Saving Elijah

beside me. "Be with me now."
    "Be with you? I hate you."
    Its laugh bounces off the moon and stars.
    "Then wash the guilt from your hands," it says.

    *    *    *

    I was back in my bathroom, and the demon was gone, and my hands were covered with blood. I began to rub at my skin, at the dark stains on my fingers and my dusky palms, to scour and massage, but no matter how hard I rubbed, the blood remained.
    "Dinah?" Sam was standing in the doorway. "It's three o'clock in the morning and you're standing here, rubbing at your hands like Lady Macbeth."
    I burst into tears. The demon had done it on purpose. It wanted me to tell Sam.
    "What is it, Di? What is going on?"
    I stared at the man I'd been married to for half my life. I had to tell him.
    "Are you sure you want to know?"
    He nodded. I wiped my eyes and took a breath. "Do you remember when I said I heard singing in the hospital?"
    Another nod.
    "It was Elijah's lullaby. 'Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.' Someone was singing it."
    "What does that have to do with this?"
    "Listen to me, Sam." I clasped my hands together. "I kept hearing the song. And hearing it. And hearing it. So I went out into the corridor. I saw a ghost, Sam."
    "You saw a ghost." His voice was flat, without inflection. It was not a question, not even a statement, just words strung together.
    "Or a demon, I'm not sure which."
    He studied my face for a long time. "Oh God, Dinah," he said finally. "You're serious."
    "Very serious."
    He rubbed both palms against his cheeks, then said, "I think I need a drink."
    I stared. "Since when do you drink in the middle of the night!"
    He pulled on his robe. "Only when my wife tells me she saw a ghost."
    "Sam, you know me." I followed him into the living room. "You know I'm not the kind of person who'd imagine something like this. You know that."
    He went to the bar and poured himself a stiff drink—scotch, yet. Then sat down on one of the sofas and took a swallow. "I don't know, Dinah. I mean, Elijah's been sick, and you've been worried, and under a lot of pressure."
    "Sam, please. Elijah said he heard his lullaby. Remember?"
    "But he could have heard you, or Kate was singing. He was in a coma, after all. They say people hear others talking sometimes around them when they're in a coma."
    "And he could have heard what I heard, Sam."
    He sighed and took another swallow. "All right, tell me. You saw a ghost."
    "There was this being, in the corridor. Just sitting on the bench, playing a guitar."
    "A guitar-playing being? But this was a ghost. Dead. Right?"
    "That's right."
    "And did it speak—did this ghost speak to you?"
    I started to laugh. "Speak? God, yes. Hours and hours, it spoke. Day and night. This ghost has verbal diarrhea."
    He sighed. "Dinah, Dinah ... You're the psychologist. Anyone can snap."
    "Please, Sam. I'm trying to tell you this. It's hard enough."
    "I'm sorry. What did the being look like?"
    "Pink. Like it was made out of cotton candy. And it was wearing muddy boots and bell-bottom jeans and a black leather jacket. It looked like a hippie." I took another deep breath. "Sam, you know I had a lover before you."
    "I should think you had several. Who cares?"
    "Well, he obviously does."
    "Who?"
    "Seth does. Seth Lucien, my first lover. That's who it is."
    "Dinah, please, I'm trying here. That's who what is? There's this ghost, there's your lover—your lover before we married, right? What's he got to do with your ghost?"
    "He is the ghost. He says he's the ghost of Seth Lucien, who was my lover before you."
    "What about David?"
    "Before him."
    Sam got up, paced around a few minutes, sat back down on the sofa. Heavily. "So you're being haunted. By the ghost of a dead lover."
    "I know how nutty it sounds, Sam."
    He stared at me. "Nutty.'' Dinah, this is way, way beyond nutty."
    "Don't you think I know that?"
    He got up and began pacing again, holding his drink in his hand, the ice tinkling in the glass. "Dinah, you really have to get some help."
    "Listen to me, Sam. In the hospital I kept seeing this ghost, and seeing him, and he kept tormenting me."
    "How could you be any more tormented?"
    "He destroyed my hope."
    "Hope is what you have inside, you're in charge of it, Dinah. That makes no sense."
    "He showed me, Sam. Somehow he showed me what could happen, the worst that could happen. He's still doing it. Were you always so sure Elijah was going to make it?"
    Sam sighed. "I don't know, I tried to be sure."
    "In a way, at first, he gave me some comfort.