Wife Without a Past

Do ghosts write checks? The idea was so absurd that he immediately concluded that this was a person with an uncanny resemblance to Laura. Perhaps even a twin she’d never known about. Was that possible? No. A twin wouldn’t have the same mannerisms unless they’d grown up together.

The corner traffic light turned green and a veritable stampede of cars roared out in front of him. Drew muttered an oath and searched for a gap in traffic to run through. It was bumper to bumper and moving fast. This time he shouted the oath. What was going on? Suddenly it was like rush hour in New York City.

Finally he got to the other side of the street, and he burst into the drugstore, the tiny bells on the door tingling a small, frantic announcement. He rushed to the crowded counter area.

She was gone.

He pressed through the customers in line and said to the bored-looking cashier, “There was a woman in here just now.” He swallowed and tried to catch his breath. “A minute ago. Tall, red hair. Did you see which way she went?”

The cashier snorted. “Do I look like Sherlock Holmes?” A titter of laughter in the line brought a smug smile to her lips.

Drew tried to keep his voice sounding controlled. “This is important.”

“I don’t know where she went.”

He braced his hands on the counter and raised his eyes skyward. Then it hit him. “She wrote a check.”

The cashier nodded her gray head and settled back on her considerable haunches, a challenge clear in her eyes. “What about it?”

Drew tried to smile. “You won’t believe this…” He reconsidered. Better not to sound like a lunatic. “I think that’s someone I went to college with but I’m not sure it’s her and I don’t want to call all over town trying to find her if I’ve got the wrong woman.”

She was not receptive. “Uh-huh.”

“There’s a line here, mister,” a voice complained behind him.

“She just wrote a check,” Drew persisted to the cashier. “Could you just take a look and see if it’s the same woman?” Silence. “Her name is Amy,” he tried to think of a last name and his eye fell on the cigarette display behind her, “Camela. Amy Camela.” You’ll never be an actor, Bennett.

“Amy Camela,” the woman repeated dully.

By now his blood pressure had shot up to nearstroke level. “Please,” he said through his teeth. He fumbled for his wallet and slipped a five-dollar bill out. He handed it to her, feeling like a bad actor in a bad movie. “Can you look at the check?”

Unbelievably, she relented and took the cash. For interminable moments she sifted through the cash drawer, then produced a plain beige check and read. “Nope. Says Mary Shepherd.”

Well, what had he expected?

He’d expected Laura. He’d been so sure, so completely sure, that the cashier was going to say Laura Bennett that it took him a moment to comprehend what she had said. “Mary Shepherd?” he repeated, knowing as he spoke how insane his contention was. “You must have picked up the wrong check.”

With that the cashier’s patience reached its limit. “Look, fella, this is the only check I got today.”

“Okay.” He started to turn away, then turned back and asked, “Did you happen to notice if she was left-handed or right-handed?” Laura was left-handed. But what would finding out prove?

The cashier glared at him. “No.” She looked behind him. “Next, please.”

Drew stepped back. Mary Shepherd. This had to be a dream. A terribly realistic dream.

Or was he going insane?

Of course he was going insane. He’d just followed “Laura” across town. If that wasn’t crazy, what was? Outside, he stopped by a strip of sidewalk shops and leaned against the warm stucco wall. He tilted his face toward the sun, then closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. Had it been some sort of mirage? Or had he invented the whole thing? That was seeming more and more possible.

Maybe he needed a vacation. He and Samantha could go someplace far away from Nantucket, far from the memories that haunted every street and alleyway. Samantha had been talking about going away anyhow. After seeing nothing but ocean all year round, she wanted to go to the mountains. Maybe that was just the break he needed.

He opened his eyes and glanced at his watch. One o’clock. One o’clock and no specters in sight. It was just an ordinary Wednesday afternoon. Might as well get back to work, he thought. As if I can get anything done today.

His gait back was slow and decidedly heavy. His head ached, and his stomach was in knots. He was tired, he decided, not insane. Drew almost smiled to himself. Bennetts didn’t go insane—his father never would have tolerated it

By the time he got to the town house with the Biggins, Bennett and Holloway, Architects sign, he had just about convinced himself that he’d seen a woman that looked something like Laura and his imagination had conjured the rest. He was probably coming down with the flu and had experienced an elaborate hallucination.

Then he saw her again.

She was slipping some postcards into a mailbox not half a block away. This time there was no one else around her, and he got a good look. She was real, all right—and if nothing else, this Mary Shepherd had an extraordinary resemblance to Laura. He wondered again if she was a twin, but he couldn’t believe Laura’s overbearing mother could ever give up anything she considered hers. And she’d always considered Laura hers.

The woman held the last postcard back and took a pen out. She jotted something on it.

With her left hand.

“Hey!” Drew called to her in a voice that trembled. “Laura!”

She didn’t even look at him. Instead, she raised her hand to stop a passing cab, and thrust the card at the mailbox, apparently without noticing it slip to the ground. She stepped into the street toward the car.

“Hey!” he called again.

She didn’t pause, she didn’t turn, she just opened the door and climbed in. As the car trundled toward him, he breathed her name one more time. She turned and looked straight at him. It was an arrow to the heart. Her face was as familiar to him as his own child’s except for the utterly blank expression in her eyes.

It was more than blank, it was totally empty. No spark, no smile, no anger, nothing. No emotion at all. She was like a ghost—he went cold at the thought— or a shadow of a person from another time.

A chill—was it fear?—rattled through him.

“Damn it,” he muttered as the car disappeared around a corner. Of all the things he would have imagined feeling at seeing Laura again, fear shouldn’t have been on the list.

He went to the postcard on the ground and picked it up. His adrenal glands must have worn themselves out because, even as he studied the handwriting, certain it was Laura’s, he was numb.

The card was addressed to a Nella Laraby in Litchfield, Connecticut.

Dear Nella,

Everyone was right, this island is heavenly. It’s exactly the respite I needed. Thanks again for all your help. I can’t wait to see you next week and tell you all about the trip.

Love to all, Mary

Mary. Further proof that this was just a case of mistaken identity. Not a ghost, not a hallucination.

He looked back at the postcard, thinking maybe he should hold on to it as proof. But what did it prove? And who did he need to prove it to? It was handwriting, that was all, and signed by “Mary.” No one would take it as proof that Laura was around. It even gave him doubts. Besides, he had no right to keep it. He opened the mailbox and dropped the card in.

Someone clapped a hand on his shoulder and Drew jumped.

“Whoa! Didn’t mean to scare you, buddy,” Drew’s friend and co-worker Vince Reese said. “What’s going on? What are you doing out here?”

Drew turned to face Vince, whose clownlike orange hair on his tall, lanky body was like a flame on a matchstick. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. You’d think I was nuts. Hell, I think maybe I’m nuts.”