by Jess Howe

Created on: April 20, 2008

"Why did you do it?" I asked the ghost. He was just standing there in my new apartment.

I did not need this. My husband committed suicide five years before, and I was still getting over that. He'd died because he couldn't live with himself after that kid died.

It's a bitch being empathic, having ESP, being psychic, whatever the nuts call it. I know when Ortiz is going to get a hit, I know if a friend of mine who lives five thousand miles away is in need, I know if I'm going to get sick from the flu. I can tell your fortune without tarot cards, thanks. I knew when the Towers were going to be hit.

I heard them, all of them: they were screaming in the end.

So now, here I am in this new apartment, and there's a ghost. I don't mind them; they're a fact of life. This one just bothers me because he's a suicide.

I'm considering calling my real estate agent to tell her there's a leak or something.

So I took a deep breath. "Come on, you know you can tell me." If I help them, well they - go. Or something.

"You believed in me."

That was the last thing I'd have suspected. "Frank?" He looked different. Maybe they all do, on the other side.

"You believed in me. I failed."

Now I understood. "No, Frank, you didn't," I said. I wanted to take him in my arms like I had so many times, to hold him close. We used to be each other's therapy. I, the special ed teacher, he the pediatric oncologist. "You did all you could - and more." Hollow words. I used to be more eloquent than that.

He stuck around while I set up my new place. I didn't need much, just a couple bookcases, a bed, and a desk. When Frank died I gave away all the stuff that was mutually ours. Too many memories. I felt like I was a kid again, just out of college, living in a house with three other women. I stuck a TV dinner in the microwave.

"I failed," the sad voice told me, hovering over me as I pondered overcooked chicken and beans.

"Cut it out, Frank; the hollow-eyed stare isn't going to creep me out and you know it!" He was definitely more annoying dead.

"I failed."

He kept that up all night, and I had an awful time sleeping. Was I more bitter now? Had I just become one more angry widow, crying "why me" to the night? I thought of the day I came home early, because it was his birthday, and I found the stove on, pasta boiling over.

Shocks coming from the bathroom. . .

He was long dead. All that remained of him was a note saying "I'm sorry."

But now, there was this.

Why now?

I tossed and turned all night and went to my job at the supermarket

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