29. Thinking of You

Laurie missed her dad so much that it hurt to breathe when she was thinking about him. It has been only four days since he died and it has finally started to sink in. She wanted him to be back more than anything in the world.

She was quite confused when she got her wish.

“Dad?” She said hesitantly. She expected to wake up from a dream or blink away the image of her father, but he remained.

“Hi honey.” He smiled at her.

His smile. Oh God, she thought she would never get to see it again, but there it was.

“Am I seeing things?” She slowly approached him, afraid to touch him and make him disappear. “Am I losing my mind?”

Laurie stopped right next to her father. She was close enough to smell his cologne.

“Well, you are obviously seeing things, as I am dead. I can’t comment about whether you are losing you mind or not because… Well, I am just a hallucination and even when I was alive I wasn’t a psychiatrist.”

Laurie laughed. The comment, bizarre as it was, comforted her. It was exactly the kind of thing her father would say.

“I don’t understand.” She mumbled, looking her father up and down.

“Well, the way I see it, you can see and talk to me because you know me so well. You can anticipate what I would say and how I would act so your brain creates this comforting hallucination of me.” He winked. “Again, what do I know, though, right? Just a hallucination.”

“You’re not a ghost then?”

“It’s your hallucination. You want to hallucinate me into a ghost?” He laughed again.

Dad and his stupid sense of humor.

“I don’t care.” Laurie said. “I am just so happy to see you again. I miss you so much.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t get to say goodbye to you, that I love you…”

“You didn’t have to. It would have been nice, but you didn’t have to. You showed me you loved me every single day.”

Laurie choked a bit. She was moved. “Oh, daddy. You don’t know how much it means to me to hear you say that.”

“True.” Her father raised his left eyebrow. “On the other hand I am your hallucination so you might be projecting what you want to hear to make up for your crippling guilt.”

Laurie gaped at her dad. She was mortified.

“I… I…” She could not find the words.

“Oh, I am just messing with you.” Her father laughed and gave Laurie a friendly jab to the arm. Not quite, not really touching.

It was him. It was exactly the same terrible sense of humor and heart melting smile.

“This is so amazing, but I can’t get too excited.” She said. “I know you’re not real. You are just…”

Screw it. She was going to hug him. Laurie spread her hands open and rushed at her dad.

She broke her nose running into the wall.