I don’t remember seeing the car that hit us. Hell, I don’t remember being hit… I remember getting in the car with Jeff. I remember heading out to the movie theater. I remember the podcast he put on. And then I don’t remember.

Until I woke up in the hospital two weeks later with my family around me. But not Jeff… After the doctors ran tests, shone lights in my eyes, MRIs… after all of that, they told me about Jeff. But even though I don’t remember what happened – the accident itself – I knew he was gone. I could feel it. And I was told.

Let me back up…

Between the accident and waking up in the ICU, I have a gap in my memory. I can’t tell you anything about the SUV t-boning us at high speed, about the jaws-of-life, the Life Flight, surgeries, transfusions, laying in a coma – I can’t speak to that. But during that time I can tell you what happened.

At one point on that fateful night, lying on the operating table in the trauma center I died. No one told me that. I haven’t asked about it because I was there. I opened my eyes and saw myself lying there on the table, surrounded by doctors running around frantically while that steady whine of the EKG machine flatlining – the same one we’ve all heard in a million hospital procedurals. But you don’t expect to hear it while watching your body on the table. Bloody.

Then I found myself up in the corner of the room, seemingly floating, staring down as they brought in the crash cart, yelled “clear!” and jolted my chest. Nothing. They were charging to try again when I heard a rush like the sound of an enormous wave on a beach – exactly like a wave on a beach! The room brightened to blinding and I had to close my eyes against it.

Opening my eyes, I no longer stood – or floated – in the operating room. It was dark and heavy garments pressed against me. Before I had a chance to make sense of it, the darkness parted as a pair of doors accordioned open in front of me.

“There you are!” my uncle Dave smiled at me. “What are you doing in the closet?” I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t know what I was doing in a closet myself. He reached a big hand in towards me and I took it, pulling myself past the hanging jackets and scarves and out into the light of the foyer… of my childhood house. I stared around, remembering the multi-colored throw rug that dominated the floor, the fake-thatch textured gold wallpaper… I heard voices down the hall and turned towards them.

“Hey, Amy,” my uncle Dave’s voice turned me around to face him. He stood smiling at me in his beige suede sports jacket, the wide lapels of his shirt overlapping the collar of the coat, the shirt itself unbuttoned far enough to show copious chest hair. “Amy, are you with me, girl?”

“Uncle Dave?”

“Who else?” his face creased into a warm smile. “Look, honey, shit’s gonna get weird here, so I need you to listen to me.” I remembered he was never afraid to curse in front of us, much to the consternation of his sister, my mom. “Can you do that?”

“Uncle Dave, you’re…. you’re dead.”

“Amy, I need you to focus. Okay? Yes, I’m dead. So are you. That’s why I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?”

I nodded. I heard cackling laughter down the hallway – I knew that laughter. It was my grandmother. She died when I was young…

“Amy,” he snapped his fingers rapidly in front of my face, “Earth to Amy. Heh,” he chuckled, “I guess that’s kinda funny. Okay, Ames, look, you’re dead. I’m dead. We’re all dead here.”

“Is this… heaven?”

“Uh…” he held out his hand palm down and tipped it one way and then the other, “yes and no. It’s complicated. Look, we don’t have time to go into it now, but we’ve got to talk. You were in an accident. Do you remember that?”

“Accident?” I said still a little dazed. The memory of my body flooded into me and sucked my breath out. “Oh god. Oh god! Jeff! Where’s Jeff?”

“Honey… Jeff didn’t make it.”

“No, no, no!” I started to cry. I clutched at uncle Dave’s jacket. I was dimly aware that the talking and laughter down the hallway had stopped. “Oh god, no!”

Uncle Dave folded me into his big arms and I remembered his Old Spice and leather smell from when I was a little girl – it calmed me a little.

“You said I’m dead, too?” I squeaked.

“Eh,” he started, “That’s not so cut and dry.”

“Dave? Honey, did you find Amy?” I heard a voice float down the hall. I knew that voice. It was my aunt Gale.

“Yeah, I’ve got her. We’re talking. I’ll be back in a few.”

“And Amy?” the voice asked.

Uncle Dave looked down at me, patted my hair and called back, “I don’t know yet.”

“Can I see him? If we’re both dead, can I see him?”

“Honey, that’s the thing. He died instantly. He’s here…”

“Here?!” I cut him off excitedly.

“Here… sort of. Not exactly here-here. But on this side. You’re… what do you remember?”

“We were going to the movies… Tabitha was with the sitter… Oh god, Uncle Dave, how’s Tabitha?!”

“She’s fine, Ames, she’s fine. Keep going…”

“I was in an operating room. My body… flatlining…” I looked up at him, “I was dying”.

He nodded sympathetically. “Yeah. The important part there is the ‘dying’ part – active. You’re… in between.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, that’s up to you. You have to decide. Down that hallway,” he nodded past the macramé owl hanging, “is Gale, your Nana, everyone.”

“Jeff?!” I asked quickly. He nodded and I tried to jerk away to run down the hallway, but he held me firmly.

“Whoa, Ames, hold on there!”

I wriggled to get free but he held on.

“Amy!” he said stridently and I stopped. “Listen to me! You go down that hallway and you’re here. Do you understand? You’re here for good. No more living, no more Tabitha.”

That got my attention. The tears started down my cheeks before I was aware I was even crying. “I have to choose?!” I sobbed.

“Ames,” he said petting my hair again, “I know it fucking sucks, girl…”

“I have to choose?” I cried.

“Yeah,” he said sadly. “And what’s worse, Ames, is you have to do it quickly. I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules….”

I pushed back from him enough to look up into his eyes. “Tabitha,” I said. “I have to be with Tabitha.”

“I thought you’d say that.”

Laughter rolled down the hallway… this time it was Jeff’s. I knew that laugh so well…

“Will you tell him…” I broke down sobbing.

“I got ya, Ames. I know,” uncle Dave held me again. I let myself be enveloped and I closed my eyes.

The voices from the hallway ceased. I looked up and uncle Dave was with me standing in the trauma center.

“Clear!” I heard the doctor yell, then watched my body jerk under the shock from the defibrillator. And the flatline evaporated into the “beep! Beep!” of a heartbeat.

“I’m alive?” I said.

Dave held out his hand and made that so-so gesture again and nodded towards a figure I hadn’t noticed before. She stood behind the doctors and stared on. I almost jumped.

“That’s me!”

“Technically, that’s your ghost.”

“Who meets their own ghost?!” I yelled back.

The figure turned and regarded me with black eyes. I felt a chill run through me.

“Uncle Dave…. What the hell?” I asked, but Uncle Dave was gone. Ghost Me started across the operating room towards me. I’m not ashamed to tell you I freaked out a little bit. I moved quickly to put the knot of doctors and nurses – and my body – between me and Ghost me. She circled as I did, staring at me with those empty eyes. I first thought it was ridiculous running away from my own ghost. But as she fixed on me with those empty, black eyes, I knew in my core this wasn’t good. I don’t know how long we circled like that, but it seemed like forever. Eventually the doctors stabilized my body and they moved me to a gurney. Ghost me stopped as we both regarded me – our? – body, following the nurses pushing our body through the corridors.

At some point I lost track of Ghost Me or she dematerialized… I don’t know. I stayed with my body and saw my family and Tabitha visit and the sun come up outside my window. Ghost me came back once or twice and hovered around, but never approached or even regarded me. After a few days – they didn’t seem like days, time just… flowed – the ghost didn’t return. I started to get tired and I closed my eyes for just a moment…

And I woke up with my family around me. Mom, Dad, Tabitha… but not Jeff.

It’s been months now and I just got home. It’s going to be a long road back, but my baby girl is with me. That was my choice. I still don’t know what the ghost wanted with me in the operating room. I think she wanted to… merge? Does that make sense? But I’d made my decision to live and no ghost was going to take that from me again. I haven’t seen her since I came out of the coma and I don’t think I will, but when I catch my shadow on a wall, sometimes I swear it twitches on its own…