It's been almost a year since she died, and yet I can still hear the Great British Baking Show playing softly on the TV inside. I open the door, and a her-shaped depression in the couch vanishes, the dog somehow falling confused back to the cushions as though something lifted and dropped her. I actually don't remember when she died, exactly. I never really had a chance to process her passing because almost as soon as she died her ghost was there, hidden inside my shadow. Not to mention that her death fell so close to so many important dates that I also screwed up constantly, so time got all mixed up in my head. Caught in a whirlpool of grief and once I found myself on shore there was such thorough destruction nothing was recognizable. Just the debris of some vessel I'd once sailed through life on, first mate lost, no mast in sight. A scrap of wood, a slide of brass. Fabric.

I have the impulse to say something, but I stop myself. She isn't there. Not really. I turn the TV off and sit down on the couch. I grab the dog and scratch her ears and she sleepily lays her head on my thigh. There is wine nearby. White. I drink it straight from the bottle thoughtfully, popping the cork out with my teeth and dropping it on the floor. I turn the TV back on and change it to Bob's Burgers.

When she was alive she watched me watch Futurama too many times. Maybe in death she'd prefer something new. I imagine being trapped between worlds comes with a lot of boredom. Playing through the same old scenarios, the same motions, dictums of behavior governed by the cycle of sun and moon. That's something that I've learned about ghosts. It's mostly a behaviorist's game. There doesn't seem to be a ton of thinking going on, just a lot of doing the same things over and over again at fairly predictable intervals. Then again, that is largely what life consists of. We're all governed by our own timestamps. Funny how in death those timestamps get stuck on loop, like the little things we enjoy suddenly become our lives.

Every couple of days or so I find used teabags in the kitchen. All the days in between there is a wine glass that smells of sauvignon blanc even though the inside is dry. Somehow every morning and every night the door opens and I can hear the faint clink of a dog leash. If I leave my computer in my room for long enough then I can walk in and see the last flash of a yoga youtube channel on the screen. Clean clothes folded but not the way I like. Old poems freshly written left on the coffee table. Pedicure tools by the couch. An extra jacket hanging from the coat rack. A book left out under the umbrella in the back. On Halloween I find fake spider webs. On Christmas the living room smells like pine. But these are all the familiar things. Things that remind me that she is still here. Somewhere. Is it her doing the reminding? These are metaphysics that I don't understand.

The reality is that she is not here. She isn't there for me when I get home, with that always-smile on her face. She isn't there to get excited for me when something new happens. Not there to tell me about her day and listen to me talk about mine. Not there to get mad at me for leaving my shit everywhere or listen to me play music. Not there to tell me that things will be okay even when I fuck them up so badly I feel unforgivable. She isn't writing any new poems or making any new watercolors, no new sketches, no new skills, no talking about new things. She isn't there feeling things so deeply that hearing her talk about them makes me feel them too. She isn't crying because that's just what happens sometimes. She doesn't wake me up from my nightmares when they get too strong, or pull me in afterwards and kiss my neck or ask me what happened. She doesn't remind me that it was just a dream. Because she isn't there.

All that's left of her is this ghost that drifts in and out of my peripheral vision. There one moment and gone the next. There doing all of the things that seem normal, and none of the things that I remember loving about her in life. I go into the kitchen, and put the wine glass in the dishwasher. I'll probably find a pair of her dirty underwear in the hamper, even though all of her shit has been well and good purged from the house for weeks.

I have thought about getting a Oujia board. My friends tell me that's a bad move. Well some of my friends do. Let it be, they tell me. You keep trying to make a connection and you'll invite in something you don't want. Something you don't understand. As though the fact that an actual spectral being haunting me and all my shit isn't a known fact. What else could there be? A demon? I mean at this point probably but seriously who the fuck cares if that happens, the more the merrier. Have you seen a horror movie in which the ghost actually gets exorcised? Me neither. So fuck it, let's get weird.

Weird thing about ghosts: they don't actually communicate. They just kind of, repeat the same stuff. It's like they are albums in some kind of supernatural music streaming app, and the things they say and do are on shuffle/repeat, ad infinitum. The Ghost Adventurers would know that if they hung out in the same place for long enough. My spirit boxes are broken records at this point. I used to be so excited, when they would spit out something that she would say often. Little catch phrases, you might say. And I'd wander around her office or our bedroom trying to ask questions and more catch phrases would pop out and I'd think 'holy shit we're communicating!' Turns out no, just more of the memory of her that won't go away. On repeat.

So I have this Ouija board. And I'm thinking: what the hell, maybe it is her. A hypothesis worth testing. So I pour myself some wine and I set up the board, and I put my hand on the game piece with one finger and take a deep breath. I think maybe if she's around then she can put her hand on the other piece and I can ask questions or she can just talk. If she is her, then she hasn't spoken to anyone in a long time and I bet she has got some shit to say. I take a sip of wine. And then another. And then it's half and hour later and I'm pouring my 3rd glass. My head is fuzzy, resting against the edge of the couch, and I can't believe my hand is still on the play piece and suddenly I feel it jolt and I snap my head up and I spill my wine everywhere.

There she is. She is her. What the fuck.

She doesn't move the play piece. She just smiles and takes my hand. She's wearing a black sweater and yellow plaid skirt, tights and boots, that red 24 hour lipstick she likes. Single shade of gold eyeshadow and eyeliner done just so. We walk together out the door and down the street to an old friend's house. Or I should say, an old friend of my brother's. He welcomes us inside, Hi! You two wanna check out the maze?

The two of us look at each other, excited quizzical looks matched. Hell yeah, we say and we're led down a short corridor with big tall windows and white flashing lightning outside. We go into the maze room and it is dark, there is a spotlight that shows where the exit is and the two of us go down into the labyrinth only to find ourselves chest deep in dark, cold water. We feel our way around for a few minutes and eventually decide it isn't worth it, exiting the maze and exploring the rest of the house which is covered in cats, nesting and breeding in the planters and drinking fetid water. As we leave, the old friend says good bye and closes the door and suddenly a very important part of my brain wakes up and I think, fuck. I'm dreaming.

I tell her, If their house is this fucked up when I wake up I need to call Animal Control. I can't remember whether or not we're still friends in the waking life. I look up as though the answers are there, above the clouds overhead that obscure my waking memories from my sleeping ones.

She says, why wouldn't you?

I say, Well I don't want to cause any drama and, (not actively realizing that dream-friend is not real-life-friend and won't actually remember my visit), he might think that when Animal Control gets there that I was the one who called and that might strain his and my brother's relationship. Clearly, lucid dreaming is not the same as being lucid.

I can call when we wake up, if you think that would help, she says.

I take a deep breath. Maybe my body does too, it's a very, very deep breath. Because this is the moment that I realize something very important.

No, you can't, I say.

Why?

Because when I wake up you won't be there. You aren't there now.

What do you mean? she asks. I sigh.

You aren't actually you. You aren't real. You're my idea of you, all of the bits and pieces of you cobbled together from all the corners of my mind. You're the you that I remember, who is kind and supportive and still there.

Well, she asks, where am I then?

Gone, I say. You left. I want to tell her that she died, but somehow that seems harsh. Can you imagine being told you are literally a figment of someone's imagination? Probably a lot to take in on its own.

What the fuck, why did I do that? Anger. Unexpected.

Well...uh, I guess it's hard to say. I don't really know if you had much choice.

Well that seems stupid. To me, anyway, she says. And this makes sense. I mean she is me after all. She is my grief, manifested by my incredibly precise and cruel subconscious as the person being grieved for. She grabs my hand, gives the back of it a light kiss, squeezes it. She smiles with her lips and when she turns away we start walking down the street.

I am still dreaming, and I can't remember the last time I felt this light. This normal, this...happy. Not like a flash of happy, not the burn of happy in your chest like a shot of whisky. Contented, at peace. The good happy. The best one. The one that only comes around every once in a while, the kind you forget to acknowledge is fleeting, especially when you feel it for a long time. The kind you remember most when it's gone.

She starts walking faster. I know that if I don't keep up my mind will have to keep cooking up more images. More houses and bushes and flowers, each one accelerating the inevitable end of this simple dream of being with the person I loved more than anyone I've known has loved anyone else. But she keeps walking, and I'd rather keep up than let her leave me behind again.

I chase her down the street. She is always one pace ahead of me. Round this corner, and the next and the next. The street narrows, probably because my mind is losing its grip. I can feel the mist between waking and dreaming seeping in. The clouds darken, the air moistens.

Finally, we turn a corner and there is a little cantina. It looks like the places we went to on the islands in Thailand but somehow this is clearly a mexican restaurant. We get a table around the back, outside, past a locked chain-link fence. All of the tables are some hodge podge of furniture from different eras, moldering in the elements. There is a TV from what might be the 50s but it isn't on and the pristine teal case sits at a contrast to the disgusting yellow couch we're on.

What would you like to drink? the server asks. I can feel the veil lifting. I sigh again. I know what is coming.

Something that will wake me up, I say.

I look at the dream-ghost of her I've concocted. Her face is getting muddy, like an impressionist painting. I rest my head in her lap.

I miss you, I say. I feel her hand on my head.

I know, she says.

I wake up, crying, as I have done a couple times a month since she died. All of those moments that I realized her ghost was not her and I was alone. I curl up and weep, let the cry take its course. There is wine everywhere, the glass is on the floor unbroken. The wave of tears passes. I look at the Ouija board and see where the game piece has moved to.

"Good Bye."