Spooks in the Cupboard

Despite how tempting it is, I don't believe in ghosts, at least not the rattling chains and spooks in the cupboard kind.  But reading the story of a friend who wrote about her daddy's suicide, I found myself feeling haunted and a little restless.  That same night I dreamed about the morning I learned my mother had died, a life altering event but apart from writing about it once, something I hadn't given any thought to in over 20 years.

She died early on a Saturday morning - although I had to look up the month and year - and I remember we were packing for a weekend in Bar Harbor when the telephone rang and a solemn voiced, long time family friend gave me the news. 

You'll come to the wake, he said, somewhere between a statement and a question.

No, I said.

Then to the funeral, he said after a pause.

No, I said clearly.

Your dad would like you to be there, he persisted but very low key.

Then he should have called me, I said, hoping for a mix of indifference and casual, suspecting that all I was managing was bitter, Thanks for letting me know.

She was your mother, he said as if it needed pointing out.

My mother died, I said quietly, a very long time ago, and hung up the telephone.

You can spend years regretting a single word or conversation, wishing for a chance to re-learn the proper lines and carry it off with a better result but I never once felt that way about that particular call.  I remember standing there in the kitchen and suddenly being able to stand straight and breathe for what seemed like the first time in years.

Who was on the 'phone?  my husband asked.

Wrong number, I said and shrugged, only slightly surprised at how easily and carelessly the lie had come. There was no point in ruining a long planned for weekend out of town and I might've instinctively known that the not unexpected death of one alcoholic would mean little to another.  I might even have suspected that he would take my lack of remorse as some kind of sick reflection on his current - but, I feared, temporary - sobriety.  On the whole, it was a Pandora's Box not worth opening.  This spook, I decided, could stay in the cupboard a little longer.  I was up to my ears in relief.

 Who knew that decades later someone else's ghost would try and wake one of my own.

 Every life is complicated, every mind a kingdom of unwrapped mysteries ~ Dean Koontz