Saving Elijah

felt even closer for having had essentially the same conversation with our two mothers.
    "You won't make me kneel before a cross or a priest at our wedding, will you?" I whispered, kissing him lightly on the lips.
    He laughed. "No. But you'll have to kneel before me every night."
    "Anything you say," I told him.
    We looked into each other's eyes. Thus ended the most serious conversation we'd ever had on the subject, for in seconds we were making love.

    *    *    *

    "Are you okay, Dinah?" Charlotte asked now in the cafeteria. A pair of doctors were walking by the table, carrying trays, and I was hearing her warning in my head: Things happen that you never expect.
    No. I wasn't okay. Who would have ever thought this would happen? It had happened to Charlotte's mother, but that was a different time, and that was a different place, and that wasn't me. Who would have thought anything could hurt so much?
    "Dinah?"
    I pushed chicken and rice around on my plate. Why had I gotten this? Maybe something dry, something like crackers, or plain bread. "I'm all right."
    But I wasn't all right. I was so muddled I couldn't determine whether the breach between Sam and me had anything to do with our two different religions, with two different viewpoints, as Charlotte had suggested all those years before, but I certainly couldn't deny that the breach was there. I hated everything Sam said. I even hated him. And I hated Charlotte even more, for having been right.
    "Dinah?"
    The ghost was making lewd gestures in front of my mother's face.
    "Please stop."
    "Fiddle dee dee." He wagged his finger coquettishly, Vivien Leigh in drag. "You can't stand the woman. There were times when you were a little girl that you wanted to put your little hands around her neck, and squeeze. Still do. Try to deny it. And I'll call you a liar.
    "I'm not going to deny it."
    "Of course not." The ghost put his face next to my mother's face. My mother brushed away a strand of hair. "You certainly haven't kept that old honor-thy-father-and-mother commandment. Have you now?"
    I stared. "Yes but my mother was so difficult, I—"
    The ghost wagged a finger in my face again. "Uh, uh, uh. It isn't honor thy mother unless she's difficult, is it now? Why don't you do your Charlotte imitation right now? I'm sure they'd all love to hear it."
    "How do you know about that, too?" Even about that.
    A whistling noise whizzed out of his mouth. "Well. I'm really getting annoyed. I know because I've seen you do it, babe."
    What was he talking about? I had to be going mad. "When?"
    "Go ahead, admit it. You despise her."
    Obviously I wasn't going to get an explanation. For any of this. For him. "She bothers me less than she used to."
    "Liar!"
    "Go ahead, Dinah," Charlotte said. "Eat."
    "Go ahead, Dinah. Eat." The ghost had her drawl, her tone and mannerisms exactly.
    "Go away."
    The ghost cooed, "Where would you like me to go?"
    I gestured toward an elderly couple and a middle-aged woman sitting at a table nearby. "What about hanging around them for a while?"
    He didn't even move his eyes toward them. "I'm only for you, who are they?"
    "Dinah doesn't have to eat if she doesn't want to," my father said.
    I stared at my father. Was he actually defending me? He never used to defend me, back when I was a child and needed defending. Well, not never. But rarely.
    "No, no, of course she doesn't have to eat," Charlotte said.
    Silence.
    "I'm going to cancel the new store opening," my mother said suddenly. Other women retire at seventy. Charlotte was opening a store in Phoenix. Tears welled up in her eyes. "I don't think I can go through with it."
    A very tall doctor carrying a full tray of food jostled the table. The ghost was making lewd gestures again.
    "I don't think Dinah cares about that right now, Charlotte," my father said.
    My mother put her fork down, pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket, and dabbed at her eyes. "You can't think about it all the time. I know she's upset, Martin. We're all upset. You have to take a break sometime."
    "I need to go upstairs," I said. Was she complaining that this was taking too much of her precious time? Was she thinking that she was being forced to support me and I'd be beholden to her forever after?
    "I'll go with you," my mother said.
    "Please," I said. "I need to be by myself for a little while."
    She looked hurt. Which did not surprise me, knowing how insulted my mother becomes at lesser or even imaginary slights. What surprised me was the