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Louise is furious. Louise didn't know Louise knew how to be angry. Louise hangs up when Louise calls. Louise drives over to Louise's house and no one comes to the door. But Louise can see A
Louise writes a letter to Louise. "I'm so sorry," she writes. "I should have known. Why didn't you tell me? He doesn't love me. He was just drunk. Maybe he got confused. Please, please forgive me. You don't have to forgive me immediately. Tell me what I should do."
At the bottom she writes, "P.S. I'm not pregnant."
Three weeks later, Louise is walking a group of symphony patrons across the stage. They've all just eaten lunch. They drank wine. She is pointing out architectural details, rows of expensive spotlights. She is standing with her back to the theater. She is talking, she points up, she takes a step back into air. She falls off the stage.
A man – a lawyer – calls Louise at work. At first she thinks it must be her mother who has fallen. The lawyer explains. Louise is the one who is dead. She broke her neck.
While Louise is busy understanding this, the lawyer, Mr. Bostick, says something else. Louise is A
"Wait, wait," Louise says. "What do you mean? Louise is in the hospital? I have to take care of A
No, Mr. Bostick says. Louise is dead.
"In the event of her death, Louise wanted you to adopt her daughter A
"But I slept with her cellist," Louise said. "I didn't mean to. I didn't realize which number he was. I didn't know his name. I still don't. Louise is so angry with me."
But Louise isn't angry with Louise anymore. Or maybe now she will always be angry with Louise.
Louise picks A
Louise and A
Louise and A
All the cellists are there. They look amputated without their cellos, smaller, childlike. A
While the minister is still speaking, number eight lies down on the ground beside the grave. The cellists on either side each take an arm and pull him back up again. Louise sees that his nose is ru
Patrick is there. His eyes are red. He waves his fingers at A
The woman cellist, number five, comes up to Louise after the funeral. She embraces Louise, A
In the evening Louise calls her mother and tells her that Louise is dead.
"Oh sweetie," her mother says. "I'm so sorry. She was such a pretty girl. I always liked to hear her laugh."
"She was angry with me," Louise says. "Her daughter A
"What about A
"The ghost is gone," Louise says.
There is a click on the line. "Someone's listening in," her mother says. "Don't say anything – they might be recording us. Call me back from a different phone."
A
A
A
Mr. Bostick knows who A
"I think it would be better for A
Mr. Bostick agrees to contact A
"Tell him she's a fantastic kid," Louise says. "Tell him she looks just like Louise."
In the end George Candle comes and collects A
"You think you're smarter than me," A
But she doesn't say what they are. Louise doesn't ask.
George Candle cries when he meets his daughter. He's almost as hairy as the ghost. Louise can smell his marriage. She wonders what A
"I loved your mother very much," George Candle says to A
They go to see Louise's gravestone. The grass on her grave is greener than the other grass. You can see where it's been tipped in, like a bookplate. Louise briefly fantasizes her own funeral, her own gravestone, her own married lover standing beside her gravestone. She knows he would go straight home after the funeral to take a shower. If he went to the funeral.
The house without A
That night Louise dreams of Louise endlessly falling off the stage. She falls and falls and falls. As Louise falls she slowly comes apart. Little bits of her fly away. She is made up of ladybugs.
A