In the dream, Sheila’s nowhere to be seen. I look and look and look. And search and search some more.
She’s close, I know. I can feel her.
But I don’t have hands to put out to try and touch her. We are in a place that’s empty of everything physical. It is just our intangible selves.
“Where are you?” I ask her.
“Where are you?” she responds. And when I can’t figure it, she adds, “See? There’s no easy answer.”
“Are you haunting me?” I ask her.
“You make it sound so sinister.”
“I want you back. All the way. Not like this.”
“Tough cookies.” She sighs. “Someone we know used to say that.”
“Grandpa.”
“Right, Grandpa,” she says, like she’d forgotten him altogether.
“He also used to say ‘you’re a tough cookie.’” I want to remind her.
“Me in particular?”
“It was just a thing he said a lot. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember banana splits,” she says. “I miss those.”
“You preferred milkshakes,” I remind her.
“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah.”
And then she’s gone again. I’m looking, looking, looking, like we’re playing hide-and-seek.
She’s waiting, quietly, on the swing set we had when we were small. We’re too big for it, legs stretched out long on the grass, hands engulfing slender chains. “Olly olly oxen free,” she says when I arrive breathless.
“Really?” I say. “This is what you’re doing with your afterlife?”
“What makes you think it’s my choice?”