He never spoke to his son again.
This was the final handprint on Eddie’s glass. Silence. It haunted their remaining years. His father was silent when Eddie moved into his own apartment, silent when Eddie took a cab-driving job, silent at Eddie’s wedding, silent when Eddie came to visit his mother. She begged and wept and beseeched her husband to change his mind, to let it go, but Eddie’s father would only say to her, through a clenched jaw, what he said to others who made the same request: “That boy raised a hand to me.” And that was the end of the conversation.
All parents damage their children. This was their life together. Neglect. Violence. Silence. And now, someplace beyond death, Eddie slumped against a stainless steel wall and dropped into a snowbank, stung again by the denial of a man whose love, almost inexplicably, he still coveted, a man ignoring him, even in heaven. His father. The damage done.
Don’t be angry,” a woman’s voice said. “He can’t hear you.”
Eddie jerked his head up. An old woman stood before him in the snow. Her face was gaunt, with sagging cheeks, rose-colored lipstick, and tightly pulled-back white hair, thin enough in parts to reveal the pink scalp beneath it. She wore wire-rimmed spectacles over narrow blue eyes.
Eddie could not recall her. Her clothes were before his time, a dress made of silk and chiffon, with a bib-like bodice stitched with white beads and topped with a velvet bow just below her neck. Her skirt had a rhinestone buckle and there were snaps and hooks up the side. She stood with elegant posture, holding a parasol with both hands. Eddie guessed she’d been rich.
“Not always rich,” she said, grinning as if she’d heard him. “I was raised much like you were, in the back end of the city, forced to leave school when I was fourteen. I was a working girl. So were my sisters. We gave every nickel back to the family—“
Eddie interrupted. He didn’t want another story. “Why can’t my father hear me?” he demanded.
She smiled. “Because his spirit—safe and sound—is part of my eternity. But he is not really here. You are.”
“Why does my father have to be safe for you?”
She paused.
“Come,” she said.
Suddenly they were at the bottom of the mountain. The light from the diner was now just a speck, like a star that had fallen into a crevice.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the old woman said. Eddie followed her eyes. There was something about her, as if he’d seen her photograph somewhere.
“Are you … my third person?”
“I am at that,” she said.
Eddie rubbed his head. Who was this woman? At least with the Blue Man, at least with the Captain, he had some recollection of their place in his life. Why a stranger? Why now? Eddie had once hoped death would mean a reunion with those who went before him. He had attended so many funerals, polishing his black dress shoes, finding his hat, standing in a cemetery with the same despairing question: Why are they gone and I’m still here? His mother. His brother. His aunts and uncles. His buddy Noel. Marguerite. “One day,” the priest would say, “we will all be together in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Where were they, then, if this was heaven? Eddie studied this strange older woman. He felt more alone than ever.
“Can I see Earth?” he whispered.
She shook her head no.
“Can I talk to God?”
“You can always do that.”
He hesitated before asking the next question.
“Can I go back?”
She squinted. “Back?”
“Yeah, back,” Eddie said. “To my life. To that last day. Is there something I can do? Can I promise to be good? Can I promise to go to church all the time? Something?”
“Why?” She seemed amused.
“Why?” Eddie repeated. He swiped at the snow that had no cold, with the bare hand that felt no moisture. “Why? Because this place don’t make no sense to me. Because I don’t feel like no angel, if that’s what I’m supposed to feel like. Because I don’t feel like I got it all figured out. I can’t even remember my own death. I can’t remember the accident. All I remember are these two little hands—this little girl I was trying to save, see? I was pulling her out of the way and I must’ve grabbed her hands and that’s when I …”
He shrugged.
“Died?” the old woman said, smiling. “Passed away? Moved on? Met your Maker?”
“Died,” he said, exhaling. “And that’s all I remember. Then you, the others, all this. Ain’t you supposed to have peace when you die?”
“You have peace,” the old woman said, “when you make it with yourself.”
“Nah,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “Nah, you don’t.” He thought about telling her the agitation he’d felt every day since the war, the bad dreams, the inability to get excited about much of anything, the times he went to the docks alone and watched the fish pulled in by the wide rope nets, embarrassed because he saw himself in those helpless, flopping creatures, snared and beyond escape.
He didn’t tell her that. Instead he said, “No offense, lady, but I don’t even know you.”
“But I know you,” she said.
Eddie sighed.
“Oh yeah? How’s that?”
“Well,” she said, “if you have a moment.”
She sat down then, although there was nothing to sit on. She simply rested on the air and crossed her legs, ladylike, keeping her spine straight. The long skirt folded neatly around her. A breeze blew, and Eddie caught the faint scent of perfume.
“As I mentioned, I was once a working girl. My job was serving food in a place called the Seahorse Grille. It was near the ocean where you grew up. Perhaps you remember it?”
She nodded toward the diner, and it all came back to Eddie. Of course. That place. He used to eat breakfast there. A greasy spoon, they called it. They’d torn it down years ago.
“You?” Eddie said, almost laughing. “You were a waitress at the Seahorse?”
“Indeed,” she said, proudly. “I served dockworkers their coffee and longshoremen their crab cakes and bacon.
“I was an attractive girl in those years, I might add. I turned away many a proposal. My sisters would scold me. ‘Who are you to be so choosy?’ they would say. ‘Find a man before it’s too late.’
“Then one morning, the finest-looking gentleman I had ever seen walked through the door. He wore a chalk-stripe suit and a derby hat. His dark hair was neatly cut and his mustache covered a constant smile. He nodded when I served him and I tried not to stare. But when he spoke with his colleague, I could hear his heavy, confident laughter. Twice I caught him looking in my direction. When he paid his bill, he said his name was Emile and he asked if he might call on me. And I knew, right then, my sisters would no longer have to hound me for a decision.
“Our courtship was exhilarating, for Emile was a man of means. He took me places I had never been, bought me clothes I had never imagined, paid for meals I had never experienced in my poor, sheltered life. Emile had earned his wealth quickly, from investments in lumber and steel. He was a spender, a risk taker—he went over the boards when he got an idea. I suppose that is why he was drawn to a poor girl like me. He abhorred those who were born into wealth, and rather enjoyed doing things the ‘sophisticated people’ would never do.
“One of those things was visiting seaside resorts. He loved the attractions, the salty food, the gypsies and fortune-tellers and weight guessers and diving girls. And we both loved the sea. One day, as we sat in the sand, the tide rolling gently to our feet, he asked for my hand in marriage.
“I was overjoyed. I told him yes and we heard the sounds of children playing in the ocean. Emile went over the boards again and swore that soon he would build a resort park just for me, to capture the happiness of this moment—to stay eternally young.”
The old woman smiled. “Emile kept his promise. A few years later, he made a deal with the railroad company, which was looking for a way to increase its riders on the weekend. That’s how most amusement parks were built, you know.”