by Nicole Seitz
Janie dropped her pencil. She looked up at me, swayed, and I thought she might be about to faint.
“It’s true,” said Clarabelle Shoemaker. “I know it for a fact.”
“But . . . it’s impossible,” said Janie. She was beginning to tear up. “She’s here. We’re here. Talking.”
“As God is my witness,” said Clarabelle, rocking again and pointing to the sky. “Oh how ’bout that? A witness calling a Witness.” She chuckled, and I grabbed Janie’s hands.
“Come on, Janie,” I said. “Let’s try to help these worms now. Come on down here with me.”
Janie was glazed over. She was staring from me to Clarabelle, then down at the ground. She was in slow motion, and knowing what the truth was doing to her hurt me down to my core. I wanted to scream and cry at the sky, Why? Why should a child ever have to go through this?!
But I didn’t. Instead, I said, “Come on, sweetie. Let’s pick up these worms now. They’re dying.”
Janie shook her head and bent down on all fours. She went to pick up a squirming worm. She couldn’t quite get her fingers on it. “Janie, I’m having a dickens of a time. Aren’t you?”
Janie struggled, convinced the worm was stuck to the ground. She went for another and then another. To no avail. “I cain’t pick them up!” she fretted. Then she began crying.
“I can’t either,” I said. The time had come. There was no more room for stalling.
“Honey, in your heart you already know why I can’t pick up these earthworms to save them. But do you know why you can’t? Do you know now, honey? Do you understand?”
Clarabelle stood up on her front porch and in all her meanness, blurted it out. I knew there was a special place in hell for her. I watched helplessly as the old woman threw her arms wide, and for all the world to hear, she belted, “Because you’re a ghost, too, Janie! You’re a ghost, your grandma’s a ghost, and even me. Boo!”
Chapter Fifty-two
FLOWERS IN THE SIDEWALK
{Janie}
There were no words. I was in a bad dream. I wanted to wake up, but there was no waking up from this. The sky around me dimmed as if the lights may flick out any second. I saw Mrs. Shoemaker standing on the front porch. She looked much younger—maybe it was her daughter there. On my knees, surrounded by earthworms and question marks, I looked over at Grandma Mona, who was crying. Her eyes were bluer than just a minute ago and her hair was no longer gray, but blonde. Her wrinkles had erased themselves like magic.
“You’re . . .” I reached out to touch her face, and she took my hand. She pressed her lips in my palm and kissed it, then took my fingers and ran them along her wet cheeks. “Can you see me, dear? Can you see me?”
“You’re young,” I said, my knees failing me.
“Yes, I am.”
“And so is she.” I pointed to Mrs. Shoemaker, who was doing a little jig on the steps. She couldn’t have been over fifty years old, when before she’d looked nearly eighty.
Grandma Mona said gently, “You’ve got new eyes now, sweetheart. Now that you know. You can see us clearly. You can see us as we really are.”
“But I don’t understand! Mrs. Shoemaker said you’re a ghost. And she’s a ghost. And I’m a ghost! Is everybody a ghost? Is nobody real?!”
Grandma Mona pulled me up from the drive and put her arm around me. She held me up as we started walking slowly back down the drive. “Oh, Janie. There’s no real ghost here . . . except, maybe her.” Grandma Mona turned back and said, “We’ll just be going now, Clarabelle. If I don’t run up to thank you personally, don’t take offense.”
“Oh, none taken, Mona. None taken a’tall. Y’all just run along. Enjoy this fine summer day. And give my best to your daughter now.”
I was shredded inside. I didn’t know what to do, how to act, what to say. I was amazed my feet kept moving along, not making me fall over, for surely I wasn’t thinking straight enough to make them move on my own.
“Last night you said Poppy was a ghost,” I said, the words coming out slow as if in a dream.
“You’re right,” said Grandma Mona. “I said that so you might begin to understand. But he wasn’t a ghost, not really. Ghosts are generally thought of as, well, people like Great-Aunt Gertrude, who stay here on earth in agony over something they’ve done or lost or regret. But Poppy, he wasn’t that way. He was a ministering spirit—brought here for your mother. We are all spiritual beings, Janie. Every single person, living or not. We are spirits, souls, first and foremost. Some spirits have earthly bodies wrapped around them. Others do not.”
“Are you a spirit?” I asked.
“I am.”
“Am I . . . a spirit?”
“You are, Janie. You are a beautiful spirit.”
“Is Rainey a beautiful spirit?”
“Absolutely. The most beautiful. Just as pretty as you.”
“So . . . we’re all the same?”
“No. I’m afraid we’re not all the same.”
I looked up at Grandma Mona again and was startled at how young and pretty she was. I couldn’t believe how much she looked like my mama, same blue eyes, same pretty hair.
“How come some spirits have earth bodies and some don’t?” I asked.
“Because a person is born into this world with an earthly body. And when the body dies, the spirit goes on, sometimes to heaven, sometimes not.”
I stopped under the shade of a crape myrtle and looked at the swaying blossoms. I whispered to Grandma Mona, “Are you . . . dead?” I couldn’t believe the sound of my voice—that these words were actually coming out of my mouth. That this was actually a conversation two people might have on the sidewalk in Forest Pines.
“No,” said Grandma Mona. “I’m not dead. But my earthly body did die . . . once.”
“When?”
“Oh, nearly sixteen years ago, March. About the time I moved in next door to your mama.”
“And Mama?”
“Oh no, she’s very much alive.”
“And Rainey?”
“Rainey’s fine. She’s full of life and then some.”
“And . . . me?”
“Come here, sugar.” Grandma Mona reached in and hugged me tight. We rocked back and forth, back and forth, and I was surprised at how strong she felt. “Janie, you are my angel.”
Into her dress I breathed, terrified, “But am I dead too?”
Grandma Mona pulled away from me and bent down on her knees right there on the sidewalk filled with cracks and flowers bursting through.
“You . . .” She smiled and brushed a tear away. “You, Janie Doe Macy, my sweet child, my sweetest grandbaby—”
“Grandma Mona? Please?”
“Honey,” she said, and she started bawling like I’d never seen her. “You were never even given a chance, child. You were never even born.”
Chapter Fifty-three
THE GHOST OF GREAT - AUNT GERTRUDE
I didn’t know what to believe. I surely felt alive, no different than I always had. I broke free from Grandma Mona who was calling after me. I ran faster than I ever had, back up to the house, in the door. “Mama?!” I looked in the sewing and dining rooms. I ran in the kitchen and saw no dishes, only some peaches left sitting on paper towels on the counter. Everything was cleaned up, no sign of ice cream.
“Mama?”
I ran out back and looked in the garden, at the trellis, under the peach tree, on the rockers, but no one was there. I came back inside and called again, louder, “Ma-ma!”
I heard a faint “here.” I flew up the stairs and looked in Mama’s bedroom and ours and the other two, frantically darting here and there, and then I stopped and got quiet. I heard my own breath. I heard something else too. Voices.
Looking up at the attic stairs, I leapt and took them two at a time, and when I got to the door I stood there, staring.
“Hey, Janie,” said Rainey. She grinned and waved. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the attic with a photo album across h
er knees. Mama and Fritz were near her, Mama bent over a box and Fritz flipping pages of another album.
“Mama?” I said. She didn’t turn around. “Mama, Grandma Mona said something awful!” I ran to her side and grabbed her arm. I looked up in her face, but she was riffling through a big box. “She said you carried me for two months and then . . . Mama, she said you never let me be born!”
Mama pulled out a large photograph of Grandma Mona and said, “My goodness. Take a look at this one.”
She handed it to Fritz, and he said, “Wow. You look so much like her.” He looked back and forth from the picture to Mama. “Yep. This is the one. I’ll get a frame for it. We can hang it right by your daddy next week.”
“But Mama!” I shook her arm, but she never stirred. Never acted like she heard me at all. Fritz didn’t seem to notice me neither.
“Janie.” I turned around and saw Grandma Mona looking very much like the photograph Fritz was holding, the one that was going up on the dead wall soon. It was true. Grandma Mona was dead.
“Honey, I’m so sorry,” said Grandma Mona. “They can’t hear you, baby. They don’t know . . . you’re here.”
“But I am here!” I screamed. “I’m right here!”
Rainey stuck her good hand over her ear and used her knee to cover the other one. She started rocking back and forth. “It’s okay, okay,” she said.
“Mama!!!” I’d never been so angry and confused. I grabbed a small glass frame of Poppy and threw it across the room. It hit the wall right next to the window and shattered.
Fritz and Mama jolted and turned to look.
“Did you see that?” Mama asked Fritz. She looked over at Rainey, who still had her hand and knee over her ears. “Honey?”
Rainey rocked and rocked and started humming a tune to calm herself down.
“Fritz?” He was standing over by the window with the small frame in his hands. The glass was broken.
“If I didn’t see it myself, I wouldn’t believe it,” said Fritz. “My goodness. Maybe Gertrude really is here. Uh, Gertrude? We don’t mean any harm, okay? My goodness, I never thought I’d be saying something like that.”
I watched in horror as the person I loved most in the world paid me no attention at all. In fact, she seemed frightened of me. It was true. My mother didn’t know I existed. I was no different to her than the ghost of Gertrude, except that Gertrude had actually been alive once.
Chapter Fifty-four
THE FAMILY TREE
“Try not to upset Rainey,” said Grandma Mona after she’d coaxed me down from the attic and into her bedroom. “She’s the only one who can see us. To her, we’re normal family, and nothing else.”
My speech had left me. My head was a tornado. Grandma Mona crawled up on the bed and patted a place next to her. I moved close in slow motion, and she hoisted me up, letting me lie in her lap. I felt her legs, her warmth, and tears stung my eyes. Lying there, I realized Mama’s lap had never felt warm like this, only there beneath me. I ran my hand over Grandma Mona’s knee and held it there, feeling our heat. She said, “There, there now. I know this is difficult for you. I know it is. But you’re doing great. I’m so proud of you. And Janie?”
She was waiting for me to look up at her, but I couldn’t.
“Janie, honey, I hope you can forgive me . . . for all the things I’ve said . . . the way I’ve acted. I know you don’t understand, but I’m not a great liar. The only way I could keep the truth from you was to put distance between us. And the only way I knew how to do that was to be mean, just like my mother was to me. It may not have been right, but it’s all I could come up with. And heaven knows, for your sake, for everyone’s, you couldn’t learn who you were until now.”
I looked up at her then. Tears were rolling off her face and onto mine.
“You and I were so close once upon a time. We did everything together. Read, walked, laughed. Do you remember? But darn it, you’re just too smart of a girl. I knew you’d figure something out, pull the truth out of me if I let you be close to me. Honey, I hope you can forgive me. It’s all been a horrible but necessary act. I love you more than there are stars in the sky. I’d do anything for you, for Rainey, and for your mother.”
Outside in the hallway, we could hear Fritz, Mama, and Rainey coming down the stairs, and Mama telling Rainey to clean up, it was almost time for supper. Next thing I knew, there was a knock at the door, and Rainey came in. Her bottom lip stuck out when she saw me crying.
“Janie sick,” she said, looking from me to Grandma Mona. She came over and petted my head, and I felt pressure from her, but no heat. Again, the tears.
“She’s not feeling real well, honey. You go on down and have some supper. You’re working at the grocery store in a little while, right?” “Uh-huh. We havin’ noodles.”
“Oh, noodles. That sounds very good.”
Rainey bent down and put her face in mine. Her eyes smiled at me. “I go tell Mama you sick.” Then she skittered out and down the steps.
Part of me waited for Mama to come up and check on me, and part of me knew that just wasn’t going to happen. I sat up a little and stared at the family tree quilt. I noticed something I hadn’t before, as if my eyes had only just opened. “Rainey’s got a peach,” I said. “She’s a real girl. Her name is there and everything. I don’t have a peach. I’m not a real girl.”
“You’re real,” said Grandma Mona. “You’re only—”
“My own mother thinks I’m just Rainey’s invisible friend.” It was the worst thing I’d ever known. I waited for her to say I was wrong, but instead she stayed silent. “Why am I here?” I said finally. My whole world ground to a halt.
Grandma Mona looked at me with her blue eyes so much like Mama’s and said, “You’re here because she needs you.”
“Rainey?”
“Your mother.”
“She doesn’t need me. She didn’t even want me born. She doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“You are here, Janie, because your mother feels the void of your loss. Because she regrets what she did eight and a half years ago.”
“By kill—”
“By not letting you be born. That’s correct.”
“She did abortion on me.”
“She did that. Yes.”
I thought I might be ill, thinking of how I was no different than those dead babies I’d seen in the library. I closed my eyes and pressed my face into the quilt, hoping I could just quit breathing. It felt like so much effort.
“Mama doesn’t love me.” My face scrunched up and Grandma Mona grabbed me in her arms. She held me tight.
“She does love you. She just . . . realized it too late. Honey . . . I was there.” She pushed me away and held my shoulders. She bore down into my soul with her eyes. “I was there! I tried to stop her. Oh, Janie, you don’t know how hard it was. She was convinced your father would leave her if he found out she was pregnant. It was all she thought she could do at the time . . . for herself, for Rainey, so she could have a father in her life. Honey, I tell you the truth, the moment she did it she knew she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. She realized she loved you, honey, in the instant you were gone. I held you in my arms, and I’ve loved you as my own from that second on. You have always been loved. I promise you that!”
“You raised me,” I said, the truth of it heavy on my heart.
“I did. With Rainey. To her, you’ve always been her baby sister. You see, Rainey is special in many ways. Her heart is pure. Her faith is simple. She doesn’t get bogged down with what should be and what shouldn’t . . . what is possible or not. She can see us and love us because she has no barriers between earthly and spiritual matters. It’s as if there is a window between us, and Rainey can see right through it. Most people are blinded, but she is not. It’s her gift.”
I ran out of the room and hurried down the stairs. “Wait, Janie!” Grandma Mona ran after me and caught me in the living room. She held her arms tight around me. I was peeking ar
ound the corner at Mama serving Rainey noodles. There were only two bowls on the table. Only two. Sadness swept over me. How could I have been so blind all my life? To have seen only what I wanted to see? How could I not know my own mother ignored me? Were there other children out there just like me? Children who had no idea they didn’t even exist?
Rainey slurped some spaghetti. She laughed and got red sauce all over her face. Mama sat there, barely picking at her dinner. She looked over toward us, and I hoped she might see me, but she looked away again. It was true. Rainey was the only living person who knew me. I started thinking about Rainey and me. How we’d always played together. How she’d treated me just like any other kid. She’d loved me unconditionally even though I was the special one. I remembered how she would tell Mama to kiss me good night. She’d ask for the night-light only because she knew I was afraid of the dark. She’d say things about me, and Mama would humor her. Good night, Janie. What a pretty dress, Janie. Mama never even saw me. She was playing along with whatever Rainey had said. My whole life had been a lie.
“I’ve been in Rainey’s life since the very beginning too. I died a week after she was born,” Grandma Mona whispered in my ear. “In a car accident. Your mother has mixed feelings about that. She’s always been angry at me and missing me at the same time. It’s a terrible way to feel.”
“It’s how I feel about Mama,” I said. “Angry. And missing her.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“But why was Mama angry at you?” I asked.
“Oh, now . . . that is the toughest part of all of this.” Grandma Mona took me by the hand and led me back up the stairs to her bedroom. I went willingly. Watching Mama just made me hurt.
Grandma Mona and I stood in front of her window. I looked up at her, but she kept her eyes on the sky. “I’m ashamed to say this, especially to you, but you need to understand.” She squeezed my left hand. “Many years ago in Yuma, my mistakes started flooding over me. I thought the most painful thing in the world was to give your baby away, and when Priscilla told us she was pregnant, well, I wanted to spare her that. I told her to have an abortion. I thought I was protecting my child. I told her she was wasting her life. That nobody had to know a thing. Your mother left home to save Rainey’s life. To get away from me. And I’m glad she did. As soon as I heard about Rainey being born, I was sorry I’d ever suggested not having her. But by then it was too late. I’d pushed your mother away. I died on the road, Janie—on my way to tell her how sorry I was.”