Ghost No More (Ghost No More Series Book 1)

by CeeCee James

  She watched the smoke swirl against the ceiling a second before stabbing the cigarette toward me. “And I know that you’re still sneaking food. Don’t deny it.”

  I opened my mouth, but she silenced it with a look. “I know. You’ll try to be better. I’m sick of that promise. Don’t try to be better. Just be better.”

  She shook her head. “Just like your Dad. Every time I look at you it’s like he’s staring back at me. I remember what a disgusting waste of space he was. If I’d known what you’d be like, I would have never had you. Maybe then Adam would want kids. Oh, I know you’re jealous of him. Did you know after the first year with you, he wouldn’t even talk about another kid?”

  My fell open, and I backed away, destroyed by her words. The terrible ache almost drove me to my knees.

  Mama stayed on the couch every day, wrapped up in a striped afghan. Those first few days I made an effort to care for her, but she told me to keep away. She had my stepdad to take care of her by helping her bathe and bringing medicine. Mama became more withdrawn when she learned that the only cure was surgery.

  “You’re going to be ok, Mama.” I said, bringing her a cup of tea.

  “You’re going to regret how you treated me, CeeCee.”

  “I’m sorry Mama. I will try to be better.”

  “It’s too late for that. Go away.”

  Mama muttered that she might die during the operation. I shivered with the thought on my way to my room. My stepdad didn’t want me, and I would be forced to live with my real Dad. He was scary, mostly because of all the horrible things Mama had said about him.

  Mama stayed locked in her room. Adam shrouded her in a long jacket and a blanket when she left for the hospital, leaving me at home. I didn’t go with my stepdad when he visited Mama in the hospital. She told me I would make it worse.

  I went to bed crying every night, because Mama didn’t want to see me. Still, life was easier when she was gone.

  My stepdad always followed Mama’s rules. He didn’t talk to me very much when Mama was around, or interfere with her punishments.

  But while Mama was in the hospital, Adam and I talked a little bit. He didn’t monitor what I ate, and didn’t enforce the rule about staying outside. I came and went through the front door, washed my clothes and had a bath when I wanted to. The freedom was bliss, and I thought he was wonderful.

  Mama stayed in the hospital for several weeks. When she returned home, she hobbled from room to room in a thin pink house coat with her hair limp and tangled down her back. Grandma came up to help take care of Mama during her recovery. Mama wouldn’t talk to her, because she caught Grandma drinking one morning, even though Grandma had promised she wouldn’t.

  A few days after Mama was back, I came home from school to find a sandwich sitting on the counter.

  Mama waved her skinny hand towards it. “Eat it. I made it for you.”

  I moved slowly towards it, my brain trying to understand that she had made it for me. I picked it up; the bread was as stiff as cardboard. Still stumbling through my thoughts, I said, “Mama, the bread is stale...”

  WHACK! She cracked me with the back of her hand across my face. I fell against the counter. She hissed, “YOU ungrateful jerk. I made you that sandwich. You eat it.”

  Standing up, I forced it into my mouth with my lips quivering and a lump in my throat. Grandma’s glazed eyes found me, and she slurred alcohol fumes in my face.

  “Ohhhhhh CeeCee, she’s hurting and still made you ssandwich.”

  Mama pulled her bathrobe tight, and shuffled into her room. I didn’t see her again for a few days.

  As her health returned, Mama and Adam picked up their old routine of shopping every Saturday. I was the Fifth Wheel of the family and not included. They never told me where they were going, or when they would return. If I asked Mama, she’d laugh, “Why do you want to know? Thinking of sneaking back inside?”

  Before they left, Mama unplugged the beige curly telephone cord from the receiver and took it with her. At the door she turned back. “You know, we like to drive around the corner and watch you. We see if you sneak back inside after we leave. We’ll catch you one day.”

  I swallowed and nodded. I was afraid to use the bathroom in case they returned while I was in the house. I didn’t want to get the belt.

  Mama had come up with a new way to hit me with the belt. Just before my twelfth birthday, she called me to the table and sat across from me, her hands folded in front of her like we were at a business meeting. In a calm voice she said, “I have decided that each offense you commit will be worth twenty belts. I’ll divide the amount by four and you’ll receive them throughout the day.” Her face was stony when she rose from the table and walked to the living room. I went downstairs to my room feeling numb.

  From then on if I broke one of her rules, I had to stop what I was doing throughout the day and come inside for the belt. Mama didn’t punish me that way for long, though. It didn’t satisfy her, because by five whips I wasn’t screaming yet.

  Her suspicion and paranoia grew in other ways. During my long walks through the mountain roads I’d met a girl named Sandy. One day, Mama asked me where I had been, and I blurted out my friend’s name.

  “I don’t trust you,” she said, and went to the phone. I waited outside and listened through the open window as she adamantly talked to Sandy’s mom.

  “You know how kids are. Mine just hates to be outside. Don’t let her in.” Mama let out a light laugh at Sandy’s mom’s response. “Oh I know! By the way, don’t feed her either. She won’t eat dinner if she has snacks. I don’t do all that cooking for nothing, right?” There was more laughter, and then Mama hung up the phone. She came to the door with a tight smile. “I took care of that problem. Sandy’s mom will be letting me know if you sneak into her house.”

  I went over there a few days later, biting my nail as I rang the doorbell to see if Sandy was free. The door opened, and Sandy’s mom stood in the dark doorway looking at me. I felt shy, and in a stutter began to ask if Sandy could come out, when she thrust her arms and gathered me into a big bear hug.

  “You come right in here, I will never ever tell!”

  From that day on Sandy’s mom took me under her wing. She fed me sandwiches, potato chips, and cookies. Once, she gave me a big glass of Kool-Aid. I was horrified when I saw my lips stained cherry red and started crying, “My mom will kill me!” She ran and got a wash cloth so that I could scrub off the dye.

  Another afternoon, after I returned from Sandy’s house, Mama called me inside. “I drove down there to see if you were sneaking into her house.”

  I nearly keeled over as the blood drained from my upper half of my body. She examined me for a minute. “Don’t you forget, I’m always watching.”

  Sandy’s mom and siblings kept an eye out for Mama whenever I was at their house. There were a few times I had to dive out their back door, because they said she had driven by.

  In the meantime, my front teeth were coming in crooked. So, for my twelfth birthday, Mama took me to an orthodontist to be fitted for braces.

  “This is your birthday present,” she said, as she opened the office door. In the waiting room she muttered, “Although we wouldn’t need to be doing this if you hadn’t sucked your thumb.”

  The orthodontist did several x-rays and a plaster mold of my teeth. He beckoned Mama and Adam to come to the dentist chair where I sat with the paper bib clipped around my neck. Knotting his eyebrows together, he tapped his chart.

  “There seems to be something going on with her jaw. It’s just not lining up right. I’m thinking it’s going to take surgery and head gear to correct the problem.”

  Mama opened her eyes wide. “Oh, wow. That’s not good. Thank you for telling us.”

  We never went back to the orthodontist. Mama explained that it was because of her surgery costs. I was relieved because I didn’t want head gear. As the years went by, she didn’t take me to another dentist until we’d moved out of stat
e.

  Now that I was twelve my next door neighbor asked me to babysit. I loved babysitting, and it became regular employment. I always went over a few minutes early, hoping my presence would encourage the parents to leave as soon as possible. I’d flip on Sesame Street and sit down to watch it with the kids. Oscar still made me smile.

  A few minutes after the parents shut the door, I’d peek out the window to make sure they were gone, then run to the kitchen. I’d search the cupboards, reaching my hands far back for some forgotten food that I could eat unnoticed. I ate waxy pink chocolate chips, raw spaghetti noodles, and children’s vitamins. I ate the olives out of the lunch meat. I ate spoonfuls of peanut butter, cheese, and handfuls of cereal. When I was done I’d smooth the food so that it still appeared full and pray that the parents wouldn’t notice and tell Mama.

  The children’s mom started having me come over, even when she was home. She usually would ask just before I left for the night, “Do you mind watching the kids tomorrow while I do the dishes? I’ll pay you a dollar and some lunch.”

  I always jumped at the opportunity.

  One time, as she handed me a soda for my lunch, she said, “Don’t take this the wrong way hun, but I don’t like your mom. Any time you need a break, you come over here.”

  I was taken aback by her words and only nodded.

  I used my babysitting money to buy Mama presents to show her that I loved her. I craved those few seconds when her face softened, and she thanked me. Once, I ordered a flower arrangement. Another time, I found a lost kitten and presented it to her. I knew her love for animals might spill over to me when she cradled it and stroked its fur. The whole thing almost fell apart when the kitten’s owner showed up, but he let us keep it.

  Then one day, the presents stopped working. Now, when I brought her a prize she said, “If you really loved me you would obey me.”

  I’d always promise her, “I’ll turn over a new leaf Mama,” and hoped that she would give me another chance.

  She answered the same way every time, “I’ve heard that before. You sound like a broken record,” before turning away from me.

  Chapter 15

  ~Summer and Dad~

  Sixth grade ended and all my school books were stored away. I sat on the front step scratching a bug bite on my leg while I watched a hummingbird dip its beak into a columbine. Mama made me jump when she appeared at the door. She told me to pack my bags, because she was sending me down to Arizona to stay with my maternal grandparents for a couple weeks. I was twelve, and I will never forget that summer.

  Grandpa started in right away after I arrived at their house. Every day, he made me come out with him to his dusty shed, I’d tell myself, “He says he loves me. He loves me. He loves me.” He sat on an old milking stool and rambled about his fantasies before he molested me. The stories were scary, involving some of his favorite thirteen year-old prostitutes in Mexico. I stared at the closed shed door with a sick heart, imagining ways I could bust it down to get away.

  The abuse had been going on for six years now. He knew how to compel and bully me into making me do what he wanted. “This is our special secret,” he warned, before putting his finger over his lips. “Don’t you tell anyone. You want to be a good girl, don’t you? You could get ol’ Grandpa arrested. Besides, it would kill your Grandma.”

  About a week into the visit, I hurried out of the shed and up to the back door, crunching over the red lava rocks that Grandma had in place of grass. I felt dirty and scrubbed my hands against the sides of my pants. I didn’t know what I could do to ever feel clean again.

  The back door was wreathed in morning glory flowers, the vine holding its weight with the tiniest of green tendrils woven in the cracks of the door frame. Before walking inside, I touched the centers of a few of the flowers, dotting each of my fingertips with yellow pollen. The flowers reminded me of my childhood fairy book, on a picture page that said, “This is a safe, happy home.” With frustrated tears in my eyes, I brushed the pollen off my hands and went inside.

  A few hours later, Grandma snuck into my bedroom where I had been hiding with my book. She clutched two brown alcohol bottles, one of them pinned under her arm. With exaggerated tip-toe steps, she went to my dresser to pull out a drawer, and hid her bottles among my clothing. She winked one mascaraed eye at me and whispered, “It’s our little secret,” before tip-toeing back out the door. I looked down at my book and didn’t come out of my room until dinner.

  I heard Grandpa drive his Lincoln up the driveway, returning from a run to a chain restaurant. He came inside with a slam of the door that I imagined sent the morning glory flowers rocking.

  “Dinner!” he called.

  I put down my book and ran out to the kitchen. The scent hit me before I turned the corner, mmmm, fried chicken. The jaunty red and white chicken bucket that sat in the center of the tablecloth seemed bottomless as Grandma pulled more and more food out of it. There were biscuits, coleslaw, corn on the cob, and chicken. My eyes grew bigger with each food discovery as I rubbed my hands together and called for the drumstick. We were like a family right out of a commercial on the television.

  After dinner was cleaned up, Grandma disappeared into her room for a while. An hour passed before I saw her again with her hands flapping out to the side as she wobbled for balance just before she stumbled into the hallway wall. My heart leapt to my throat until I realized that she was drunk.

  She swung her head like it was very heavy and blinked her eyes trying to focus, her hair puffing out like dandelion fuzz. She looked over at me with glazed eyes. Her pupils sharpened and her eyes turned mean. Icy chills ran down my back. I had never seen Grandma with mean eyes before. With leaden steps, she stumbled over to the coffee table and snatched up a hair ribbon. She whipped it in my direction and slurred.

  “You are a horrible daughter to my precious girl! How could you treat her that way? She tells me the things you do! Horrible! Horrible Girl!”

  I flinched, even though the ribbon whips didn’t hurt. Backing away, I ran outside hoping to find Grandpa to rescue me.

  The driveway was empty; he had already driven away in the Lincoln. My shadow stretched out before me in the last pink rays of sunshine as it set behind the desert horizon. The echo in my heart boomed as I scanned for someplace to hide. There was nothing around but sand, cactus, and the detestable shed. My head hung low when I walked back inside.

  Grandma was still screaming in the living room, oblivious that I had ever left. All I could do was to cower down and repeat, “I’m sorry Grandma. I will try. I will try to be a better daughter.”

  I never saw Grandpa come home that night. Grandma finally collapsed on the couch, exhausted from her tirade. Her mouth sagged sideways, and she was soon snoring with a nasal, buzzing sound. I walked to my bedroom and pulled open my clothing drawer to get out my pajamas. The clinking sound of the bottles rolling inside made my stomach sink. What if Grandma finds them tomorrow night? Will the alcohol make her yell at me all over again? I wanted to run away, but where could I go? I spun in a circle, half hoping to find a hidden wardrobe that might take me to a new land. My eyes fixed on the mirror on the opposite wall, suddenly noticing that the metal scrolling around the mirror looked like it had black curlicue demon eyes. Climbing back in bed, I lay my head on my pillow and tried not to imagine it staring at me as I struggled to fall asleep.

  When the summer was over I packed my brown suitcase and returned back home. Mama asked me if I had been a good girl. Nausea rolled right up the back of my tongue when I answered with my happy-mask on, “Yes, I had a great time Mama. Thank you for letting me visit them.”

  On the inside I was screaming, please please make this stop!

  Finally, I pushed it down.

  Seventh grade would be starting in a week. I threw myself into creating a whole new look. Junior High was really moving up in the world. I promised myself, “No more shaking and flinching around boys! No choking or doing anything weird.”

  I ask
ed Mama if I could use some of my saved money to buy myself a few things for the year.

  “Salvation Army’s not good enough for you?” she asked.

  “I just want a few extra things.” I held my breath as I waited for her to answer. She called to Adam to take me with him the next time he left for town.

  A few days later he dropped me off at the mall. “I’m headed to the Auto Parts store. You have an hour.” He tapped his watch to show me he was serious and drove off.

  It was my first time in the mall. I pulled the heavy door open and walked into a bright arboretum that had a tree growing in the center. Circling it in orange squares were tables filled with people balancing plates of food. In the corner a blender buzzed at the Orange Julius stand.

  The mall hummed with energy that danced through my body. Out of every store entrance there was an explosion of thumping music and signs on the window blasting BACK TO SCHOOL SALE! 50% OFF! My fists clenched tight with excitement around my babysitting money deep in my pockets.

  I ducked into one store, and was immediately among all the other girls shopping with their friends or moms. They rifled through the clothes with high-pitched comments and quickly disregarded the clothes that weren’t in style. Everywhere I turned, I bumped into someone. I felt like an idiot as I tried to get out of the way.

  I grabbed a price tag on one of the shirts and pretended to look at it while I studied the store mannequin. A few minutes later, I left the store with a big smile, swinging a heavy bag that held two shirts that buttoned down the front and two pairs of pants.

  With my remaining money I ducked into a hair salon for a real hair-cut. There wasn’t a lot the hairdresser could do with my short hair. She clucked her tongue while she ran the comb through trying to part it on the left, then the right. She evened my hair out and showed me a new way to curl and style it.