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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 110 When Angie held Cleo, sealed deep in the apartment's humid dark, humming distracted lullabies and peering into the haunted bundle against her breast, this is what she saw: Cory's pale eyes beneath her own high forehead, and behind them, where all Cleo's physical attributes came together-the creases and her eyes and the stoic intelligence behind them-the child harbored Patrick's soul. Whatever lurked behind their four eyes, Angie knew, was made of the same stuff. * The night Angie had seen Patrick's ghost standing over Cleo's crib, Angie had rushed up and down the hall as if expecting to find him, but she hadn't. Of course, she hadn't. But she had told him about the encounter the next time he came over. They had sat naked on the disheveled bed watching black and white reruns of Perry Mason on PBS with bowls of macaroni and cheese balanced on their bellies. "It wasn't me," Patrick had said without looking. Patrick loved Perry Mason and it was difficult to get him to pay attention to anything else once the show had begun. "You weren't there. You didn't see it." Patrick had shrugged. "I'm not dead. How could you see my ghost if I'm still alive?" "It was your ghost." "I don't have a beard," Patrick had pointed out, "Or thinning hair. Or a duster coat." But Angie wouldn't be persuaded. "I know what I saw. It was you." |
