Raquel's Abel by Leigh Barbour

listen…”
    “I’ve got to go. Just wish my sister could have some compassion.”
    I heard the receiver bang down on the phone. If she’d get an interest, or a hobby, or a job, or something, even go back to school, she’d be so much happier and have something to offer a man. What would she do if Carter took the house away from her? Would she come back home? She wouldn’t be happy here, but she’d love making me miserable.
    I heard a knock at the door. It must be Maria Elena.
    “Come in,” I said.
    The door cracked and I saw Abel’s blond head, then one of his dark eyes. “May I have the pleasure of a beautiful lady’s company?”
    My heart fluttered as I rose and walked to the door. I’d put on another one of my new outfits, hoping he’d make an appearance. “Do come in.”
    He wore a white shirt with a thin collar buttoned to the top and a pair of black pants that fit snugly. My heart beat too quickly and I hoped I wasn’t blushing. He walked with his hands clasped in the back, perusing the room, admiring my posters. I had one for each of the subjects of my biographies. I especially loved the photo of Captain Sir Richard Burton taken supposedly at the time he was translating the Arabian Nights. He looked like quite the character with a dark bushy mustache, a tall cap, and silky robes.
    Abel perused each one, but lingered at the photograph of Isadora Duncan taken in Athens, on tiptoes, her head slung back, and her arms outstretched.
    “Apropos that they took the picture in front of one of the Athenian temples, since they say she danced like a goddess,” I said.
    “I thought of you as akin to a goddess when I used to watch you working in here.”
    I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted he used to spy on me.
    “I couldn’t talk to you, only worship you from a distance.” His fair skin was creamy and his eyes the cool color of a forest floor.
    “I don’t understand. If you could see me, then why couldn’t I see you?”
    He stopped walking.
    I looked around my office at all the papers covering every bit of furniture except for the place I left hollowed out so I could pound away on my laptop.
    “Let me clear you a place.” I lifted a stack of papers off of an old chair, ignoring the dust that rained down to the floor. “Have a seat.”
    He sat down across from me. “Tell me, did you believe in ghosts or spirits or anything like that before you met me?”
    “Of course not, there are no…” I almost said a really stupid thing.
    “You see? You didn’t believe until your grandmother put the idea in your head, and then you opened your mind for just an instant and you could see.”
    “Then why can’t Maria Elena see you?”
    He brought his leg up and crossed it over the other. “I am not an expert on ghostly affairs, but I do believe that her soul is tortured.”
    “Tortured? Maria Elena?” I never imagined her to be tortured. Although losing a child must have been terrible.
    “Some people have an aura about them. I’ve been able to see them since I died.”
    “And? Maria Elena has an aura?”
    “Well, everyone has an aura, but Maria Elena’s is sort of well, incomplete. Much like your sister’s.”
    “Regina,” I repeated. “It’s so unfair,” I said without thinking.
    “Yes, it was unfair.” He fiddled with his shoe’s ornate leather flap that covered his shoelaces. “Your father blamed her for the change in your mother.”
    “Change in my mother?”
    “Even in the hospital, it was obvious that your mother wasn’t the same after the birth of your sister.”
    “I never really saw much of my mother after Regina came along.” I hadn’t thought she’d changed, just was dedicated to the new baby.
    “Neither did anyone. She locked herself in her room, refusing even to tend to the infant.”
    My mother must have been suffering from post partum depression and my father blamed poor little Regina. Understanding this made me feel like I’d found a piece to a puzzle,