Within Arm's Reach by Ann Napolitano

turn my head and meet his eyes. I can tell that the contact chills him, as I’d known it would. He stops bouncing in place. Even his crew cut seems to wilt.
    I think, I must have ice water running through my veins.
    I say, “Stay the fuck away from my sister and me,” and keep walking.

CATHARINE

    I won’t tell a soul that it was ghosts that made me stop my car in front of the Municipal Building. Nor does anyone need to know that this kind of thing has been going on for some time now. It would take my children about ten seconds with their heads huddled together to decide that I need one of those fancy new psychological drugs. And there’s no point in telling any of this to Dr. O’Malley, who is my age, and who hates to see any signs that I am growing old.
    I keep him as my doctor out of habit, I suppose. He delivered all nine of my children. I drove panicked to his office with the head of my firstborn in my lap, her breath labored, her face swollen and flushed. I carried her, a big three-year-old whom I had told only one week earlier that she was too heavy to be picked up anymore, from the car to his office door. I sat in the waiting room, my worry spreading like a spider’s web across town because Kelly was home alone. Willie had been due back from an errand any minute, so I had decided to leave the eighteen-month-old in her playpen. I told myself that if I’d brought her she would have slowed me down. I had wondered if I should call Patrick at his office. I hated to bother him, so I didn’t until later that afternoon when Dr. O’Malley sent me back home with the news that all I could do was hope that my little girl was a fighter.
    The visions I’ve been having are a gift from Patrick. His parting gift. He had always seen things, his entire life. And now he has given his sight to me. We were married for forty-two years. It is in keeping with his character—although I never would have imagined this—that he would brand me with a piece of himself as he left his life.
    When our children were young Patrick would sing Irish songs to them in the evenings. While he sang he would actually see the McNamara band march through the living room—few in number but the best in the land—cymbals clanging. He would watch the leader of the band pause behind Kelly’s head, his chest swelled with pride. Patrick swore they locked eyes. Patrick raised his glass of scotch to the leader, and the band moved on. He sang of Miss Kate Finnoir, who left her beau standing in the street below her window, singing his heart out. Sometimes in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, on his way back to the office after a business lunch, Patrick would see the young man standing on the curb outside a Paterson brownstone, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes on a window two stories up. Patrick would pause and listen as the young man sang of his undying love for Miss Kate.
    Early in our marriage, Patrick used to tell me about these sightings. They didn’t worry or embarrass or surprise him at all. They were simply a normal, even pleasurable, part of his life. They were as real to him as the sight of his wife standing beside his chair refilling his glass. I never said a word when he came to me, his eyes lit up, and told me whom he’d seen that day. I nodded and smiled and followed along even though when he was excited and it was late in the evening, that was a challenge. I paid perfect attention until he was finished with the story, and then I returned to mending the hole in Johnny’s pants, or straightening up the kitchen, or feeding the baby. Did his stories remind me of my mother and that empty chair beneath the window? Yes, but I couldn’t lose sight of the fact that my husband provided well for myself and our children. We didn’t want for anything. As far as I was concerned, Patrick could see whatever he liked.
    That was the situation for years and years. At some point, I can’t recall exactly when, my husband stopped telling me about