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“Okay, Captain, go ahead! Say something!”
“Hello, Alison, can you hear me? I still cannot understand how you could without a phone line or a receiver, but I am still following your directions…” the Captain rambled in the direction of Mike’s phone.
“Yes! Yes, it’s working! I can hear you!” Alison shouted outside in the middle of the field outside the house.
The plan had been a long time coming. Alison just couldn’t let her chance encounter with Lieutenant Anthony Havers go. It felt wrong that after all those years, she found the fabled veteran without a way of connecting him with the Captain. She had to find a way, and miraculously, it seemed she had. Telephones could transmit ghosts’ voices, and she wasn’t going to question how. All that mattered was that they could.
“Okay, Mike,” she continued. “Now switch it to FaceTime and hold your phone up. Captain, I need you to step in front of Mike.”
Both men followed her instructions.
Her screen showed her nothing but the living room. She furrowed her brow. “Did you move?”
“Yes, just like you said.”
“Hm. I guess FaceTime doesn’t work like that. It was worth a try. But you can still hear me? How does that work?”
“I wish I could answer you, Alison. The physics of spectral existence have always perplexed me.”
“Well, it looks like we’ll have to settle for a regular old phone call, then.” It was better than nothing.
“Beats a telegram, though, right, Cap?” Mike jovially chimed in.
The Captain did not laugh.
“Did he hear me?”
“Yes, Mike, he heard you.”
“Did he laugh at my joke?”
~*~
Alison made the solo journey back to that little park where she met Anthony. He was on the same bench where she first found him.
“Anthony?”
He turned and saw her, surprised. “Alison? What are you doing back here?”
It didn’t take much convincing when she told him that she had a way for him to talk to The Captain. Luckily, he’d seen plenty of cell phones in the park, so that part required little explanation.
The sky was suspiciously grey and cloudy, but she hoped it would have mercy on a day as important as this one.
Soon enough, the clock struck two. She texted Mike. He was where Alison told him to be, and she’d told The Captain to meet him there. Mike couldn’t confirm The Captain’s presence, but she knew he’d never pass up the opportunity to talk to his Anthony again. Besides, he was nothing if not punctual. It was go-time.
Alison punched in Mike’s number. He picked up without a greeting.
She apprehensively began to speak. “Hello, Captain? Are you there? It’s Alison. I’m here with Anthony.”
“Hello, James,” Anthony nervously chimed in.
Nothing but silence followed. The seconds each seemed longer than the last. Please, please work, Alison thought…but nothing came.
“James?” Anthony tried again. Still nothing. Alison’s stomach dropped.
“Damn it. I’m so sorry, Anthony. I promise it worked earlier.”
He nodded sadly. “Thank you for trying.”
“No! No, I’m here!” The Captain shouted. “…I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to say. It…hearing your voice…hearing you say my name again…I never thought this would happen. Forgive me, I am beside myself.”
A pained smile spread across Anthony’s face at the sound of the Captain’s voice.
“It’s too bad we couldn’t get FaceTime to work,” Alison lamented. “That’s like a phone call but you can see each other, Anthony.”
“No, no, it’s all right,” Anthony assured, gazing lovingly at the phone’s faceless screen. “I can picture you so clearly. Just as I remember you. Beautiful.”
The silence from The Captain’s end momentarily returned. “...No one ever called me that before.”
“A travesty. They should have. I should have.”
Alison could imagine exactly how The Captain was reacting. Did Anthony realize what he was doing to him? Or was that his intent?
“What…what do you look like? Now, I mean?” the Captain asked. Alison could hear how carefully he was trying to approach the topic.
“Like Anthony Havers, just more textured.”
Allison was taken aback by a sound she’d almost forgotten: the Captain laughing. A small, private, earnest laugh.
“What are you wearing?” the Captain continued.
“Let’s see…forest green cardigan sweater, white t-shirt underneath. Some loosely-fitting khakis. White socks. Brown slip-on orthopaedic shoes.”
“That sounds…"
“Elderly?”
“Comfortable.”
Something dawned on Anthony’s face. “...Oh, heavens, you’ve been in uniform for eighty years, haven’t you?”
“I have."
“My goodness, I’m so sorry. I would have taken Dante’s Inferno over that.”
The Captain quietly laughed again, followed by a shaky sigh. “I wish I could have seen you that way. ‘Textured,’ I mean.”
“I wish the same for you. So, so much. You deserved so many more years than you got.”
“Well…I’ve been here all along. Thinking. Remembering.” He paused. “Nothing has changed, you know. It never went away, not in all these years.”
“James...”
“If I were standing before you now, I would feel just the same as I did then.”
Anthony closed his eyes and quieted for a moment. “...What else would happen if you stood before me?”
Allison had to fight the urge to drop the phone and run. As much as she wanted this resolution for them, facilitating nonagenarian phone sex was where she drew the line. The Captain already made enough innuendos from day to day without meaning to. What would happen if he tried?
The Captain’s voice hushed to a tone unlike anything Alison had ever heard from him. “I would fall to my knees. I would press my face to your hand just to feel your touch like I never could in life. I would drown in it if I could.”
On one hand, she was glad his response was nothing untoward. On the other hand, she was instead on the verge of tears.
“It was what I wanted more than anything,” he finished, ending almost in a whisper.
Anthony deeply inhaled. The space between him and the Captain was clearly agonizing.
“What was her name?” The Captain asked abruptly.
Anthony slowly nodded, immediately recognizing who the Captain was referring to. “Evelyn Norris. Evelyn Havers, for a time.”
“...What was she like?”
“She was a schoolteacher. A kind woman. Gentle. Smarter than me. The most striking red hair.”
“Did you love her?”
“Not in the ways she wanted. I couldn’t, no matter what pain it caused us.”
A moment passed between them. Alison started feeling scattered raindrops on her skin.
“I am pleased to know that you had someone, even if only briefly,” the Captain finally said. He paused, clearly trying to muster words. “I would have. If I could have, I would have.”
“James, my dear, are you proposing?”
An involuntary noise escaped The Captain’s throat.
“I wish it could have been you. Really, I do," Anthony finished.
Alison could feel the weight of the world in those seconds that passed in silence.
“‘Perhaps, in another time, things could have been different for us,” The Captain hummed.
“...Who said that? It was me, wasn’t it?”
“I watched you write that letter.”
Anthony sighed. It was like he was reluctantly anticipating it being brought up. “You read it?”
“I remember every word.”
“Always the memory of an elephant on you, I swear.” Anthony breathed a chuckle. “If I’d known I was being watched, I might not have been so dramatic. I thought I was Percy Shelley.”
“No, no, it was beautiful. No one else would have ever written anything like that for me. You could never know how much it meant. You were the one person in that whole bunch who I ever cared to impress.”
Anthony let out a pained sigh. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? The only way I could reach you was in writing from beyond the grave. What a time we lived in.”
“Cowards, they were, all the way up the damned ladder,” the Captain snarled with more bitterness than Alison had ever heard from him.
“Easy, James, don’t get mad at them now. We’re finally talking about it, aren’t we? They aren’t listening anymore.”
The Captain sighed. “Right. Who am I kidding, anyway? I was the coward, if anyone.”
“Nonsense. You just proposed, that took great courage.”
Once again, the Captain quietly laughed on the other end. It was a sound Alison wished she could have heard more. “...I have your swagger stick,” he blurted. “For all these years, it has been in my hands. In my dying moments, it gave me great comfort, and in the years since, it has continued to do so. I was able to take so little with me, but I have always had this.”
“It was a sign. We were always destined to find our way back to each other eventually. You were simply holding onto it for me.”
“It doesn’t appear that I can give it back, I’m afraid.”
“You can keep it, then. Consider it a gift from me.”
All sounds soon became harder to hear over the rattle of the rain as it escalated to a downpour.
“Alison, is it raining where you are?” Mike chimed in.
“Yeah, it is,” she admitted, shouting a little louder than she wished to over the noise.
“We should get off of here,” Anthony decided with a subtle sadness. “It would be horribly rude to keep a prospective mother standing in the rain like this.” He turned back to the phone. “Goodbye, my darling! I waited a lifetime for this, and I shall never forget it!”
“Goodbye, Anthony!”
“I love you!”
“I love you, too!” Alison could perfectly envision the panic that overtook the Captain in the few seconds of silence following his reflexive response. “Oh, to hell with it, I don’t care anymore! I love you, Anthony! I have for eighty years, and I will for eighty more!”
A thunder clap punctuated this monumental proclamation.
“I definitely just heard thunder. Alison, come on, you can't stand out in the middle of a storm. I’m gonna hang up,” Mike said.
“Wait-” she started before hearing the click of Mike’s phone disconnecting. She wanted to be mad at him, but really, no phone call would have ever been long enough whether Mike had hung up or not.
“I’m so sorry, he shouldn’t have done that, let me call him back-” she started.
“No, Alison, darling, please do get out of this rain. You’ve done so much for me already. I could never thank you enough.”
“No need. It’s been an honour.”
“You’ve been a wonderful friend, Alison.”
The two friends exchanged goodbyes and sad but grateful smiles as they diverged once again.
As Alison speed-walked back to the car, something still felt wrong within her. The phone call was a miracle, but no matter what, Anthony and The Captain would still never see each other again. It just couldn’t be right.
~*~
Mike sat in the library tapping away as he worked on his computer. He seemed to be in pretty good spirits. The perfect opportunity. Alison eased up behind him.
“Mike.”
He turned around. “What’s up?”
“You know how I’m carrying our child and everything?”
“...Yeah?”
“I have an enormous favor to cash in for it.”
“...What is it?”
“We have to steal that bench from the park.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I have a hypothesis, please trust me.”
“Not until I hear the hypothesis.”
“Ok, fine,” she sighed, gearing up to explain herself. “Maybe because Anthony died on the bench, he’s tethered to it and not the park itself? I swear I’ve seen ghosts in cars and buses before, so it must be possible for ghosts to haunt objects and not places. It just might be true for Anthony, and I’m so sorry to say this, but there’s only one way to find out.”
“No way.”
“Please, Mike. This is the only way that The Captain and Anthony will ever get to see each other again. We’re the only people on Earth who can make this happen for them.”
“Let me guess, I’m supposed to do the leg work in this scenario?”
Alison shrugged. “What can I say? I’m pregnant. Shouldn’t really be carrying benches around. Besides, I’m slower on my feet these days. I’d be much more useful as the getaway driver.”
“How do you expect me to pull this off? I could never move that thing by myself, and it’s not like I could ask someone else for help. Who in their right mind would agree to this?”
“Call Obi.”
“Do you really think that little of my friends?”
“Call Obi.”
He sighed, defeated. He pulled his phone out and dialed Obi’s number. It only took a few seconds for Obi to pick up. “Hey, mate, you free tomorrow night?”
“Actually, yeah, I am. Why?”
“Can you help me steal a park bench for my wife? A loved one died on it. It’s a long stor-”
“Yeah, mate. What time?”
“Eight,” Alison mouthed.
“...Eight?”
“Got it. See ya tomorrow.” The phone clicked into silence.
Mike kept staring ahead in silence as he lowered his phone away from his face.
Alison crept up to him and encircled his shoulders in her arms. “I love you,” she whispered as she kissed the top of his head.
“We've got to be even after this," he mused, his despondent expression unchanging.
“You’re the best!” She shouted as she dipped out of the room.
~*~
Alison sat in the driver’s seat in silence. The moon shone bright in the dark sky. The night was peaceful like it didn’t know about the heist that was taking place.
She snapped to attention when she saw Mike and Obi speed-hobbling to the car through the rearview mirror. The bench clearly wasn’t easy to carry, but they were somehow pulling it off. Miraculously, Anthony was still sitting on top, clearly perturbed and confused as he was jostled around.
They hastily hoisted it on top of the car and tied it down.
“Drive!” They shouted as they swung into their seats in the car.
“Just one second.” She briefly stepped out and shut the door. The guys would be irritated, but she felt that she owed Anthony an explanation.
“I know you’re probably confused,” she whispered, pretending to check that the bench was fastened.
“Alison? What the devil is going on?!”
“I’m getting you out of here. We might be able to get you back to James this way.”
Anthony started to reluctantly calm down. “...Really?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
Anthony thought for a second. He looked around the park for a moment. Alison figured he’d probably seen enough of it for the last thirty years. It was worth a try.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Alison smiled and got back behind the wheel. She peeled away and just like that, they were gone without a trace.
“That was sick! Like Ocean’s Eleven or something! Ocean’s Three!” Obi said further down the road.
All things considered, it was a lame heist. There was no surveillance whatsoever in that park. It wasn’t the kind of park to be stolen from, so no one was out trying to stop it from happening. The people living in the houses surrounding it were probably already in bed. Considering their living an hour away, it was unlikely that anyone would suspect them.
Alison peered at Obi in the backseat through the rearview mirror. “Obi, thank you so much for doing this. I wish I could explain.”
“No need. Dead relatives are no joke, I get it.”
Mike turned to Alison. “You better be glad you’re pregnant. Running with that bench was a nightmare.”
“ You better be glad he died on a wooden bench and not a metal one.”
~*~
Alison wasn’t planning on getting up so early that morning, but the baby had other plans. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep, so she decided to cherish the morning while she had the house to herself.
She peeked through the window to see Anthony sitting on the bench out in the field. He opted to stay outside for the time being. The thought of being cooped up in a house with a bunch of people made him claustrophobic after so many years outdoors. He sat surveying the trees, early-morning sky, and dewy grass surrounding him.
“Good morning, Alison,” said a voice behind her.
“Oh, good morning, Captain.” He was never one to sleep in, either. “Say, have you looked outside yet this morning?”
“I have not. Why do you ask?”
“Go take a look.”
He phased through the wall and Alison hurried out the door after him.
Upon spotting the old man on the bench in the distance, he looked like he was seeing, well, a ghost. The swagger stick fell out of his hand and clattered on the gravel beneath him.
“Is that…” was all he could get out, barely able to return his gaze to Alison.
She nodded, her smile breaching containment.
He started walking like his legs had minds of their own. He gained speed with each step until he was running. The morning mist over the field made it look straight out of the mind of Jane Austen.
Alison couldn’t watch what was coming. It was too personal. She turned around and walked back into the house.
Still, she just couldn’t resist. She inched the curtain of the nearby window open.
The Captain skidded to a stop next to the bench. Anthony rose to face him, but once he did, neither of them seemed to know what to do. All they could do was stare for a bit. It was like they were trying to convince themselves that the other was real.
Finally, the Captain dropped down on one knee. Anthony looked down at him, but the Captain kept his own eyes downturned like he couldn’t bring himself to look. Anthony brought his hand to the Captain’s cheek. The Captain’s own hand found Anthony’s and covered it. It was like a beautiful Waterhouse painting with the most bizarre possible pair as subjects.
Anthony lifted his other hand to gently stroke the Captain’s hair. When was the last time the Captain had been touched like that? With so much love and tenderness? Had he ever?
For as long as Alison had known the Captain, she had seen him exist in as repressed a state as possible. He could never let himself feel anything too strongly. His iron-fisted control over his impulses meant he never let himself be free. Now, he was finally getting to do exactly what he told Anthony he wanted to do during their phone call. His heart finally got to lead the way for once.
After a few moments, the Captain leapt upright and threw his arms around Anthony who returned the gesture. They desperately breathed each other in.
Alison recognized this as her moment to step away from the window.
~*~
As the days and weeks continued, The Captain could often be found outside with Anthony. Alison would see them in the distance holding hands, resting heads on one another’s shoulders, taking walks nearby. The Captain would offer an arm for support, slowing his pace to match Anthony's limitations. The Captain's mission was always to serve, and he was most devoted to his new cause. She could barely see their lips moving, but she never knew what they were saying. That was fine with her. They each had entire lifetimes to share with each other, and she’d already heard plenty.
Every now and then, they would move the bench to different spots around the property so Anthony could have a change of scenery. The bench even made it indoors occasionally. The rest of the ghosts eventually got to mingle with him. They saw less of the Captain, but they were thrilled to gain a new friend. Before long, he became a very welcome addition to the Button House family.
Alison had a feeling that, had Captain lived as many years as Anthony, sitting on a park bench together was exactly how they would have spent a lot of their time in their older years.
All pretenses from their time as living men had dissolved. They had nothing to hide anymore. As the days went on, Alison could see as the light in the Captain grew brighter.
She was making tea in the kitchen when he stepped in.
“Alison, may I please have a word?”
“Of course.”
He took a deep, serious breath. “As you know, I have wandered this earth for many years. For a long time, I thought it must be some kind of punishment. As a living man, there were things I accepted that I would never have. Things I thought I didn’t deserve. But…you’ve completely changed my life. Afterlife.” He looked down shyly. “My relationship with the divine has always been a bit complicated, but to me, you’re an angel.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. “I wish I could hug you.”
“As do I.” He took a second to look at her. “Thank you for everything.”
She hung back and watched as he retreated back to the living room with the rest of the ghosts. He dutifully took his place on the bench next to Anthony. Now, it seemed as natural to him as waking up in the morning.
She still felt a little guilty about stealing the bench from the park. She knew she’d never hear the end of it from Mike, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make. Seeing her friends reunited made it all worth it. The park still had plenty of benches, but there was only one Anthony, and he was priceless.