—I’LL BE YOUR HALL PASS IF YOU NEED ONE

                                             The Spirit Board

My wife floats into the bedroom, thin, wan and gray, looking like human smoke, or a human with another human no longer inside her.

She sheds all her clothes as if they’re petals stuck to her skin, lays on the opposite end of the bed, legs spread, knees bent as if preparing to give birth.

“What do you see?” she asks in a voice so hollow and hushed that it sounds like it belongs to the wind.

I’m dumbstruck by what’s between her thighs, wondering if I’m hallucinating.

“What?” she asks. “Be honest.”

“I think, well, I can’t believe it, but I think I that’s a, a, a Ouija Board.”

“Yes,” she says.  

“How did it get there? I mean, what the--”

My wife holds a forefinger to her lips to silence me. “This is not about you,” she says. “Take the planchette in your hand while holding it to the board.”

“Planchette?”

“The heart-shaped piece of wood.”

“Are you serious?”

“Shhhh.”

When I do what she’s asked, the planchette moves by itself, even though my fingers are holding it.

“Read what it says aloud.”

“They’re just letters.”

“Letters stringing together words.”

“T H I—”

“I need the words.”

           I read the sentence to myself—This man will never give you a child, and say, “Try again. Third time’s the charm.”