“When I get to the other side, I will let you know. I’ll tap out our code and tell you what I've found.”
When Harry dies on a Halloween afternoon, Bess is there, his brother too.
“I’m tired of fighting,” he tells them softly. “Guess this is going to get me,” and his eyes drift up and away. A ruptured appendix, not a punch to the stomach from an excited college student after a show the week before, though that makes a better story.
Harry loved stories: the time when, while adventuring in Russia, he escaped from a locked Siberian transport cell; or what it felt like to be submerged in a milk can filled with water hearing the muffled murmurs from the audience as half hoped he would emerge alive the other half, dead; how he walked through a solid brick wall without a hair out of place; how he infiltrated seances with a mix of charm and half belief, exposing fake mediums who made money off of a family's grief. And then, there was the last story, Harry, standing in the rain, looking up at the moon over his and Bess' New York home, coming in, wet feet staining the carpet, telling her, sweetheart of mine, I don't think I'll ever see this place alive again.
Bess keeps a light burning red over Harry's framed photograph at every séance for the next ten years. On Halloween night, she listens for the code, “Rosabelle, Rosabelle,” a song from her old vaudeville days, inscribed in her wedding band, “Rosabelle, believe.” She watches the mediums carefully, waiting for their mouths to form the words that never come.
A decade later, as an uncommonly cold Halloween falls away to All Saints' Day, the roof of
The Knickerbocker Hotel overlooking the Hollywoodland sign is filled with people awaiting news from the afterlife. For hours Harry is called upon to prove he is waiting somewhere, to prove he has been watching. to prove there is more. There is no sound except from the audience, some crying softly, others tapping their watches. And when she feels her own eyelids drooping, Bess leans close to Harry's photograph, “I’m sorry, my dear, ten years is long enough to wait for any man. Good night. Harry, it is finished,” and extinguishes the red light.
As she rises, smoothing her dress, flexing her numb fingers, the sky opens, a cold shower of rain lasting just long enough to soak everyone through, before stopping, suddenly. Bess looks up at the moon and smiles.
When she goes to bed that night, she dreams of Harry for the first time in a long time. He is 20 years old, Bess 18, both so beautiful they glow. And as Coney Island swirls around them they perform ‘Metamorphosis,’ Young Harry squeezing her handcuffed wrist before shutting and locking their big hand-me-down red trunk with a flourish, whooshing a curtain up and over his body and letting it fall to reveal Young Bess standing atop the trunk. She watches herself bow before producing a key from the air and, jumping lightly to the stage, unlocks the trunk. Bess hears a collective intake of breath from an invisible audience and, when Young Bess looks down, Young Harry is not there, where he is meant to be. Young Bess' eyes go so wide Bess can hear the elastic sound as they stretch, mixing with the murmurs and whispers of the crowd.
The scene changes, and Bess finds herself at their old New York home, the sky dark, rain tap-tap-tapping against the front window. The moon is nearly full, a small sliver lopped off, and she feels the soft graze of fingertips at the edges of her hair.
Rosabelle, sweet Rosabelle, Harry's voice says soft. I love you more than I can tell, over me you cast a spell.
Bess grasps his hand with hers. Leaning against him, she finishes, I love you my sweet Rosabelle, believe me, believe.
Harry kisses her temple, breathes in and out, oh how she's missed that sound! Her eyelashes flutter against his soft curls. I tried to find you, she whispers, years and years.
I was up there.
She can hear the smile in his voice.
I’m part of the rain now, didn't you know?
I didn't, she shakes her head.
Oh, sweetheart of mine, how little you do, how little we all do.
Tell me, she says, turning, wrapping her arms around his neck, Tell me.
When you get here, Harry says. I'll tell you everything. Do you believe, Rosabelle?
Bess nods, I believe.
Bio:
Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Arts. She lives in Graham, NC with her cats James Cagney and Janis Joplin.