Learning to Love Louise

Sitting down at the desk Paul opened a drawer and removed a large photograph album. He opened the front cover and looked through the pictures inside, all of Jane. Some were of her as a baby, others of her in early childhood with her twin brother Tim and their younger sister Laura. There was a picture of Jane on her first day of school, the little girl smiling and missing some of her front teeth.

Paul looked at more childhood pictures of Jane and her family, his heart breaking as he saw one when she was aged nine, taken the year the McKinnon family had moved to the house next to his own family and they had met for the first time.

Moving through the photographs taken in their teenage years, Paul could feel his heart especially aching at the milestone photographs. He looked at the photograph of them and their friends enjoying their school dance in 1992, Jane and her female friends' dresses looking so dated a quarter of a century later. There was another of Jane standing proudly next to her parents' car which displayed a P-plate on the front windscreen, having passed her driving test that morning. Another was of Jane and her hockey team mates from high school holding up the championship cup they had won, much in part to the petite Jane's skills and lightning fast pace.

Their high school graduation photograph was another hard to look at, as was their university graduation photo, where Paul and Jane held up their teaching degrees. Paul felt himself getting more and more choked as he looked at the fun photographs taken with family and friends during their young adulthood, such as one in 1997 where he and Jane were celebrating with their friends their favorite football team winning the Grand Final. Paul looked at more happy photos such as New Year's Eve 1999, before he came to one which held his attention most.

This photograph was taken on Jane's 25th birthday in 2001, which turned out to be her last not that either of them had any clue that this would be the case. In the photograph, Paul and Jane held up two cute kittens, Jane the black and white tuxedo kitten in the form of Missy, Paul the ginger kitten Judy. As though sensing something, the now elderly Missy wandered into the room, and looked at Paul, before leaping onto his lap. Paul held the cat and looked from her to the photograph and back again, his pet one link to a happy past now gone forever.

Pushing the photo album aside but leaving it open at the kitten photograph, Paul reached into the drawer and took out Jane's engagement ring, fiddling aimlessly with it, before removing a plastic folder which contained two items that always brought Paul sorrow in equal measure when he looked at them.

The first was a wedding invitation on lilac colored paper, inviting guests to the wedding of Jane Lisa McKinnon and Paul Michael Johnstone on Saturday 22 September 2001, a date the beautiful bride-to-be would never live to see.

The second item was from the event that guests from the obviously cancelled wedding got to attend instead, in the form of Jane's funeral card. On the front was a picture of Jane, the same one that was hanging on the wall with the words 'In Loving Memory of Jane Lisa McKinnon, 06/06/1976 -- 10/09/2001.' On the back of the card was a poem Jane's sister had found about never forgetting loved ones who are gone.

Still holding his cat, Paul got up from his chair and walked to the wardrobe. The wardrobe had a mirror on the front door, and Paul's sad reflection stared back at him, Missy looking at her own image in the reflective glass. Opening the doors, Paul looked at the contents of the closet.

To one side were shelves, on which were keepsakes from his and Jane's life together, such as their high school yearbooks, Jane's high school certificate and her university degree. Jane's favorite doll from childhood sat on an adjacent shelf, alongside a toy dolphin that had been given to Jane as a gift from an aunt when she was a little girl and another soft toy, a kangaroo to the other side. The toy kangaroo was of great sentimental meaning to Paul, who recalled the day they won it playing a carnival game at the Adelaide Show back in 1993, the then teenagers walking around hand-in-hand so much in love.

On the other side hung Jane's clothes. While most of Jane's clothes had gone to charity after she died, Paul couldn't stand to get rid of all of them. A pair of Jane's jeans, a pair of leggings and two of her skirts -- one short and one long -- could be found here, along with a tee-shirt, a blouse and a jumper. Jane's hockey uniform from university was next to them covered in clear plastic, her hockey stick at the back of the wardrobe.

Taking the most prominent place in the wardrobe was an item of clothing that Jane never got to wear, her wedding dress. It was also covered by clear plastic to protect it, and as was always the case, Paul felt his eyes sting as he looked at it, and pondered what could have been.

Closing the wardrobe door, Paul turned back to the desk and looked at one item that sat on display. It was an ordinary desktop calendar, but the date was not turned to the present date, but rather Monday, September 10, 2001. Paul stared intently at it, wiping his eyes, wishing for something that could never come true.

"That won't do any good, Paul," came a young female voice behind him.

Paul turned around to see the petite figure of Jane approaching him, wearing a summer dress, holding their ginger cat Judy in her arms. Jane's footsteps made no sound, not because she was barefoot, not because she was walking on carpet but because she was incapable of doing so. Paul looked at the mirror on the wardrobe door. He could see his own and Missy's reflections, but Jane and Judy made no reflection in the glass.

In Paul's arms, Missy set back her ears and hissed at the presence of a young woman and another cat she could sense but not see. The cat began to struggle and Paul set her down on the carpet, Jane doing the same with Judy. Deeply uncomfortable with her late sister's and owner's presences, the black and white cat puffed up her fur and growled, before departing the room, hissing.

Paul looked at Jane. "What do you mean it won't do me any good?"

Jane's facial expression showed sadness, but also acceptance. "Staring at the date on that old calendar. You can't travel back in time to that day, and even if you could, you couldn't save me."

"You don't know that," muttered Paul. "There must be something that we could have done differently that day."

"I do know that," said Jane. "Nothing could have saved me. I had a brain aneurism, it was like a time bomb in my brain. It could have gone when I was a baby, when I was a little girl, when I was in high school, at university or at any time in my life. If it hadn't gone that day, it would have gone another day. I could still be alive today and die tomorrow when my aneurism went. Or I could have lived to 90, and died from it then when I was in a nursing home. All that was certain was that unless I happened to die in an accident or from illness beforehand, that my aneurism would have killed me at one stage in my life."

Paul looked at the floor where Judy was sniffing around near the wardrobe. "Why did you bring Judy with you?"

"To emphasize that Judy like me is dead Paul."

"I know that she's dead. I was the one who took her to the vets when she got sick and was euthanized."

"And you realize that I'm dead too?"

Paul turned and faced the wall, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. "Of course I know you're dead Jane. Even in my dreams you're no longer alive."

Jane walked slowly forward until she stood beside Paul. "We haven't talked this way in years, have we Paul? Not for 13 years or more. For the longest time, we've been friends and work colleagues when I appear to you, not who we really were to each other."

"No," Paul admitted sadly. "Why did you appear to me this way today, and not in the way you normally do?"

"It was something that you needed given the state you're in today," said Jane. "Tell me, what went wrong with Louise last night?"

"I just couldn't do it," muttered Paul. "It was all fine until Louise said that she wanted to order strawberry pancakes for dessert ..."

Jane put a mocking look of surprise on her face and clutched her heart. "Oh my, what a terrible, awful woman to do something so horrible!"

"It was so stupid last night, but it was our thing," said Paul. "We used to go to that café in the city and order and share strawberry pancakes. I don't know why, I just fell apart at that point and now I've blown it with Louise."

"Paul, you need to stop reacting to such minor things that remind you of me," said Jane. "It's been nearly 16 years. I've been gone as long now as the time we were in each other's lives. You do know that, don't you?"

Paul nodded and swallowed hard. "Yes, I do know. I've never said it aloud, not even to myself, but I know." He stopped and ran his hand through his hair, and then expressed the thing most on his mind. "How and when did things between us change? You know, when you first appeared to me, you were still my fiancé. Then a few years later we suddenly became friends who worked together, and we never talked about who we had been to each other."

"There wasn't a specific date or time," said Jane. "We never planned it, it was just something that happened. By that time you were starting to move on, accept my passing a bit more, but you still needed a friend to guide you when things were hard rather than your late fiancé appearing to you. So that's what I became, and for the longest time it worked for you, it really worked."

"One thing I've never known is if other people can see you the way I do. Can you appear to other people, like you do to me?"

"No, although one time I walked past this tarot card reader at a market," said Jane. "She couldn't see me, but she could sense my presence. I'd always thought that stuff was nonsense, but she at least had that sixth sense."

"I wonder why I'm the only one who can see you and others can't?" Paul mused. "Not your parents, not your brother or sister or anyone else?"

"I thought at first I might have been able to contact Tim, you know the twin thing, but it doesn't work that way," said Jane. "My family while I know they were devastated aren't receptive to me and they don't need me. Even if I did find a way to appear to them, it could only cause harm. But you were receptive to me, and you did need me." She looked directly at Paul. "You really, really needed me."

Paul shifted awkwardly. "I put on a little bit of weight in the months after you died. I thought bushwalking might be a good hobby to help take my mind off things and to get back in shape."

"You gained over 30 kilos in four months after I died because you were depressed and couldn't cope," said Jane. "And yes, bushwalking would have been a good hobby. But you put the cats into a boarding kennel, went out on a 45 degree day in the middle of summer to an isolated track with no water, no shirt, no hat and no sunscreen and set off walking through knee-length grass. The time before that I knew you were struggling but I didn't know how you would react if I appeared to you, whether it would make things better or worse. But as soon as I saw what was happening I knew I had to make myself visible to you, to stop you going any further and doing what you were doing."

Paul thought back to that hot day and how Jane had suddenly appeared in front of him on the track, as though she had never really died. She immediately set about talking him out of his plans and returning with him to his house, promising to always be there for him and to help him through this. "I sometimes wish you hadn't appeared to me. Then we might be together and be happy."

Jane shook her head. "No Paul, I've told you before things don't work that way. We wouldn't be together and we certainly wouldn't be happy. Then there's the people left behind. I didn't have a choice about dying, it was my time. I didn't want to die, I shouldn't have died that young when I had everything to live for, but the truth is I did. But I didn't get any say in it, unlike you. Think about how your parents, brother and sister, my family and all our friends would have felt if you'd gone through with your plans."

"You've helped me so much," said Paul. "It's so strange, I know that you're gone on one hand yet over the years when you appear I think of you as a platonic friend and work colleague who has a boyfriend of her own, not my fiancé. Even if I have a really bad day and I'm down about you, when you appear I straight away think of you as my friend. Deep down I know you're one and the same, but somehow I always block it out of my mind."

"Like I was saying earlier, I can act in certain ways to help your subconscious believe what you need to believe to think of me as your friend," said Jane. "I can make it look like I'm doing certain things like I did when I was alive like driving a car, riding a bicycle, catching a bus, train or tram, or using a telephone or computer to keep the illusion alive within your mind. I'm careful to avoid mirrors and I never just magically appear which could be confusing and harmful to you. I can observe things, modern things that weren't around when I was alive and talk about them so I seem like I'm still here. I'll talk about current affairs and movies and events that happened after 2001, anything to keep the illusion going. I can't do unrealistic things or things I couldn't do when I was alive like flying a plane, but if it's realistic for me then I can make it appear true to you. And for the longest time, it worked so well. You were as close to happy as you could be."

"Why do you say worked in the past tense?" asked Paul.

"For years, you never slipped up, not once," said Jane. "We would be at work, on a day out or going for a run and you'd never once give away to anyone indication what was going on in your subconscious. But over the past year you've began to make mistakes, not huge mistakes, but things that other people notice."

"What sort of things?" asked Paul.

"On one occasion you ordered a coffee for me as well as yourself in a café," said Jane. "You set it down opposite yourself where you perceived me to be sitting, and when you got up you paid the bill and left it sitting there on the table. You had no idea what you were doing."

"I don't even remember doing that," said Paul.

"No, and if it had just been a one off, that would have been okay. But another day not long after, you were talking to some of the other teachers at work, and you mentioned a science teacher named Jane. When they quizzed you about it, saying that there was no science teacher at the school named Jane, you were able to pass it off as a slip of the tongue, but still it was a mistake you hadn't made before."

"That's just two things, two minor things," Paul protested.

"Let's look at the last week," said Jane. "On Friday, did you notice the odd way the women at the park and the boy at the shopping center reacted to you?"

Paul thought back, having almost forgotten these incidents given the upsetting events of the weekend. "They did look at me strange."

"They did so because you actually laughed," said Jane. "Whenever I've said something funny in the past, you laughed on the inside, in your mind. People notice when other people suddenly burst into laughter at random in public."

"I'll work on it, I swear," said Paul, but Jane shook her head.

"Your biggest mistakes were on Thursday, when Louise came by," said Jane. "First you referred to Missy and Judy as 'our' cats rather than 'your' cats. You then mentioned to Louise that you were glad that the football hadn't hit my car parked in the driveway. There wasn't a car in the driveway, was there Paul?"

Paul's face fell and he turned and stared at the wall. "I don't even know what's real and what's imaginary half the time," he admitted bitterly, as Jane came and stood beside him. "What went wrong, Jane? Why did it work so well for years, and not so now?"

"Time passes, Paul," said Jane. "People change, and things change. We were obviously born the same year, but you age because you're alive, and I don't age because I'm gone. There obviously wasn't such an age difference when all this began, but now you're 41, and I'm still technically 25 years old and it shows. Plus time heals. For many years, you couldn't even look at another girl, and you were happy to have me as your platonic friend. And if this was still the case, it might all still work. But you've moved forward, and finally you have feelings for somebody else in Louise."

"Louise is going to hate me after what I did last night," said Paul. "Maybe it's better that I don't have anyone in my life."

"Paul, Louise won't hate you if you explain things," said Jane. "Tell her about me, about what happened to me and she'll understand. Trust me, she will understand. Obviously leave out the ghost bit. That would scare her away big time."

"Even if by some miracle she does forgive me, what about you? Won't you be upset?"

"No, I'd be very happy because it means that you've found somebody to share your life with. Why do you think I've been encouraging you to go out with Louise for months now? She's right for you, you're right for her and you need to take that final step in moving on. I've been gone a long time. It's time for you to be properly happy again. You can't be truly happy being friends with a ghost."

Paul looked sadly at Jane. "If I could have one wish, it would be for you to be alive right now."

Jane's facial expression was equally sad. "I know Paul, but even if that wish came true, I'd be 25-years-old, alive in a changed world I don't know. I'd get a shock looking at a picture of New York City, that's for sure. You can't think that way."

"Are you sure you're okay with this Jane? What we had was so special. The thought of me with somebody else, it doesn't upset you?"

Jane shook her head. "No, of course not. If you'd forgotten me straight away and started dating somebody else less than a month after I died, then I wouldn't have been pleased. Who knows, I might even have turned into one of those vengeful spirits who kept you awake at night banging on windows and doors, moving objects around and turning lights on and off. But after nearly 16 years, the only thing that can make me happy is for you to be happy again. At the moment you aren't, not truly. I mean you never even see our old friends anymore. Why is that?"

"Because it hurts to see how they're all living their lives. They're all married with kids, some of them teenagers by now. We never got to do that."

Jane nodded. "You know, it hurts me to see that too. I'm glad for them obviously, but it always reminds me that we were denied that chance. I see my family, how my brother and sister's kids and your own brother and sister's kids are growing up, and how I wish I was here with them, alive, married to you, with kids of our own, teaching other kids as part of my career. Sadly, things didn't turn out that way. What we had, you were right it was special, and deep down, we'll always have that wonderful love for each other. But now, you need to find happiness with Louise in the world of the living and I need to rest. Properly rest."

"Rest?" The dismay was clear in Paul's face. "Does that mean you won't return to see me anymore? Not ever?"

"I can't keep coming back to you Paul," said Jane. "I've helped you find somebody to move forward in your life with. By staying around any longer, I'm just enabling your fantasies, helping you cling to a past that is over and you can't get back."

Paul felt the panic surging from his heart. "No Jane, don't say that, please don't go."

"It's the right thing to do Paul," said Jane. "I promise you that I'll keep a watch out for you, and if things were ever so bad like they were in the months after I died, I would come back and help you. But you've grown now, you don't need me anymore. You know that's right, don't you Paul?"