Chapter 2

The day I woke up as a ghost I did not immediately realize I was dead.  I simply got up feeling as though my whole body was numb and tingling. Immediately I realized it was getting pretty late in the day. The usual lightshow that greeted me as I woke in the morning had moved on overhead. I decided it must be noon or shortly past. On Saturday it wasn’t unusual for my mother to let me sleep in late but I never usually sleep quite so long. As I got up I looked down and realized I was still wearing the same dress I had put on the previous morning for school. I thought it was strange I hadn’t changed into my nightgown before bed and even stranger that I didn’t even remember going to bed. I remembered going to school and coming home but nothing about seeing my parents or dinnertime. I rubbed my eyes because the red flowered pattern on my white dress seemed somewhat foggy in my morning vision. I didn’t even realize I was looking right through myself.
            As I made my way downstairs and through the second floor corridor I could hear voices in the parlor a floor below. I was used to people being in our home. My mother was quite the socialite and hosted afternoon teas and dinner parties all the time. This, however, did not sound like any party she had ever had before.
            It sounded like there was a large group of people talking but the noise they made was barely above a whisper. There was no laughing or tinkling of china like I would have expected to hear and I could have sworn I heard someone crying.

            Curious, I quietly made my way down the main staircase and peeked into the parlor. There were about twenty or so people standing around in various positions making hushed conversation. I recognized many of them as family members, old teachers, classmates and people I knew from around town. The women sat in chairs dabbing their eyes with white handkerchiefs, while some of the men stood around the marble fireplace smoking their cigarettes. The thing I noticed immediately that they all had in common was that they were all dressed in black and they all wore the same subdued look on their face.

            When I was a child my grandfather died and as I watched all the people milling around anxiously through our parlor I was reminded of a very similar gathering to the one I was witnessing now. A sense of foreboding began to simmer in the back of my mind.

            I quickly located the source of the crying I heard from upstairs. It was my best friend and nearest neighbor Ruby. She was sitting in a far corner of the room in one of the dining chairs that had been pulled into the parlor to accommodate the large group. Her head was in her hands and she sobbed openly. Her body was shaking violently and she was struggling for breath. I wanted to go to her so badly but I had to find my mother and father first and find out what was going on.  

            I noticed my mother was sitting on her favorite sofa. The look on her face frightened me. Her eyes were wide and red and glazed over. It looked like she had been crying for days. She wasn't blinking or moving at all. She just stared straight ahead like a statue, looking at nothing. Her hands held a handkerchief so tightly I thought it might tear.

            Her sisters were sitting on either side of her rubbing her back and shoulders consolingly, not saying a word or looking at her.

            “Mother?” I went to her immediately falling to my knees on the rug in front of her. “Mother what’s wrong?” She didn’t look at me or even seem to hear me. She looked so delicate I was afraid to touch her for fear she might crumble to pieces before my eyes. My hands hovered over her helplessly.

            I directed my question at my aunt Susan, “What’s wrong with her aunty? What happened? Did someone die?” I let out a gasp as my heart fluttered in panic. My thoughts immediately went to my father whose health hadn’t always been the best. I quickly scanned the room for his face. With relief I found him standing by the front bay window looking out at the magnolia trees in full bloom that filled our yard.

            When I went to him I noticed he held a similar expression to my mothers. “Papa, what’s going on? Whose funeral is this?” his gaze didn't shift a millimeter. That was when Reverend Jacobs came up to my father and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked out in the same direction as my father and spoke in a soft tone “She’s with the Lord now, Charles. There is no better place for her than that.”

            My father seemed to snap out of his trance for a moment and gave the reverend a weak and appreciative smile before returning to his far off gaze.
            “Who?” I demanded. No one seemed to hear me. “Who died?!” I hollered and noticed for the first time I that my voice sounded different. It seemed to echo in my ears. The sound of it reminded me of swimming as a child and trying to scream as loud as I could underneath the water. Just like under the water I could tell no matter how loudly I screamed my voice was not going any further than my own head. Panic began to boil up from the recesses of my brain.

            It was at that moment that everything started to become clear. I started to catch little bits what the hushed voices around me were saying. Like pieces in a hideous puzzle they began to fit together to form a picture. “Too young...” I heard. “Such a beautiful girl.” said another. “What a tragedy.” “Poor Cecilia.”
            Poor Cecilia? I thought with stabbing realization. Was this my funeral?

           

            It was then that I noticed a piece of furniture in the room that did not belong there. I had not noticed it before because it was pushed up against the far wall. It was a casket, but I couldn't see the body inside. I didn’t want to see it but I knew I had to be sure. I approached it slowly and reluctantly.

            I immediately recognized the serene sleeping face as my own. At first glance it looked as though I was merely sleeping. The makeup caked on my cheeks and lips gave the indication that blood still flowed beneath the skin and my blonde hair was perfectly curled and sprawled out on the satin white pillow. I wore a different dress. It was blue and beautiful but I had always hated wearing it because the crinoline underneath the skirt was so itchy. I guess that didn’t matter now. As I looked closer the absence of life in my face became very apparent. My eerie facade looked thin and the skin was glossy and too perfect, like a china dolls. My eyelids had begun to sink and my whole body seemed oddly still.

            Cold panic flooded through my being. I was completely paralyzed with fear as my mind went blank. Protecting itself from fully comprehending what was happening. I kept telling myself it was some kind of mistake. Numerous explanations for what was happening ran through my head each one more ridiculous than the last. I was in a dream, It was all an elaborate joke. I had a secret twin I never knew about. It was the one explanation that I refused to think about that turned out to be the correct one. I was dead.

           

            Heat flooded my neck and ears and they started ringing. Then I felt a twisting pain somewhere in my chest which told me something unimaginably terrible had happened. I suddenly felt uncontrollably angry. I felt like I was moving in a dream. Floating from face to face, my echoed scream ringing in my ears as I tried desperately to get someone to hear me. I couldn't be dead! I was only 18 years old. I still had so many experiences left undone. Things you need to be alive for. I was going to college. I was going to get married. I couldn't be dead! I didn't even remember dying. How could I die and not remember it? And if I were dead how come I was still at home? Attending my own funeral? How come I could still see everyone?

             I went to Ruby and lowered my face to her sobbing one “Ruby.” I didn’t scream it. I said her name as if I was trying to get her attention in class, like I had done dozens of times before. “Ruby. Please listen to me. Please Ruby don’t cry, I’m right here.” I went to wipe a tear from her face only to find that I could no longer see my hand or arm. My entire body was gone. I felt like crying but I somehow already knew I could not.

            Anxiety ripped through my invisible chest and stomach again. I suddenly felt completely alone in a room full of people. I decided I would go back to bed still hoping it was all a dream and when I woke everything would go back to normal. But it wouldn't. Still, I floated back up to the safety and comfort of my room. I curled up on top of the covers clutching at the pain in my chest which I could feel but not see.
             For what seemed like hours I laid there unable to sleep and unable to comprehend fully what was happening to me. I just laid there steeping myself in fear, denial, anger and profound depression. Eventually another emotion began to manifest itself, something I could not pin point right away because I had never felt it so strongly before; Grief.

            I allowed the feeling to consume me completely. I grieved for my own death. I grieved for all the things I would never do. For the second chance I would never get. I grieved for my parents who lost their only child and for Ruby who lost her best friend. I grieved for the courage I never found in life and for every day I wasted.

            Time does not work for the dead in the same way it does for the living. When I finally decided to get up I could see through the stained glass window of my bedroom that trees and gardens were nearly bare. Everything had already dropped off and blown away. All that was left was their twisted black skeletons.

            Winter was coming. I had died in the spring.

            What had felt like mere hours to me shut up in my bedroom was actually about 8 months.

            The only way I can describe what happened during that time is that my mind went into a kind of hibernation. The reality of what was happening to me was too much for it to handle all at once so it went into super slow motion in order to process it all.

            As I was “walking” (I say walking but really it is more like floating using my thoughts as a propulsion device) through the second floor corridor I heard the phone ring in the library. I heard my father’s deep voice answer it, say a few short words and hang up. As I continued down the corridor and into the library at the end I half expected my father to look up when I entered but he didn’t.
            As I approached he looked much different to me, thinner and pale. His hair had a lot more gray than I remembered. It looked as though years had been taken off his life. His eyes drooped and his cheeks hung.  It was as if all of the muscles in his face typically used for smiling had grown weak begun to sag from disuse. He had looked like a sad old bulldog.

            He sat in the chair at his roll top desk holding a framed photograph. I walked around beside him and saw it was a picture of me.

My graduation photo for a ceremony I never made it to.

As he held it he touched my black and white cheek behind the glass.            

            “Oh, Cece.” He sighed. For a moment I thought he was speaking directly to me but then he let out a violent sob. He shoulders shook and I wanted to put my hands on them but I didn’t know where they were. All of a sudden he stood up and hurled the photograph towards the fireplace smashing it on the mantel. He then cleared all of the contents of his desk onto the floor with one swipe of his arms. His green banker’s lamp smashed on the floor shrouding the room in darkness. He collapsed back into his chair with his head on the desk sobbing. He sobbed uncontrollably asking repeatedly “Why? Why her? Why my girl? Oh, Cece, Princess, what happened? Why? Why not me?!”

            I felt helpless to console him and a feeling of guilt began twisting around in my stomach.. I sat on the floor beside his chair and tried to feel my head resting in his lap like I used to do when I was a child.

            “Papa,” I barely whispered it knowing he wouldn't hear it anyway, “I'm so sorry.”

             

Everything changed for my parents after my death. My father stopped going to work at the courthouse. Instead he spent his time wasting away the hours in his stuffy, dark library. He took to sleeping uncomfortably on the leather sofa every night. He would read old books with dreary looking covers or listen to dismal music on his record player very softly. Most of the time however, he just cried. I knew all this because I spent the majority of my time shut up with him even though I don’t think he knew it.

            My father and I had a very close and special bond that only a father and daughter can share. He always used to tell me how much he loved me and how proud he was of me even when I felt I did not deserve his praise. It seemed like everything I touched was gold to him just because I was his little girl. Since my death my father had felt a light go out in his life. He no longer found joy in anything the world offered because I was not in it to enjoy it as well. His life became all about waiting for his turn to die. I cringed as he took up drinking to help perpetuate this waiting game. But even that, I learned, was not working quickly enough for  my poor papa.

            My mother took a very different approach to grieving my death. She continued to attend church every Sunday despite the conspicuous absence of her husband. She fulfilled all of her commitments to the various charities she volunteered for and even kept up with her book club. My mother was determined to keep up appearances and not to let anyone in town see just how overwhelmingly devastating my death was to her. Not that anyone would blame her.

            However, it was the subsequent change in her appearance and behavior after my death which gave away her true mental state. Though her clothes, hair and makeup had always been flawlessly employed like a theater costume, the effects of countless sleepless nights and endless days of crying had begun to creep into her complexion. The once healthy and robust woman with perfect sun kissed skin had become pallid and delicate looking. Her clothes began to hang off her skeleton body like a coat hanger and her eyes were never without a thin film of tears. My mother’s once warm smile had now become too forced and her hearty laugh became shaky and unconvincing. When she spoke at her Garden Society meeting her voice took on the manic shrill of a woman barely hanging onto sanity.

            But she always kept busy despite it all because I knew at home was where she felt the most alone and sad. Home was only a constant reminder of me. A few times I thought she could sense my presence when I was around her and though it hurt I could not blame her for staying away as much as possible. She never saw my father anymore except for in the evenings when she would bring his dinner into the library and set it on the circular desk just a few steps in from the entry. He never spoke to her but sometimes she would attempt to strike up pleasant conversation about trivial things that happened during the day.
            On Christmas eve the year I died, it seemed my father was finally fed up with waiting for his turn.

`           My mother brought his dinner into the library as usual, and attempted to make idle chit chat. “I saw Mrs. Hammond today,” she said as she put down the tray and arranged the utensils while trying to inject the slightest bit of excitement in her voice, “She had twins, a little boy and little girl. I ran into her going to the salon. She had one of those double wide strollers.” she gave a weak chortle, “They are the cutest little things. She invited us over for Christmas dinner tomorrow night but I told her we were going to visit my parents in Jersey. Were not of course but what else was I supposed to say?…are you listening to me Charles?”
            No response.
            She could see my father’s faint silhouette by the snow lit twilight creeping in through the drapery. She could see his slumped silhouette in the red leather wing-back chair which he rarely seemed to move from. However, unlike me, what she couldn’t see through the darkness was the look of terrifying resolve on his face and she could not see the revolver he was holing firmly in his lap.
            “Okay, well I’ll just leave your dinner here then. I’m tired so I’ll probably just go straight to bed. Good night.” A pause  “Merry Christmas, Charles.” I could hear the sadness in her voice.
            No response.
            Slowly my mother closed the heavy double doors to the library and began to climb the stairs to her bedroom. As she placed her slippered foot on the top stair a loud shot ran throughout the house like magnified pop of a campaign cork.

            My father was dead. I knew he was going to do it and I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t warn my mother. All I could do was watch in despair and his blood sprayed the wall and his soul went into the light without even pausing to look back. He never even knew I was here. I could only imagine his disappointment when he got to the other side and realized I wasn’t there.

            After his suicide my mother’s final nerve which was the only thing tethering her to reality was finally severed. Eventually she fell apart completely and a little while later three men from the Willowdown Psychiatric hospital came to collect her as she had become a danger to herself. Within a year death and despair had wiped out our entire family.
             

 

Author's Note

Thanks for reading!

Reviews

[HayleyLemore]

I can't stop reading.
Cold panic went through Cecilia when she realized she was dead. Do ghosts go cold? I thought they were light and airy. How would a ghost act to shocking realization? The first thing I think of is they are not accustomed to weightlessness. Perhaps with a case of shock their mouth might drop open and their eyes bug out and they push off, suddenly becoming airborne due to weightlessness, and instantly find themselves floating to the wall or ceiling. As a reader I wait for her to return and suddenly see that she is sitting on top of great grandmothers curio cabinet with her face in her hands - stunned with all the proceedings. Please, don't let me change your writing.
I think the word dismal is appropriate for the middle of the chapter when her father fades in with the dust. Oh, I found the word dismal associated with the music.
Hmm, when her parents die is there any chance they might pass one another in their ascension into Heaven. Just a thought.