Ghosts that Watch Us

2

It was a rule of his to avoid the lunch hall the first week of school, cringing at the crowds of confused students and yapping parents. Instead, he made sure his refrigerator was well-stocked, the wine cabinet holding an extra bottle or two.

Settling on his sofa that night, Ellory curled his legs under him and bit into his grilled cheese. Project Runway was recorded on his DVR and he had at least a dozen episodes to catch up on. It was his one indulgence, fascinated by the way these young artists created brilliant outfits out of the most impossible items. Corn husks, really? But the dress was gorgeous, he couldn’t deny it.

Delia had stopped by his office just before he left for home, and the first pages of his notes lay typed on the coffee table, staring at him. After two episodes, Ellory swallowed back the last of his wine and resigned himself to reading through them. They would be immaculate. Delia’s work always was.

He was still tired and jet-lagged, and found himself struggling to soak in any of the words on the page. The moment he made himself comfortable he’d signed the death warrant for the night’s productivity--and as of tomorrow he would have paperwork to grade, and less time to devote to the Catedral. He needed to get this publication ready; in spite of his years of profitable service to Brown, he didn’t feel fully secure without cementing his name in his field. 

He yawned. This is why he never relaxed. How was he supposed to get anything done now? He got up and poured himself more wine. Just a few pages, he bargained with himself. Then he could take a shower and settle in to bed— or maybe just go to sleep and put the shower off a little longer. He hadn’t gone on his run this morning, after all, and that was one less layer of grime to sleep on, and he was so tired. He’d forgotten how bad the second day home was. He shouldn’t have pushed the Caracas trip so long, he should have given himself more time between arriving back home and the beginning of the year. But the Catedral de Caracas— despite the weeks he’d spent inside the Catedral, followed around by Delia and her bag stuffed with a laptop, spare battery, charger, sunscreen, ice packs and water bottles, there was still so much to do. He couldn’t have left earlier, regardless of his regrettably weak sensibilities. He had only fainted the once, so it could have been worse. 

He still felt his cheeks burn, the experience fresh in his mind. The heat often sent him to the floor, but rarely ever in the very cathedral he was trying to study. Over the course of her graduate and undergraduate career Delia had travelled extensively with Ellory, and she had long ago been briefed on his weak tolerance for heat, his predisposition to dream badly, his often preconceived cold demeanor with others. But Delia had overcome such formal awkwardness, falling into an easy and obedient manner with him, often knowing what Ellory needed before he even did. Every time he found himself suddenly on his back he was greeted with the blessed relief of a cold towel pressed to his head, his neck, his shirt drenched in frigid water. She knew what to do, but Padre Antony had not. The poor man had been panicked when Ellory came to on the pew. 

It was the heat that did it to him, weakening his bones to jelly, leaving him shaken and sweaty at day’s end, his thoughts gone as a swirl of smoke through a cracked-open window. He hated the necessary moments to orient himself, not quite knowing where he was, what country, or when. And when he woke to a cadre of concerned Venezuelan priests fussing over him as if he were a blind hatchling with shell still sticking to his head— he rubbed his face with his hands, hoping to dispel the blood he could feel tingling in his cheekbones. Standing in front of a class giving lecture on something he knew intimately was a kind of spotlight he could work in, but that, that lingering shame was something he wanted to forget he ever felt. 

He shook himself. If he read all ten pages of his typed notes he could go straight to sleep. Otherwise, he had to take a shower first. Either way, he needed to get his head out of the clouds and stop lamenting. There were things to be done, and other things that couldn’t be changed.