He’d started crying when he was handed the little black leather box. With the little brass clasp that held it shut. Because he knew what it was. He knew that inside, snuggled comfortably in a pillow of dark purple velvet, was her wedding band. He knew about its little halo of ash dust that zapped the silver sparkle from it. That thin layer was all the ashes he would have. A hard sob shot a tremor through him when her father placed the box into his hand. His face was grave, and his thin streams of tears ran as he stared at the young man’s cuff link. It was a silent, dignified exchange between the men who had loved and cared for her. The younger shut his eyes tight, and bit down on his open hand in an attempt to keep from gasping out. Her father pressed a comforting hand on his son in law’s shaking back. And both men hung their heads, and said nothing.
Her body wasn’t given to the earth, but to fire. She’d always said it would make it easier for everyone to accept her passing. She made it clear that no one was allowed even a pinch of her ashes. They would all be given to the oceans and rose bushes. If there were no grave or urn to mourn, she’d thought, maybe they wouldn’t mourn.

His mother had told him, as she’d rested a frail, white-gloved hand on his shoulder, speaking as gently as she could, looking at him through powder blue, sympathetic eyes, “Noah.. she’s watching over you.”
He had smiled at her, only to please her. He didn’t really believe that, how could he? Heaven is nothing but a comforting lie.
But he couldn’t tell his mother this. Or the other handfuls of people who approached him, heads bowed in grief, carrying the same words.

Noah’s bed was the loneliest it had ever been that night. Lonelier even than the night that she died. He had seen her family and dear friends, and they had all known in the back of their minds that they would move on. Even he knew he would move on. But her funeral, with her pictures everywhere and big bundles of her favorite flowers piled high. As if it were their wedding day. How could something so horrible be treated as a lighthearted, peaceful thing? A ‘passing’, a ‘rest’. Fuck that. That’s not what death is.
Every time Noah found himself half-awake in the early morning twilight, he’d make a reach to the other side of his bed for her. And every time he’d only grab sweaty sheets, great handfuls of nothing. His mind, eager for sleep, begged him, ‘Don’t think about Audrey’. And it echoed, and looped, until it slurred and became a murmur of just, ‘Audrey’. Noah rubbed his face and eyes, and rolled out of his bed, wondering if a glass of water would calm him.

At first he assumed the whisper in the room to be the water faucet, but it continued after he filled his glass and turned a knob to stop it. He glanced over his shoulder and thought he saw a woman, but when he spun around, glass in hand, nearly spilling it out of a lack of attention being paid to it, she was gone. Noah blinked, and brought the glass to his lips. When his eyes focused past that spot, on his table or the curtains, the woman re-appeared. She was seated at the kitchen table, looking straight ahead. If Noah tried to look directly at her, he couldn’t see her. Like a pin prick light in the darkness.
As he examined her out of the corner of his eye, he saw that it was Audrey. She had the same long, brown hair and beautiful smile. The simple, teal sundress she wore was one of her favorites. Noah’s first though was ‘a ghost’, but he blinked hard, and assured himself there were no such things. Yet she was there, and not there.
She had no powdery white glow around her. She was not grotesque. She was not transparent, and didn’t float, but sat comfortably on the very dining chair that she had picked out when they’d furnished their new house. She looked exactly the same as the last time Noah had seen her.
Noah’s shaking hand set the glass on the counter with a thud when it met the polished granite. He pushed his palms against the countertop behind him to keep from fainting.
“Don’t look at me,” and her voice was as dark and thrilling as he remembered. No demon’s echo in it.
“I know,” Noah’s breath shook with uneasiness. He concentrated on his countless attempts at her eulogy, crumpled up and piled on the table, among forests of dirty coffee mugs and opened mail. Audrey turned herself to face him, looking him over with a frown, “Were you sleeping?”
Noah glanced at his reflection in an elaborately decorated, hanging mirror by the kitchen. He was dressed in an unwashed T-shirt and sweatpants, horribly unmatched, “Not really.”
Audrey smirked, glanced down, and stood up, “Would you do something for me?” She sounded like she always had, when she asked him for a favor. As if it was just another backrub she needed, or if she needed Noah‘s help with dinner again. Audrey walked closer, and Noah found it harder and harder to keep from looking at her. He wanted one last glance into the eyes of his loving bride, but knew she would vanish if he tried. His arms dropped at his sides instinctively, to let her fall into them. She stood in front of him and took his hand. He tilted his head down to stare at the tile floor. He didn’t feel her skin, but what seemed to be ice-cold silk in-between his fingers.
“Do you remember,” Audrey’s voice came clear and unwavering, on a cloud of cold, scentless breath, “where my poems are?”

She’d written volumes. All of her free time was spent writing poetry. Often, Noah would come home from work to find her asleep at her desk, on top of her laptop, a half-written stanza on its screen. And he’d always take her in his arms and carry her to bed, tucking her in before watching a bit of TV, and joining her. But he was the only one who knew. She never told her friends or family. And when Noah found the little address book with her neat, small cursive inside, in short, clean little stanzas, she acted embarrassed. He remembered, as he strained to avoid a glance at her face, how red she was when she came home and found him with her book open in front of him at the table. And she stared at him, eyes wide and cheeks warm. Noah apologized, still adding that her work was beautiful and that he was glad he’d snooped. Audrey was angry for days, but eventually she came out of their bedroom as he had sat down to another breakfast alone and asked timidly, “Do you really like them?..”

“I need you to show them,” and the cold silk slipped around in his hand, “to everyone.”
Noah shut his eyes. He knew he’d look if he kept them open.
“I need them to read all the things I never told them.” Audrey was very quiet. But her voice, Noah thought, was clearer with his eyes closed. His heart raced with the question of whether or not to risk a look at her. Just a moment. A last glance. But he clamped his eyes shut, almost crying, his head still down and the presence of Audrey still around him.
“And Noah?” He felt cold, slender fingers against his left cheek, “Heaven is beautiful.”
His eyes opened without a thought. And Audrey was gone, without any evidence that she had ever visited. There was no mark on his cheek, when his shaking fingers went to it. The thin, white curtains weren’t dancing in a ghostly wind. But the dining chair he’d found her in was still pushed out at an angle from when she’d risen.