Wild about Harry

Harry ran his fingers through his hair, the first sign of agitation Amy had seen him reveal. “I knew the difference,” he said. “I needed to say goodbye to Tyler. Matter of fact, I needed to bellow at him that he had a hell of a nerve going and dying that way when he was barely thirty-five.”

“I was angry with him, too,” Amy said softly. “One day he was fine, the next he was in the hospital. The doctor said it would be a routine operation, nothing to worry about, and when I saw Ty before surgery, he was making jokes about keeping his appendix in a jar.” She paused, and a smile faltered on her mouth, then fell away. She went on to describe what happened next, even though she was sure Harry already knew the tragic details, because for some reason she needed to say it all.

“Tyler had some kind of reaction to the anesthetic and went into cardiac arrest. The surgical team tried everything to save him, of course, but they couldn’t get his heart beating again. He was just…gone.”

Harry closed warm, strong fingers around Amy’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he said.

One of the patio doors slid open, and Amy looked up, expecting to see Ashley or Oliver standing there, making a case for staying up another hour. Instead, she was jolted to find cousin Max, complete with coveralls and toolbox.

Amy was horrified that she’d left the man kneeling on the kitchen floor throughout the evening, half his body swallowed up by an appliance that didn’t even need repairing. “Oh, Max…I’m sorry, I—”

Max waggled a sturdy finger at her. “Everything’s fine now, Mrs. Ryan.” He looked at Harry and wriggled his eyebrows, clearly stating, without another word, that he had sized up the dinner guest and decided he was harmless.

In Amy’s opinion, Max couldn’t have been more wrong. Harry Griffith was capable of making her feel things, remember things, want things. And that made him damn dangerous.

“Mr. Griffith was just leaving,” she said suddenly. “Maybe you could walk him to his car.”

Harry tossed her a curious smile, gave his head one almost imperceptible shake and stood. “I’ve some business to settle with you,” he said to Amy, “but I guess it will keep until morning.”

Amy closed her eyes for a moment, shaken again. She knew what that business was without asking, because Tyler had told her. This was all getting too spooky.

Harry was already standing, so Amy stood, too.

“It’s been a delightful evening,” he said. “Thank you for everything.”

His words echoed in Amy’s mind as he walked away to join Max. It’s been a delightful evening. She wasn’t used to Harry’s elegant, formal way of speaking: Tyler would have swatted her lightly on the bottom and said, Great potato salad, babe. How about rubbing my back?

“You’re making me sound like a redneck,” a familiar voice observed, and Amy whirled to see Tyler sitting in the tire swing, grinning at her in the light of the rising moon.

She raised one hand, as if to summon Harry or Max back, so that someone else could confirm the vision, then let it fall back to her side. “It’s true,” she said, stepping closer to the swing and keeping her voice down, so the kids wouldn’t think she was talking to herself again. “Don’t deny it, Ty. You enjoyed playing king of the castle. In fact, sometimes you did everything but swing from vines and yodel while beating on your chest with both fists.”

Tyler, or his reflection, raised one eyebrow. “Okay, so I was a little macho sometimes. But I loved you, Spud. I was a good provider and a faithful husband.”

Instinct, not just wishful thinking, told Amy that Ty’s claim was true. He’d been the ideal life partner, except that he’d thrown the game before they’d even reached halftime.

“Go ahead, gloat,” Amy said, folding her arms. “You told me Harry Griffith would turn up, and he did. And he said something about discussing business with me tomorrow, so you’re batting a thousand.”

Tyler grinned again, looking cocky. “You thought you were dreaming, didn’t you?”

“Actually, no,” Amy said. “It’s more likely that you’re some sort of projection of my subconscious mind.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tyler made the swing spin a couple of times, the way he’d done on so many other summer nights, before he’d single-handedly brought the world to an end by dying. Somewhere in that library of albums inside the house, Amy had a picture of him holding an infant Ashley on his lap while they both turned in a laughing blur. “How could your subconscious mind have known Harry was about to show up?”

Amy shrugged. “There are a lot of things going on in this world that we don’t fully understand.”

“You can say that again,” Tyler said, a little smugly.

He still couldn’t resist an opportunity to be one up on the opposition in any argument, Amy reflected, with affection and acceptance. It was the lawyer in him. “Debbie’s theory is that you represent some unspoken wish for love and romance.”

Tyler laughed. “Unspoken, hell. I’m telling you straight out, Spud. You’re not going to find a better guy than Harry, so you’d better grab him while you’ve got the chance.”

Only then did Amy realize she hadn’t felt an urge to fling herself at Tyler, the way she had before. The revelation made her feel sad. “Doesn’t it make you even slightly jealous to think of me married to someone else?”

Amy regretted the words the instant she’d spoken them, because a bereft expression shadowed Tyler’s handsome features for several moments.

“Yes,” he admitted gruffly, “but this is about letting go and moving on. Think of me as a ghost, or a figment of your imagination, whatever works for you. As long as you get the message and stop marking time, it doesn’t matter.”

“Are you a ghost?”

Tyler sighed. “Yes and no.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer.”

He reached out one hand for her, as he would have done before, but once again he pulled back. He didn’t smile at Amy’s comment, either. “I’m not a specter, forced to wander the earth and rattle chains like in the stories they used to tell at summer camp,” he told her. “But I’m not an image being beamed out of your deeper mind, either. I’m just as real as you are.”

Amy swallowed hard. “I don’t understand!” she wailed in a low voice, frustrated.

“You’re not supposed to,” Tyler assured her gently. “There’s no need for you to understand.”

Amy stepped closer, needing to touch Tyler, but between one instant and the next he was gone. No fadeout, no flash, nothing. He was there and then he wasn’t.

“Tyler?” Amy whispered brokenly.

“Mom?” Ashley’s voice made Amy start, and she turned to see her daughter standing only a few feet behind her, wearing cotton pajamas and carrying her favorite doll. “Did Mr. Harry go home?”

Apparently Ashley hadn’t heard her mother talking to thin air, and Amy was relieved. She reached out to stop the tire swing, which was still swaying back and forth in the night air.

“Yes, sweetheart,” she said. “He’s really a nice man, isn’t he?”

Ashley nodded gravely. “I like to listen to him talk. I wish he was still here, so he could tell us a kangaroo story.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know any,” she suggested, distracted. If Tyler had known what she was thinking earlier, had he also discerned that his widow felt a powerful attraction to one of his best friends?

“Sure, he does,” Ashley said confidently as they stepped into the kitchen together. Amy closed and locked the sliding door. “Did you know they have yellow signs in Australia, with the silhouette of a kangaroo on them—like the Deer Crossing signs here?”

Amy turned off the outside lights and checked to make sure all the leftovers had been put away. The dishwasher showed no signs of Max’s exploratory surgery. “No, sweetheart,” she said, standing at the sink now and staring out the window at the tire swing. It was barely visible in the deepening darkness. “I didn’t know that. I guess it makes sense, though. Off to bed now.”

“What about the story?”

Amy felt tears sting her eyes as she stared out at the place where Tyler had been. That was what her life was these days, it seemed, just a place where Tyler had been.

Harry sat on the stone bench beside Tyler’s fancy marble headstone, his chin propped in one palm. “Damn it, man,” he complained, “you didn’t tell me she was beautiful. You didn’t say anything about the warm way she laughs, or those golden highlights in her hair.” He sighed heavily. “All right,” he conceded. “I guess you did say she was a natural wonder, but I thought you were just talking. Even the Christmas cards didn’t prepare me…”

He stood, tired of sitting, and paced back and forth at the foot of Tyler’s grave. It didn’t bother him, being in a cemetery at night. He wasn’t superstitious and, besides, he’d been needing this confrontation with Tyler for a good long time.

“You might have stuck around a few more years, you know!” he muttered, shoving one hand through his usually perfect hair. “There you were with that sweet wife, those splendid children, a great career. And what did you do? In the name of God, Tyler, why didn’t you fight?”

The only answer, of course, was a warm night wind and the constant chirping of crickets.