The way you said “I love you.” 28. When I am dead.
I once believed that I understood the nature of ghosts, but now I realize I knew very little about the matter. The ghosts I knew were creatures of hate, their souls blistered by their deaths and trapped by the cloying red clay of my home. But I? The moment the knife entered my flesh, it bleached my spirit. I am scored and scorched and cleansed. I cannot hate. I never could. I am not trapped - I am bound, by love.
I walk where she walks, the wife whom I chose, who I loved in spite of what I was, and though I can no longer speak to her, I am with her, always.
This is my reward. This is my punishment. Edith is mine for eternity, but she is for my eyes and for my heart, no more for my body. Not for me the softness of her, and the strength. She overwhelms the senses I have left, and were I still able, I could consume her utterly. She is mine… but I am no longer hers.
So I walk with her. I go where she goes, even across the waters. I am there when she writes, reading over her shoulder. I am there when she speaks with the men who would publish her work. I am there when she visits with the doctor, her friend, who is loyal and true, but whom she will not take for her own. She never will, now.
Because she is mine, and she knows.
She knows that I am with her, always, in the wind, in the red leaves that dance at her feet, in the butterflies that linger about her in summer. She cannot see me, cannot feel the cherishing hands I brush so futilely across her body, between undressing and sleep, between waking and dressing, cannot hear my whispers of love from across the veil.
But she knows, because we are bound. It is the nature of ghosts.