She says she sees things. It’s easy, Livvy says. Anyone can do it. You just have to be still and in the moment. In your head still, and the heart beating slow and the breathing slow, too. And if you just look past what is obvious, the here and the now and then gone, you see things.
When I asked her what I would see exactly, Livvy never could say. It’s different for everyone, she says. It depends. Livvy says she sees her dead mother and she’s sometimes smiling and other times she’s shaking one finger as though to warn Livvy away from doing something. I don’t know if I believe Livvy, but I say that I do. After all, it’s her dead mother she sees and I don’t never want to take that away from her.
Livvy’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. If it wasn’t for the stuff with the dead mother she keeps seeing, it’d be perfect. She’s pretty as a model with legs right up to her backside and walking with her on my arm I can feel the heads turning in the street. And she’s all sweet and soft and kissing and I like that. And weekends we sometimes just stay in bed for the whole day and I like that too. She ain’t the first girl I fucked or even the twenty-first, but she’s different. With Livvy it feels like there’s been no other and there will be no other after her.
One morning, and we’re lying all breathless and hot and a small space between us now that we’d finished, and Livvy sits up and she’s staring into the corner like she sees something in the nothing that’s there. That’s when she told me about her dead mother. She’s smiling, Livvy says, like the mother approves of me, and she says to Livvy that I’m a keeper. At first, I think Livvy’s just messing about, like maybe it’s a game; then I don’t know if I feel all that comfortable that Livvy’s dead mother has just watched me make out with her daughter. That feels kinda weird.
But I get used to it in time. Livvy’s dead mother looks out for us, see. She knows where things we have lost can be found. Like keys for the car or appointment cards or nail-clippers. She just knows and so we never need to argue, me and Livvy. And her dead mother can feel when a storm is coming and she tells Livvy so the storm can be kissed away before it breaks and I swear we ain’t never had a cross word between us and it’s been nearly three months and that’s nice.
I try what Livvy says. I make myself still and my heart and my breath slow, and I try staring into the beyond, like Livvy does. But if I’m being honest, I don’t get it. I don’t see nothing. No dead relative or a window on the next world or things that are lost and must be found. Livvy says I’ve just got to be more patient and it’ll be clear in time.
I talked to Tom at work about it, being careful with my words, and I asked him if he believed in that sorta shit and he shrugged and he said he didn’t really know. Maybe, he said, and he said there was a woman up Canning Way and for a buck fifty she’d get a message from someone on the other side and he’d been once and it was pretty convincing, he said.
I been with a girl before who wouldn’t fuck on a Sunday and she was always praying and going to church to confess what we done and the places we done it – and that’s all normal. So, Livvy seeing her dead mother is something I think I can live with and so I do.
November 19, 2013: She saw.
Patricia Ann McNair 
http://judithlindenau.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/november-19-2013-she-saw/
She says she sees things. It’s easy, Livvy says. Anyone can do it. You just have to be still and in the moment. In your head still, and the heart beating slow and the breathing slow, too. And if you just look past what is obvious, the here and the now and then gone, you see things.
When I asked her what I would see exactly, Livvy never could say. It’s different for everyone, she says. It depends. Livvy says she sees her dead mother and she’s sometimes smiling and other times she’s shaking one finger as though to warn Livvy away from doing something. I don’t know if I believe Livvy, but I say that I do. After all, it’s her dead mother she sees and I don’t never want to take that away from her.
Livvy’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. If it wasn’t for the stuff with the dead mother she keeps seeing, it’d be perfect. She’s pretty as a model with legs right up to her backside and walking with her on my arm I can feel the heads turning in the street. And she’s all sweet and soft and kissing and I like that. And weekends we sometimes just stay in bed for the whole day and I like that too. She ain’t the first girl I fucked or even the twenty-first, but she’s different. With Livvy it feels like there’s been no other and there will be no other after her.
One morning, and we’re lying all breathless and hot and a small space between us now that we’d finished, and Livvy sits up and she’s staring into the corner like she sees something in the nothing that’s there. That’s when she told me about her dead mother. She’s smiling, Livvy says, like the mother approves of me, and she says to Livvy that I’m a keeper. At first, I think Livvy’s just messing about, like maybe it’s a game; then I don’t know if I feel all that comfortable that Livvy’s dead mother has just watched me make out with her daughter. That feels kinda weird.
But I get used to it in time. Livvy’s dead mother looks out for us, see. She knows where things we have lost can be found. Like keys for the car or appointment cards or nail-clippers. She just knows and so we never need to argue, me and Livvy. And her dead mother can feel when a storm is coming and she tells Livvy so the storm can be kissed away before it breaks and I swear we ain’t never had a cross word between us and it’s been nearly three months and that’s nice.
I try what Livvy says. I make myself still and my heart and my breath slow, and I try staring into the beyond, like Livvy does. But if I’m being honest, I don’t get it. I don’t see nothing. No dead relative or a window on the next world or things that are lost and must be found. Livvy says I’ve just got to be more patient and it’ll be clear in time.
I talked to Tom at work about it, being careful with my words, and I asked him if he believed in that sorta shit and he shrugged and he said he didn’t really know. Maybe, he said, and he said there was a woman up Canning Way and for a buck fifty she’d get a message from someone on the other side and he’d been once and it was pretty convincing, he said.
I been with a girl before who wouldn’t fuck on a Sunday and she was always praying and going to church to confess what we done and the places we done it – and that’s all normal. So, Livvy seeing her dead mother is something I think I can live with and so I do.