Joe Castin

The door handle was brass, tarnished & heavy enough to ache in the wrist. When it swung back, Joe did not look up immediately. He expected the ghost, or perhaps just his father. Instead, he got the replacement. I stepped into the damp chill of the study. Joe sat on the edge of the velvet sofa, a faded Polaroid clenched in his hand. He was weeping, though his face remained perfectly still, the tears just leaking out & tracking through the stubble on his jaw. I did not offer a tissue. I did not say his name. I simply sat on the low stool opposite him, forcing my posture down until our lines of sight leveled. Joe flinched. His breath hitched in the back of his throat. For 5 years, Eddy had sent women into this room, each one a failed blueprint, each one escorted out by Joe’s screaming rage. But I stayed still. I let him look into my face, specifically at the iris color Eddy had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to track down. Dark ocean blue. Rare. Identical to the girl who left a bloody veil in a ditched sedan 5 years ago & vanished. He didn't yell. He just stared, exhausted by the fraud. Weeks bled out without momentum. I became his shadow, learning the rhythm of his silences. I stopped thinking like a doctor. I stopped reviewing Eddy’s clinical instructions on how to force a man over his grief. I just watched him, feeling a cold, bitter attachment grow in the quiet spaces between his sighs. I loved him, but it felt like a disease we shared. When he finally agreed to the wedding, it wasn't a triumph. He was just tired of fighting his father. The courthouse was gray. A judge, two hired witnesses, & Eddy smiling a businessman's smile. On the third night of the honeymoon, the hotel phone vibrated on the glass nightstand. Joe picked it up. The screen lit his face, casting a pale glow over his eyes. "I am yours, yesterday, today, in eternity. V." Joe looked from the screen to my face. The blue of my eyes suddenly felt like a joke we weren't allowed to laugh at.