Tears in the Glass

     I jolted awake with her scream. Was I dreaming? I heard Grace scream, clear as anything. As I thought it over, her voice rang down the hall. 

 “Kill it!” she yelled.  

I jumped to my feet, the swivel chair rolled quickly across the room and I nearly fell as I tried to get past it to the hallway. I pushed the chair back into the room and stopped in the doorway. The hall was dark, save for the light from my office. I’d napped into the early evening, I’d guessed, because the window was dark. The short hallway to our bedroom was fifteen feet long, at most, but our darkened bedroom appeared to be a mile away. Grace always kept a night light lit in our bathroom, to light our frequent trips as we grew older, and its faint glow emanated from the room. I hesitated a second before heading down the hall. It was fear, but fear mixed with wonder, that stopped me. “Kill what?” I thought. Something about it was more familiar than just her voice. My curiosity won over my fear and I walked slowly down the hall.  

I stood in the doorway of our bedroom and stopped. I stared at the mirror in the corner for a moment, the night light glowing from the bathroom barely illuminating the room enough to keep from walking into furniture. The glass reflected the dark forms of the bed and dresser, but no Grace. I stepped into the room and raised my hand to the light switch. Before I reached it, her sad and frightened voice said 

 “Please kill it, Nathan.” 

 It wasn’t a shriek, just her familiar and beautiful voice. I froze. Was I going crazy? The words were hers, and I had the feeling that we’d had this same conversation many times before. Maybe I was going crazy. What the heck, I thought.  

“Kill what, hon? I don’t see anything.”  

My words sounded like someone else’s there in that supposedly empty room. I didn’t have to wait long. 

 “There’s a spider! Please kill it!” she answered.  

Then I remembered all the times we’d had this conversation. I was the spider/bug/mouse killer in our house. My bold wife, independent and self-reliant, hard headed and contrary on every other occasion, was deathly afraid of critters, bugs and, especially, spiders. I left the light off and walked the three steps to stand at the foot of the bed. I was aware that this was the exact spot where Grace had died, but I looked at the dark mirror and examined it. There was a huge house spider in the lower left corner of the glass. I turned to the dresser and retrieved one of Grace’s magazines and rolled it into an instrument of death. I turned back to the mirror, weapon in hand, and moved slowly to get close enough to swat it. It moved slightly, just an inch, and Grace’s unmistakable whimper reached my ears as I hit the beast with the tightly rolled up glamour mag. The sound of Grace’s voice had startled me and I hit the mirror with a little more force than I’d intended. I was on target, as the now juicy bug could attest to, but I’d also cracked the corner of the mirror. Hearing no more from Grace, and seeing nothing but the dim furniture of our bedroom reflected back at me, I took the magazine into the bathroom and dropped it into the trash can. I unrolled some toilet paper to wipe off the mirror and stepped back into the room. As I knelt down to wipe off the remains, I examined the damaged mirror. It wasn’t much of a crack, thin and only three- or four-inches long. Should be okay, I thought, and stood up. Grace stood on our bed, looking relieved, clutching the sides of her pink and white dress. I stared into the mirror, amazed. She couldn’t be there, but she was. I didn’t blink. Or speak. I just watched her as she slowly stepped off of the bed and moved to me. The room was colder now, and I could see my breath in the mirror. She was standing inches from me, with tears in her eyes, despite the loving smile on her face.  

“My hero” she said.  

Then she put her arms around me from behind and lay her head down on my shoulder. I felt it all. Her hands were cold, but then again, they’d always been cold when she was alive.  I slowly turned from the dark glass and embraced my wife. When she lifted up her head and stared into my eyes, I held her face in my hands and wiped her tears away gently with my thumbs. Her green eyes glistened as she pulled my head down to whisper close in my ear. 

“I need you to do something else for me, darlin.” she said. 

Then everything went black. 

Until next week… 

God bless Y’all!