The Man Who Waited

Nellie knew her time was running out when she saw her dead husband's foggy silhouette standing in the corner of her bedroom. She certainly wasn't surprised, living to be 98 was not all it was cracked up to be, but she was comforted knowing that her soul mate was waiting for her. Nellie couldn't wait to see Ed again, to hold him, to chew him out for waiting to enter heaven until she was ready. He didn't have to wait, she knew she would have joined him eventually, but she was secretly glad he did.

She had been so fixated on the shape in the corner that she didn't notice when her daughter, Linda, came to her bedside and pulled up a chair. Only when Linda grabbed her dry, cracked hand did she notice the tear-streaked face of her daughter. Ropes of grief wrapped around her chest with the thought of parting with her only child, making her breathing even more labored than it already was.

"I've been seeing him more and more," Nellie said by way of greeting. "Your Pop, he's been waiting for me."

Linda choked on tears blocking her throat, "I imagine he's been up there tapping his watch for you."

The familiar image made both women smile. Ed would stand in the doorway of their master bathroom, look down at his watch and tap on its face until Nellie either kicked him out or finished the final touches of her hair and makeup. She would joke that it drove her nuts, but Nellie knew that the so-called "rushing" was just an excuse for Ed to watch her get ready. He'd admitted as much to her.

"I love the look of concentration on your face. You're always adorable, Nell," He had said to her once while wrapping his arms around her waist as she was applying lipstick. He gently kissed that special spot behind her ear, and she couldn't help but smear her lipstick at the sensation. If she remembered correctly, she had to reapply her lipstick a few times... and he had been the reason they were late to the Smith's annual dinner party.

Her lungs involuntarily gasped, which shook Nellie out of the memory and back into the present. Linda was right, that's exactly what Ed was doing in the corner of her room, watching her get ready one last time. She gazed into her daughter's eyes amidst the beeping of the hospice machines and the miracles of modern medicine that kept her alive for so long. Her little Linda was what she was going to miss the most about the living world.

The shape in the corner shifted just over her daughter's shoulder to remain within eye site. Nellie could feel him, see the familiar shape of him - the blurred edges of him growing gradually sharper as the seconds passed. She could see he was wearing grey and his hair was the same stark white as the day he died. The monitors' beeping carefully recorded her heart skipping a beat.

"He's here, you know," Nellie whispered, "Right now. Over your shoulder."

Linda smiled weakly as tears poured over her pretty pink cheeks.

"I'm going to miss you, Mama," Linda choked, "Tell Pops I miss him, too."

Nellie grinned and looked over her daughter's shoulder at the blurry figure. She felt the lifting and tingling of her soul leaving her body in her feet first. The shape of Ed beckoned for her to join him.

"You are the light of our lives. We couldn't have asked for a better child," Nellie whispered as she looked into her daughter's green glassy eyes and smiled with what little energy she had left. She knew she was speaking for Ed, too.

The lifting ran up to her knees and hips, her heart skipped a little more and her body gasped for air out of instinct. She gazed over her daughter's shoulder once more to the beckoning shape that would bring her to heaven.

Eddie, I'm ready, she thought.

And with that, she closed her eyes and let go. Her soul lifted from her body like a sheet would be shaken and lifted off a bed.

-

She no longer heard her daughter's soft sobs, or the normal sounds of hospice care. She didn't hear anything at all… or feel anything, she was neither warm nor cold, no wind, no breeze, no anything. Death was just an empty shell.

Will I be able to see? She wondered.

After what felt like eons, she blinked opened her soul's eyes and took in her surroundings. Her room was the same, but everything was a stark white, as if someone came in and covered everything in paint. The window didn't overlook her backyard anymore, but over a blinding bright void of emptiness. The fixtures and furnishings were uncanny in their resemblance to what she had in the living world, but were different in a way she couldn't place. She inhaled, no smells.

Remembering the foggy shape of Ed, Nellie turned to face the corner where she knew he would be tapping his watch. Panic gripped her throat when she met a pair of pale grey eyes instead of her husband's brilliant green.

Ed was not the one waiting for her. He was not the one who watched her get ready. A tall, thin, lanky man with skin so loose it looked like it could fall off his skull, stared enraptured with Nellie. His grey eyes trailed her up and down, leaving her feeling naked and disgusting.

"Hello, Nellie," the man's thin voice shouldn't have filled the silence the way it did, "I've waited a long time for this." A brilliant, white-toothed smile spread across the man's face and crinkled his grey eyes. There were too many teeth in his mouth.