottle. I listened to a key turn in the lock.

 Alice skipped across my apartment before jumping on my bed and onto me. In her hand she carried a brown bag which she extended with her pale arm. Her smile and scrunched eyes were careless as a tree in the wind.

“Hey, sleepy man. I made you some breakfast.”

 She continued, “I was thinking about my first tattoo last night. I think the picture of Alice talking to the Cheshire Cat is one of my favorites. Do you think you know someone who could make that look good on me?”

I gazed in her eyes like never before and extended my hand to touch the side of her cheek. Her eyes closed at the affection and I breathed in the sharpest breath at the sensation of her skin on my hand. It was my blacked out arm that extended to her and she wrapped her hand around it. I continued to scan her face before, being overcome with curiosity, decided to pinch her arm. She winced and slapped. I felt the impact of her hand crash on my chest. With playful rage she shoved me with both hands so that I lay back on the bed. I couldn’t keep from laughing as she kissed me.