When Carla first appeared, I was so overjoyed I completely forgot she was dead.
"A shrine to me, Ian?" I heard her say. "Have you gone nuts?"
To be clear, I didn't actually see Carla—she was only a shimmering wrinkle in the air, but it was her figure. I didn't really hear her either—her words formed in my head like a remembered conversation, but it was her voice. She
was
there. Even her scent was there—a mix of her overpriced shampoo and the natural aroma of her skin that, until that moment, I hadn't even realized I had missed. Carla's presence filled the room and filled my heart, like she had every day we spent together before she died three years before.
She appeared just after I had lit the last candle on my corner display. Tearing my eyes away from her wavering apparition, I stepped back to survey what I had assembled. It wasn't a shrine. It was only favorite photos of her, votive candles, fresh flowers, and heart-shaped glitter sprinkled over a cream tablecloth covering the corner table in the living room. Okay, so maybe it did look like a shrine.
"You're not here," I said. "It's only my grief. Or I'm having a stroke."
"You're thirty-five, Ian. You're not having a stroke. I'm here. Well, as much as I can be anywhere."
I staggered to a chair and fell into it, squinting and rubbing my eyes as Carla's spirit flowed after me, drifting and gathering like smoke.
"So it's not a stroke," I said. "Then I've gone insane. That's fine. That's perfectly fine if it means you'll be with me now. They can lock me away and we'll be together forever."
"Oh, stop being so pathetic, Ian. You're better than that. I can't stay. But I can't move on, either. Not until you let go of me and find someone else. It's okay. It's time."
How could she say that? Didn't she love me anymore?
"I could never cheat on you," I said.
As much as it's possible for a formless phantom to roll their eyes, Carla managed it.
"It's not cheating," she said. "We're not even married anymore. It's 'Until death do us part,' remember?"
"I don't care," I muttered. "No one can replace you. You're my soulmate. My one true love."
"Your
first
true love, Ian. Somewhere there's someone out there who'll make you just as happy. Someone you'll make happy, too—as happy as you made me every moment of our ten years together."
I returned to the corner table to adjust the angle of a silver-framed photo—my favorite: the selfie from when we met during frosh week, grinning with dirty faces after the game of mud ball our team had just won. Falling over each other in the muddy field was a hell of an introduction and we became instant friends, hanging around together or with our gang of friends. In second year, I found the courage to ask her out, to which she replied "finally!" and almost knocked me to the floor with a kiss.
Ten years together. It had seemed like only months.
Carla's presence moved behind, embracing me like a blanket fresh from the dryer. I couldn't feel her touch, but she radiated deep feelings of love and caring and concern.
"We had our time," she said. "It was wonderful, but now you need to stop moping and live again. You have so much to offer. And you deserve to be happy again. Go find your next love."
I turned, aching to hug her, but there was nothing to hold. Dejected, I faced away with a sob.
"Even if I wanted to, Carla, dating in your thirties is a nightmare. And I'm just as self-conscious talking to women as I was with you."
"Let me help."
"Help?" I said, incredulous. "How can you help? Have three spirits visit to teach me how to date women? A ghost of hot dates past, hot dates present and hot dates yet to come?"
Even as a phantom, Carla had her same snorting laugh.
"You dork," she said. "I can encourage you. Guide you a little. Play Cyrano to your Christian when you get tongue-tied. Tell you if your dates seem a little off. I don't know. Something. Because you're not doing anything by yourself except mope."
I sighed. "Why now, Carla? Why are you back after all these long, lonely years?"
"I never left, Ian. I've been with you every day, watching. We're tethered. Wherever you go, I'm yanked along behind like... like a balloon on a string. I don't know how it works, but it took this long to gather enough energy for you to see me. Maybe it's because you're moping extra hard tonight. Because it's—"
"A week before Halloween," I said, sighing. "The night of the crash. Like I could ever forget. But why are you tethered?"
"Because you won't let me go!" she wailed. "You don't go out. You don't see our friends. You mope and pine and feel sorry for yourself. And jerk off. Oh my god, Ian, it's not healthy to jerk off that much."
I shrugged. "I have to get relief somehow. Luckily I have plenty of fond memories. You were such a sexy, dirty girl."
"And you were the best lover I could ever have dreamed of. But it's not just me you've been thinking of: you've fantasized about my cousin Ella, that girl at the coffee shop who gives you the eye. And Edna from across the street. Ian, what the fuck? She's got to be sixty!"
I blushed. "Yeah, well, she's still pretty hot."
"It's not healthy, Ian. You need sex almost as much as I did. And you need love. You have to get out there!"
The doorbell rang. When I went to open it, Carla's presence followed. It was wonderful to have her with me again, ephemeral though she was.
Outside, the October wind swirled leaves under the streetlights. On the step was a guy in his early twenties, kind of scruffy, kind of shifty looking.
"Collecting for UNICEF," he said. Instead of one of the little pumpkin-colored boxes I had every Halloween as a kid, the guy held out a can with a smudged black-and-white UNICEF label glued on it.
"Halloween is next week," I said. "And aren't you a little old for this?"
He shifted from foot to foot, avoiding my eyes. "My kid sister's too shy to go door-to-door. And they're allowed to collect all through October."
It seemed lame, but the guy looked down on his luck. Whether he was telling the truth or he just needed some help, fine. I dug into my pocket for some cash.