Hi, Mr. Giggles

She’s there no matter what I do. Whether I fall asleep or sit awake with the hallway light on, she finds her way into the room. She stands just inside the doorway, or at the foot of the bed, or close enough behind me that I can feel her breath on my skin. And she looks like her too, so much like my wife. I was married to that woman for twelve years. I know her face the way I know my own hands. There’s no way, no possible way, I could forget her. But there is something wrong with this thing, like it’s only wearing her. I don’t know, I just miss her so much. She tells me stories only my wife would know. She giggles the same way too. But when she talks, her voice… I know my wife’s voice and whatever this is, it isn’t hers. I want her to go away just as much as I want her to stay. But what I can’t stomach, is when our daughter comes to me and tells me that she can see Mama. I lie to her, it kills me but I do. She tells me through fits of sobbing that she can see her mother on the ground leaning against her bed. She tells me that Mama is here and that she strokes her hair. I don’t know what to do anymore. I tell her it’s a bad dream, I tell her Mama is in Heaven. I lie so hard that it kills me. It’s gotten to the point now that she can’t even sleep in her own room anymore. Night after night she whispers, “She only sucks on my fingers to help me go to sleep, Daddy.” I lay there listening to it. The wet giggles and sucking sounds. But the giggling isn’t coming from my wife and it almost sounds like a man. What scares me the most is that it comes from my daughter. I can’t sleep and I need help. I just miss them both so much and wish that they had never left me.