Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
September 2022
KYLE AND I ACT FAST in the weeks following our engagement. Due to a last-minute cancellation, we can have our first choice of venue—the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn—for the last weekend of October. I picture our reception in their elegant courtyard, with all that exposed brick and the twinkling lights we’ll string over a long rectangular table. Our wedding will be small—only immediate family and close friends. It feels fast, but we’ve been together for so long that the cancellation seems like a sign that we’re meant to be married quickly, surrounded by the people who have always been there for us.
It’s Phoebe’s idea to take engagement photos for us, even though we don’t have a wedding website or traditional invitations—since the guest list is so small, we’ve reached out to everyone individually. “You’ll still want to look back and show these to your kids someday,” she insists, and the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of having this ephemeral time in our life immortalized. She also connects me with a local florist, and Kyle hires a DJ off a recommendation from one of his colleagues. My mom takes me shopping for a dress, which we find at the first boutique and buy off the rack, exactly my size. All the pieces click together seamlessly.
The only item we still haven’t figured out is our honeymoon, but we’ve discussed several potential destinations. I surprised myself when I suggested Napa as a possibility. Josh grew up on a winery in California, and he was the one who encouraged me to open a bar of my own. Maybe I’m finally ready to make new memories in a place connected to him.
After the shock of Josh’s death, I took solace in my ambition and poured myself into my pipe dream, scouting locations for the natural wine bar I was determined to open, daydreaming about the wine list and securing funding. Grape Juice—a small brick space with stained glass windows in Cobble Hill—finally opened seven years ago, and is one of my proudest accomplishments.
But while I was thriving professionally, my sadness hadn’t gone away. Phoebe gently suggested I needed a hobby and reminded me of how we’d met—in our first year at Cornell, during an ill-fated attempt at intramural tennis. We’d both been laughably bad and mutually decided to quit after a couple of weeks, our friendship permanent in a way our athleticism wasn’t. I knew she was right: it was time for me to do something for myself.
After a reluctant Google search, I decided to try out tennis lessons at the Prospect Park Tennis Center. Just like in college, I was terrible at first, but I enjoyed the aggression I could let off each week, the satisfying whack of racquet against ball, the rewarding ache in my muscles afterward. I started doing weekly doubles matchups, and one evening, there was Kyle, with his curly brown hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a soft-spoken voice that belied his blistering backhand.
Josh had been gone for almost four years, and I was approaching thirty-four. My dating life had gone nowhere, but I had also barely tried. With Kyle, I found I gravitated toward his quiet confidence, the way he listened instead of always talking about himself. After catching each other’s eyes for weeks, we found ourselves paired up on the court, and I realized I was excited in a way that made me feel both hopeful and guilty in equal measure. After our game, we talked for almost an hour. He told me he had been an avid tennis player as a teen at camp but had gotten away from the sport since then.
When he asked if he could call me sometime, I gave him my number.
On our first date, I learned that he was the same age as me—thirty-three. He seemed too perfect to still be single, but I quickly gleaned that he’d been laser focused on establishing himself in his career, and that he wasn’t a fan of dating apps or flings: he was a relationship person, just like me.
I didn’t tell him I was a widow until our third date, on a long walk through Prospect Park with take-out coffee. It was the first time I’d told the story without coming close to tears, reciting it the robotic way everyone else had told it to me. It was an accident, a tragedy, but eventually I had to move on.
When I said it like that, I could almost start to believe it. I was miles away from the woman I had been at the funeral: wild-eyed, unwashed, practically feral. I could finally see myself how others must have seen me in the weeks after that awful day, as someone unhinged and broken down by grief. When I knew Kyle better, I told him about that version of myself, and how in the weeks and months that followed Josh’s death, my brain often tricked me into thinking I saw Josh in random places. But I left out my theory about Josh’s last text message, instead explaining Josh’s death in almost painfully clinical terms: He drowned.
Maybe it really was that simple. I was the only one who thought it wasn’t. Maybe this is what it felt like to finally move on.
Phoebe is waiting by the Boathouse in Prospect Park when Kyle and I arrive, her camera bag beside her, the sun gleaming off her shiny black hair. She hugs me tightly. Kyle and I decided not to have a large wedding party, but his cousin Matt will be his best man, and Phoebe will be my maid of honor. I was hers when she married her husband, Peter, an investment banker she’d met online after dating a string of noncommittal men in our years after graduating Cornell. Now, they have their daughters Brooke and Brodie, who are three and four, and during the pandemic, Phoebe quit her job as a dietician to pursue her passion for photography. She specializes in milestone moments: weddings; maternity photos; and newborn sessions, sleeping babies curled up and blissfully unaware as their little heads are topped with crocheted hats and tiny flower crowns.
“I’m thinking we take the photos on the bridge first,” she says. “The sun won’t be in your faces, and I think the way it’s hitting the water, it’ll look really beautiful.”
“You’re the expert,” Kyle says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
“I’ll try to have them touched up and sent to you before you guys leave,” she says as we make our way to Lullwater Bridge. “You’re heading out on Friday, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. For the past three years Kyle and I have taken our annual fall trip to the Catskills, where we rent an Airbnb and spend our days hiking, the trees scorched with brilliant red and yellow leaves. “But no rush. Seriously, thanks for talking me into this. I guess I didn’t think of taking photos.”
“Why not?” Phoebe says. “This needs to be celebrated.”
“I know,” I say. “I just—” Phoebe meets my eyes and nods. She understands. Most of our friends who wanted to be married did so by their midthirties; at almost forty, I’m the oldest bride in the group, and clinging to typical wedding rituals feels wrong somehow, even though it shouldn’t. Besides, I’ve been married before.
“I didn’t think of it either,” Kyle says. “But I’m not very photogenic. Phoebe, you have to tell me if I’m making a weird face. People always say I look like I’m cringing. Including my own parents.”
Phoebe laughs. She and Kyle have always gotten along. Her reaction to Kyle was entirely different from her attitude toward Josh. We argued more in the six months Josh and I were together than any other time in over two decades of friendship.
You barely know him, she’d said. And I don’t know—there’s something about him I don’t trust. He came on so strong.
You’re just jealous is what I couldn’t say. Phoebe had been with Peter for almost a year by that point, and while she was ready for an engagement, he wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t even looking for love when Josh rocketed into my life, but our relationship became serious practically overnight. When we eloped, I didn’t let her know beforehand—I kept telling myself I was waiting for the right moment—and when I did call her, she had been less than enthused. I knew she was hurt that I’d kept something so monumental from her and robbed her of the chance to be part of my wedding, like we’d drunkenly promised in college. She’d given me the cold shoulder for days, and then there was another, even more difficult call to make. Josh was gone.
Phoebe instructs Kyle and me to get into position on Lullwater Bridge. Beneath us, the green-tinged water is placid, a family of ducks scything a path to the shore. The trees around us are just starting to redden. Phoebe arranges us in the center of the bridge and tells us to forget she’s there. I lean into Kyle, my hands pressed against the chest of his brown suede jacket, my ring winking in the sun. His smile goes all the way up to his eyes.
“I love you,” he murmurs, like he’s actively trying not to move his mouth. I start to laugh, pulling his face down to mine for a kiss.
“The photos are supposed to be candid,” I say, linking our hands together. “You’re allowed to move your lips. We can talk.”
“I look like a robot, don’t I?” He pulls me closer and gently dips me backward, his face relaxing. “Is this better? I guess it’s practice for the actual wedding. I don’t want the cameras to catch me accidentally grimacing while we say our vows.”
“I promise I’ll try not to make my vows cheesy enough to make you grimace.”
I smile as my fiancé kisses my forehead, as Phoebe clicks away with her camera. I’m immediately swept back to my wedding day with Josh and the photos we took with his digital camera, his long arm outstretched to capture our sweat-shiny faces, cheeks flushed with sun and excitement. By the time I had them printed, he’d been dead for two months. They were so painful to look at that I left them in their envelope instead of framing them the way we had once talked about. Josh, handsome and alive; me, the happiest I would ever be. At least, until Kyle came into my life, proof that the universe wasn’t as cruel as I’d once thought.
We walk from the bridge to the Cleft Ridge Span, my favorite archway in the park, and get into position at the mouth of the arch, its regal underbelly rising above our heads. We stand apart from each other, with our hands interlocking, and when I smile, it’s real. It has taken me a long time to get here, but there’s nothing in my life to worry about. I own an amazing bar, Kyle is the perfect fiancé, and I have friends and family who love and support me.
“Now try standing back-to-back and reaching for each other’s hands,” Phoebe says. “Just switch places so June’s ring isn’t hidden.”
We shuffle obediently, and I fixate on the greenery in the distance as Phoebe clicks, as my hands are warm in Kyle’s, my back pressed against his. I watch a group of teenagers on the grass who are tapping on their phones. A little boy tries to fly a kite, but the anemic huffs of wind only let it hover briefly a few inches off the ground, despite his mother’s fruitless efforts to help.
“Smile,” Phoebe says. “And look up, just a bit higher.”
I obey, and suddenly, past the little boy and his mother, past the lazy sprawl of teenagers, there’s a man in a baseball cap, too far away to make out the exact features of his face. But for a split second, he’s staring straight at me, his eyes boring directly into mine. I gasp, a panicked inhale so hard and quick that I almost choke on my own breath. I drop Kyle’s hands, my body numb. The man turns away quickly, but not before I take in the sharp cut of his jawline and his familiar stance, arms crossed and chin tilted downward. If I were closer, I’d be able to see that cleft chin, those cheeks bracketed with dimples.
Josh, my brain sputters, but his name gets stuck in my throat. It has been so long since I said it—so long since I’ve talked about him out loud.
He’s walking away, hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans. I’m vaguely aware of Kyle and Phoebe saying my name, but they sound far away, and before I can process what’s happening, I start running toward the man, my heart pulling me in his direction like the magnetized needle of a compass, even as my brain stumbles to keep up. It’s not Josh—logically, I know it can’t be him—but there he is, joining the foot traffic of joggers and Rollerbladers and dog walkers, quickly swallowed up by a throng of students in NYU jackets. I lose sight of him, spinning in a dizzy circle, hoping to catch another glimpse. But he’s gone.
He was never there, I remind myself, trying to slow my hammering heart. It’s never Josh, not since he kissed me goodbye at an Airbnb in San Francisco and told me he would be back soon with breakfast. It was never Josh, even though after his death every man over six feet tall with wavy dark blond hair had me seeing things. Wild-eyed, I chased strangers down streets, grabbed sleeves and tugged on jackets like a kid lost in a department store. Is it you? I’d say, drunk on hope and hysteria, only to find myself in the cold crosshairs of a stranger’s eyes.
Those days—the darkest ones—are behind me. I haven’t seen Josh on the street in years, and I no longer leave my apartment both excited and terrified that I might stumble upon him. I stop and sit on a bench to compose myself, my breath coming in thready gulps, my blouse tacky with sweat. I remind myself of the mantra I learned in therapy: visualize and reframe the situation. I’m seeing him because my wedding is approaching, and subconsciously, I feel guilty, even though I shouldn’t.
A sliver of irrationality stabs back. But it looked just like him.
They all do, I remind myself.
“June?” Kyle says, rushing over to me. “June, what’s going on?” His eyes are worried, and behind him, Phoebe’s face is a mask of confusion.
“I thought I—I’m so sorry.” They’re both waiting for me to come up with an explanation. My voice wavers, and I know I’m on the verge of tears. I don’t want to tell Kyle the truth—there’s no need to bring up Josh right now, when we’ve already had so many conversations about grief, the bigness of my emotions practically engulfing our relationship. I don’t want to tell Phoebe either. Years ago, I would report my “Josh” sightings to her like scientific findings. He was in Whole Foods. He walked past the bar. I swear, I saw him in Central Park. Each time, she talked me down, her voice thick with sadness. Junie, you know it wasn’t him. I’m worried about you.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Kyle says, sitting down beside me, balling my hands inside his. And he doesn’t know how right he is. I will the tears away, forcing what I hope is a placid expression onto my face.
“Sorry, I thought I saw an old friend,” I say, slipping quickly into the lie. I shrug, pushing away a stray piece of hair. “It wasn’t her. I guess maybe I finally need glasses. We can be one of those married couples who start to look alike.”
Kyle might have bought the lie, but I can tell Phoebe doesn’t. Her eyes probe mine.
“I think we’re done anyway,” she says, thankfully moving on. “I got so many good photos. Kyle, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re extremely photogenic.”
Kyle gives her a sheepish smile. “Thanks. Only because you make me look good.”
His and my knotted fists swing like a pendulum between us as we leave the park, and Kyle and Phoebe carry on a conversation about where to go for lunch before I need to get to the bar. They’re carefree, happy. I should be too.
I huddle closer to Kyle, grateful for the warmth he gives off. While my love for Josh felt like a roller-coaster drop I couldn’t control, my love for Kyle has been a slow build where I can comfortably set the pace. I lean against his shoulder, knowing he’ll plant a kiss on the top of my head, and I promise myself that I won’t do this again. That the next time I see Josh, I’ll stop my brain from playing tricks on me, from dwelling on what I used to obsess over. They never found a body. He’s still out there.
I let my fiancé’s arm encircle mine, and take several deep breaths. I no longer believe in fairy tales, but I also don’t believe in ghosts.