Chapter 18
18
It was easier than I’d expected to reach Officer Kim. I’d found her and Officer Rivera’s full names in the visitor log, and decided to try her first. Though she’d said less than him, something about her energy had made her seem in charge. Standing just outside the hospital, I found her precinct and the operator transferred me immediately.
Officer Kim listened as I explained who I was. I told her about the note, the podcast, the tattoo connection, and Clint the faux therapist. After I finished, there was a long pause.
“Hello?” I pressed the phone harder to my ear, trying to ignore the biting cold; the temperature had just plunged back into wintry depths. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” She cleared her throat. “Thanks for sharing this info. I’m not sure what you’d like us to do with it.”
“I mean, you could call this retreat center at the very least. Maybe it’s too much to expect someone to actually go out there—”
“We’re no longer investigating this case,” she interrupted.
“Why not?” I pressed.
“Catherine has a history of disconnecting with her family. And she’s an adult, so it’s her prerogative to do so.”
This was what Diane had said. I felt a flash of annoyance. “But what if she’s in trouble?”
“I really can’t speculate on that.”
“All right.” I tried to regroup. “So basically you’re saying that if I want anyone to check this out, I’ll have to do it myself?”
“I strongly suggest you do not do that.” Officer Kim coughed and spoke quietly to someone else, her voice muffled like she was pressing the phone to her chest.
“And why is that?” I felt defiant, and enjoyed the feeling. It gave me energy.
She came back. “I’m going to be very honest with you…”
“Thea.”
“Thea. You seem like a caring person. But in these types of cases, the person in question is often caught up in some sort of illegal activity. So I would not recommend getting further involved.”
I paused. “Do you think I could talk to her parents?”
“They don’t know anything. Really.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been doing this awhile. I can tell.” Her voice changed, became faux polite. “Is there anything else?”
After we hung up I stood there for another minute, chilled and staring at the slate-gray sky until it started to rain.
On the subway home, a presumably unhoused woman curled up on the two-seater at the end and moaned, “No,” over and over again. By unspoken decree, the rest of us pretended we didn’t see or hear her. I changed cars, feeling a heavy dread in my gut.
The apartment was empty. I lay down on the couch. My conversations with Officer Kim, Diane, and even Amani had led to questioning looks: Why are you still thinking about this? The implied message: What’s wrong with you?
Maybe I just gave a shit. Was that so bad? Maybe there was a reason I’d crossed paths with this looming figure from my past. Because I couldn’t deny the unsettling feeling that she was in danger, even if no one else seemed to think so or care.
So what was I going to do? Spend $4K I didn’t have, adding to my sizeable debt from grad school, to investigate in New Mexico? It was ridiculous.
I looked again at the website, at the money-back guarantee. The idea that you could meet someone based on a weekend retreat seemed bonkers. Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy: attendees believed they’d meet someone, so they upped their efforts until they did.
But what if I went and tried to get info about Catherine… and then asked for my money back? It was possible they’d make it difficult. But I could threaten to write bad reviews and tip off journalists or influencers in that world. It looked like they were just getting started, and they wouldn’t want negative press.
Wait, was this happening? Was I actually considering going?
I pulled up the podcast episode and started it from the beginning. If there was anything fishy, then maybe… but if not, then I needed to listen to everyone and let this Catherine thing go. It could just be lingering countertransference, after all.
After the peppy intro music, Moon and Sol introduced themselves and bantered about their week, how they’d found a new hot spring a few towns over, and how an older man at a gas station en route had slipped Moon his number.
Then: “Let’s get into it.” Moon’s accented voice was smooth and low. “Today we’re going to get back to the basics, yes? We’re going to talk about ghost lovers.”
“Yeah, we are!” Sol’s voice was medium pitch but crackling with energy. “You want to start, babe?”
Oh, that smug “babe” that couples used, that I’d used, briefly, with Ryan.
“Sure.” A pause. “So I want to talk about my first crush. I was still in Ciudad Juárez with my mother. My father had already disappeared—presumably kidnapped, as I’ve talked about here before. So it was just the two of us. We lived in a small trailer park just outside of town. I was ten. The summers were sweltering. Our air conditioner always broke. My mom would go to work, and I’d be alone during the day. I was bored; no other kids around. But then, one day, there was this boy.” She chuckled. “A beautiful boy.”
“ The most beautiful boy?” Sol asked, smiling.
“I thought so at the time. He’d come to stay with his uncle who lived next door. And my god… I was in love!” She laughed, a hearty sound. “I’d watch him out of the windows like a spy. Finally, I got up the nerve to go outside. But I didn’t talk to him. No, I just acted very casual. I’d bring my biggest book and sit in the shade. I wanted him to think I was an intellectual. But he hung out with his uncle’s dog and just ignored me. I daydreamed about him. What he’d be like, what he’d say. Even what his voice sounded like! My mom told me his name was Carlos. It was the most enchanting name in the world.”
“I sense this is not going to turn out well,” Sol said.
“Just wait. I decided to talk to him on my birthday—I figured this was big enough news to share. So I dressed up and put on some of my mom’s lipstick. I found him in a field nearby.
“When he saw me, I suddenly realized how stupid I’d sound. But I said it anyway. Hi. It’s my birthday .”
“We’ve made contact!” Sol cried. “How did he respond?”
“He was just like, ‘Okay. Hi. Happy birthday.’ And you know what—his voice shocked me. In my fantasies he’d always had this deep, rich voice. But his voice was high and kind of screechy. So I stared at him and thought, Oh no .” She laughed. “Luckily, he was very nice and we became friends. But it amazed me how different he was from my daydreams. I’d thought he would be suave, smart, maybe even a little mysterious. But he was actually pretty nerdy. He didn’t even really look the same as I’d been picturing in my mind.”
“And you took that to mean…”
“Well, it was a difficult time in my life. I felt very alone. And I think a lot of young girls in particular are told that all we need is our prince to feel better. So I focused all this energy on my crush. And when I spoke to him—poof! It disappeared, just like that.”
“So you’d call Carlos a ghost lover, right?”
“Yes. My first ghost lover. But not my last.”
“Should we define the term?” Sol asked. “For anyone who hasn’t heard us talk about it before?”
“Yes, of course. Your ghost lover is your inner vision of a perfect partner. They’re a ghost because they don’t really exist. You can only see them when you project them onto another person. It could be a crush, like I had, but it also often happens in the beginning of relationships.”
“Exactly,” Sol said. “And to make it even more complicated, your ghost lover holds parts of you that you’re not able to access, so that you look for them in another person. For example, for a lot of men, their ghost lover might be nurturing, emotional, and supportive. Traditionally feminine traits that men and boys are often conditioned out of. Of course, that’s a super-generalized example; many women may also long for a nurturing partner if they don’t take care of themselves. But to keep it simple, this type of man would see his ghost lover in other women. He may even be attracted because he can overlay his ghost lover on them.”
“Right. And when we date someone, we start to merge with them,” Moon added. “So we feel like we’re able to take on those disowned traits through the other person.”
“Yes! An anxious person feels comforted. A stick-in-the-mud wants to party all night. It’s like a drug. On top of all those other love chemicals we get high on.”
“But at some point, it ends.” Moon sounded mournful. “You can’t stay merged forever. And when you separate and see the real person, with all of their flaws, it can feel disappointing or even scary. Who is this person? People may fall out of love fast.”
“But there’s a solution,” Sol said.
“There is!” Moon cried. “It’s possible to deconstruct your ghost lover by integrating their traits back into your own life. For example, before I met you, I started boxing. It helped me feel more powerful, and I started protecting myself more, setting boundaries and telling people what I needed. Then I didn’t feel like I needed someone else to give me those things.”
“But that’s just a part of it, right?” Sol asked. “With regards to what we help people do?”
“Oh, of course. There’s a whole other piece of the ghost lover that’s connected to your caretakers, and what you did or didn’t get from them when you were young. We can help with that too.” She paused. “Do you want to talk about Catherine?”
I sat up straight on the couch, my heartbeat kicking up a notch.
“Absolutely.” He was smiling. “Catherine is a member of our community who gave us permission to tell her story. That’s not her real name, of course. But she thought it was important for us to share her breakthrough with you all.”
“Catherine actually had two ghost lovers,” Moon went on. “They were based on two different males from her childhood. One of them was abusive to her. So she really struggled with dating and relationships.”
“Until…” Sol prompted.
“Until she came here.” Moon sounded quietly pleased. “We did some of the deepest work possible to excavate those ghost lovers. And at the end of our sessions, she was able to let them both go.”
“And best of all,” Sol went on, “she was able to connect with partners who she didn’t have to project on. She’s now living here full-time, pursuing her art, helping us spread these teachings. And she has not only a real-life partner, but many connections and friendships to rely on.”
“And this all started with a weekend retreat, yes?” Moon asked.
“It sure did.” Sol grinned. “Speaking of, we have a retreat coming up this month. All of us are really looking forward to it. If you come, you’ll even be able to meet Catherine.” A beat. “What did she want us to say again?”
“She wanted us to say: ‘If you feel a tug, a longing, listening to this, then take it as a sign.’?” Moon’s voice became urgent. “I’ll add to that: Even if you’ve never met us, this place is your home. Here, you’ll feel a sense of belonging that I can promise you’ve never experienced before.”
“Totally agree. I love that.” Sol gave a contented sigh. “So take our words as an invitation from the universe: It’s a beautiful time to come home.”