Ghost Cat - Thelma's Dilemma

by Carol Colbert

  “You wanted your mother all to yourself.” Thelma stated.

  “Of course I did. I thought that if Don left with Adela, then mother would have no reminder of John and nothing to obligate herself to wait for him. I wanted her to take me to Enchanted. But she would never tell me where it was, not exactly.”

  Ophelia was quite for a moment and then continued. “I was still in Adela’s car when she came back to it. I jumped into the back seat and she took off. What could I do? I had to go along, the windows were up and I had no way out. I was stuck like this, in cat form I mean. Adela never leaves the house, well, rarely. I therefore, rarely get to become myself again.”

  “Things are not as bad as you think they are, Ophelia. You heard Sarah telling Mrs. Johnson about the trunk and how it fell off into the expressway?”

  “Yes, but that has nothing to do with me. Oh, wait, yes, that would be my mother’s trunk. Does that family still have it?”

  “Yes, I didn’t think of that. More to the point, I found myself on that same expressway that day and I crawled into the trunk to get warm. Now I know that there is a reason for my being here.” Thelma said.

  “To talk to me?”

  “Much more than that. Ophelia – my name is Thelma. Thelma Enchanter. Luna is my sister and Gertie was my aunt. That would make us cousins.”

  A very thick wall of dark blue smoke formed almost instantly. Thelma had to shield her eyes as she spun around, creating the much lighter blue mist that she produced.

  When the blue settled, there stood two women. Ophelia had very long dark red hair and indeed, she was quite beautiful. “I can see my mother in you.” She said and started to cry all over again. Gertie hugged her.

  “I can help you get back home and if you like, you can come back to Enchanted with me to live.”

  Ophelia’s eyes were as big as saucers. “You really live in Enchanted and would take me there? How? When?”

  “That has been a real dilemma for me. You see dear, I did not know why I was here. I knew there had to be a purpose, there always is. Your mother left a journal in the trunk, along with a lot of papers and blankets. There is also some jewelry in there.” Thelma said, looking at Ophelia expectantly.

  “Is there a bright red ring in there?”

  “Yes, along with a poem about how to use it. Apparently, it has powers of some sort. Listen, we don’t have a lot of time here. Sarah has asked Adela to drive back to Gertie’s house with them. Jim and Sarah are going to go because Gertie’s last wishes were that her ashes be spread in a certain location.”

  “What location?”

  “I do not know for one hundred percent sure, but my guess is right at the exit on the expressway where you enter Enchanted. If you and I can find a way to be there at that time, we can take off and get back to Enchanted!”

  “That is a lot of ‘ifs’” Ophelia said.

  “I took your mother’s journal and have been reading it. She mentions you in it and I can tell that your mother loved you a lot. I will finish reading it cover to cover to make sure I don’t miss anything, then I will leave it somewhere Sarah will see it and hopefully read it. What we can’t communicate to them ourselves, hopefully Gertie’s written words will be able to.”

  “Sarah goes out a lot, I can see her from the window, but we have to find a way to get Adela to go out too, we will need time to talk and plan more.”

  From the voices they could hear, it sounded as if Sarah were getting ready to leave. Ophelia and Thelma hugged each other and smiled and then each turned around quickly and became Gertie and Snowball again. They trotted up the stairs together.

  “There you two are. Gertie, we are leaving now. Mrs. Johnson, I am so very thankful that we talked and that we can be instrumental in getting you back to Don. I know a lot of years have passed, but even if he does not remember you, although I can’t imagine he wouldn’t, at least you will be able to see him again and I know there is not enough time before we go to settle things here, but you might want to think about finding a house down there, if you want to move back.” Sarah said, hugging Mrs. Johnson goodbye.

  “You have certainly given me a great deal to think about, Sarah. Thank you ever so much for the delicious pumpkin pie. Bring Gertie over any time to play with Snowball. Cooper too, the more the merrier.” She said, walking Sarah to the door.

  Chapter 10

  Sarah and Thelma walked back over to the house. Sarah noticed the clock on the kitchen wall and said out loud. “Oh no, look at the time!” She picked up her keys and purse and walked out, locking the door behind her.

  Thelma also looked at the clock. “Time to get the girls from school. She won’t be gone long. Oh Cooper, I wish you could talk and truly understand me. So much has happened and I have so much to think about and to tell you. But for now, cookies.” Thelma smiled, jumping up onto the table and knocking down two pumpkin cookies with white icing on them, then she herself enjoyed a couple.

  “Cooper, Turns out, Snowball’s real name is Ophelia and she is my cousin, Gertie’s daughter, can you imagine that?” When Sarah and Jim go back to Tennessee to get and spread Gertie’s ashes, I and Ophelia have to be in that car with them. It is our only chance to get home.”

  Thelma took a quick jump to the window to make sure Sarah had not returned home. “Also turns out that Mrs. Johnson isn’t a Mrs. After all and is the long lost love of Don, Gertie’s sort-of son, so she is going to drive back with Jim and Sarah and me and Ophelia. I will really miss you, Cooper, more than you know.”

  Cooper tilted his head and looked up at Thelma. She thought he looked a bit sad. Maybe he did understand at least part of what she was saying.

  Everything was coming together. Thelma just hoped that she and Ophelia would be able to get themselves into the car before they left. Oh, the ring!

  Cooper barked and Thelma was angry at herself for using her free time to eat cookies instead of looking for the red ring. She needed time alone, and a lot of it. She wanted to make sure she read everything in the journal. She also wanted another look at the trunk since she knew that she would be leaving soon. She also had to find a way to get to wherever Sarah had left those documents and papers that were in the trunk. Thelma hadn’t seen them in days.

  Suzanne and Riley ran into the kitchen and each grabbed a cookie. “These are really good mom.” Suzanne said.

  “I am glad you like them. Listen girls, if you both would go to bed early tonight, I will make sure we wake up early enough to go out to breakfast before I take you to school. Do you think you would like that?”

  “Daddy too?” Suzanne asked.

  “Daddy starts work way too early. No, it will just be a mother-daughter breakfast, O.K.?”

  “Depends.” Said Riley, “Are you planning on dumping us on someone when you go back to Tennessee? Is that what this is all about?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Sarah said. “Can’t we just go out to eat and have a special breakfast once in a while?”

  “I guess.”

  Sarah straightened up the kitchen and made spaghetti for dinner. She had originally planned on making a small turkey, but she had spent way too much time with Mrs. Johnson to get the turkey going on time. She had so much on her mind. What were the odds of Don’s old girlfriend living next door to them here in Michigan? The romantic in her was happy that they could play a part in reuniting the two old lovebirds. The wife in her was not sure how to tell her husband they would be taking Mrs. Johnson with them.

  Sarah helped the girls with their homework and told her daughters to take their showers and watch TV until their dad got home. She needed this night to go well if she had any chance of getting Mrs. Johnson back with Don. When Jim called to say he would be late, Sarah fed the girls their dinner, although she decided to wait for Jim before she had her own.

  Sarah went over in her mind how she would tell her husband the latest news. Jim was a good man and a good husband and father, but he had his limits. She had been the one to push him to go to Gertie’
s memorial in the first place. She was hoping that Jim would see this trip with Mrs. Johnson as something that was meant to be.

  Jim got home a few minutes after seven from work. He was not in a good mood. “Something is going on at work, just rumors, but not looking good.” He said, almost the moment he came in the door. “Sorry to be late, had another meeting that ran over.” Suzanne and Riley ran into the kitchen. “Hi dad, bye dad.” They said, each grabbing a cookie and then running back upstairs.

  “It is fine, Jim, the girls already ate and we have spaghetti for dinner, so it’s not like dinner was ruined. You sound really worried about your job. You don’t think we would be transferred back to Tennessee, do you?”

  “Oh no, nothing like that. There is talk of layoffs though. I don’t think I would be on the list of people who might have to go, but then too, you never know what is going on with corporate politics.”

  Sarah ate dinner with Jim. “I have pumpkin pie for desert. I made cookies and pumpkin bread today too.”

  “Sounds wonderful. Do we have any whipped cream to top it off with? I have been meaning to put a few things on the grocery list, but I forget.” Jim said.

  Thelma heard and rushed into the kitchen. “Meow” she said, rubbing against Jim’s leg, trying to distract them from talk of the grocery list. It worked.

  “Hello there, Gertie. She has gotten used to us, huh? I don’t think she has come up to me before. I am just glad she gets along with Cooper, because Cooper comes first, but I would hate to have to give this little fur ball up now.”

  “She is a good cat. She really got along well with Mrs. Johnson’s cat Snowball. In fact, we spent a good portion of the early afternoon over there. We took her a pie and stayed to talk. I am very glad that we did.”

  When Jim didn’t respond, Sarah said “When you are done with the pie, why don’t we sit by the fire with a glass of wine? It might help you relax some. The girls had a busy day themselves and already had their baths, so they should be going to bed soon.”

  “I admit, a quite night sounds wonderful after the day I had. I look forward to an evening with you, the fireplace, and a glass of wine. No corporate BS or problems for me to fix.” Jim smiled and Sarah felt just a tinge of regret about what she was about to unload on her husband.

  They sat in front of the fire with their wine. Cooper and Thelma at their feet. Sarah snuggled up to her husband. “I found out some very interesting things at Mrs. Johnson’s today, Jim.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. She is actually from Tennessee herself.”

  “Small world. I imagine many people came to Detroit for the automotive jobs once the plants were hiring. Did her husband used to work at Ford or General Motors?”

  “She never married. She was in love with a man in Tennessee who would not commit fully to her because he was taking care of the lady who raised him.” Sarah said, not looking at her husband.

  “How did she end up in Michigan, then?”

  “She left there hoping that the man, his name is Don by the way. She was hoping that Don would come to find her, but he never did. Mrs. Johnson said that Snowball, her cat, came to Michigan with her. She lost touch with the man she loves after that. Jim, it is the strangest thing, but the man she loves is Don Ellis.”

  It took Jim a few beats to register exactly what his wife just said. He had been enjoying the wine and warmth from his wife and the fire. It finally dawned on him. “Gertie’s son, Don?”

  “Don, the boy Gertie helped raise, yes.”

  Jim thought about that for a little bit. “And all that just came up in your conversation over a piece of pumpkin pie?”

  “We were having pie and coffee, but it came up when Mrs. Johnson asked me about Gertie. What made us decide to get a pet cat? When I mentioned Gertie’s name, Mrs. Johnson said that she had been in love with a man whose father loved a woman named Gertie.”

  “It is not such a common name now, but isn’t ‘Gertrude’ one of those old style names like Dorothy or Helen or Prudence or something? That really is a big coincidence. So, she didn’t know that Gertie had died?”

  “No, I never mentioned it to her when we left. I had just told her that we were leaving town for a couple of days so she could keep an eye on the house for us.”

  “Good thing she moved to Michigan then, she would have had a heck of a long wait if she would have hung around there waiting for Don to leave Gertie I guess. But wait, Don didn’t actually live with Gertie did he? I mean, I would see him over there cutting the grass or whatever, but he had his own place. Oh well, that would have been when they were much younger anyway, I suppose.”

  Sarah looked at her husband. “Come to think of it, no, she said that her cat, Snowball, came with her from Tennessee. Snowball looks like more of a kitten to me than an old cat. Gertie looks much older than Snowball does.”

  Thelma’s tail beat the carpet a few times hearing that.

  “Cats only live like what – twenty-twenty five years? I don’t know, we always had dogs, but Mrs. Johnson is in her eighties, isn’t she?” Jim asked.

  “No, she is in her seventies. But you are right about the cat, maybe Mrs. Johnson’s mind is starting to go. I feel sorry for her, Jim. This might be her one and only chance to reunite with Don.”

  “What might?”

  “Hum?”

  “You said this might be her one and only chance to reunite with Don. Sarah, you didn’t tell her that she could go with us back to Tennessee, did you?”

  “It might have come up.”

  “Why would you do that? You don’t even know Mrs. Johnson that well, what is her first name? I bet you do not even know. How do we know what kind of relationship she had with Don Ellis? There is a chance that it might not even be the same Don Ellis, or even that she remembers the name correctly. What if he does not even remember her? His mind does not seem to be all that sharp. Darn it, Sarah!”

  “I just got caught up in the moment, Jim. You would have too, she was actually crying when she was talking about Don and how much she loved him.”

  “I’m about to cry myself!” Jim said, anger in his voice.

  “How much trouble can one more person in the van be, Jim?”

  “I’ll tell you how much trouble. This won’t be the quick there and back trip that we were planning, Sarah. At the very least with the kids and weather being good, packing food in the car and not stopping except for gas, that is still well over nine hour drive one way. Mrs. Johnson is in her eighties, seventies, whatever. You can’t expect her to just sit there, and in the backseat of a van yet, if she can even get her old self into the backseat of the van, for all of those hours. She will need to stop several times. We will have to spend the night in a hotel at lease for one, maybe two or three nights, and that is extra time and expense and Lord only knows what we are supposed to do with Gertie’s ashes! I was only kidding about dumping them off somewhere, but with Mrs. Johnson with us, even that would not be an option.”

  Jim paused and looked at Sarah. She had her head down. “I know you meant well, Sarah, and since you already asked her, I guess we will have to take her, but you can’t expect me to be happy about this. It just puts more of a strain on all of us. Someone will have to watch Suzanne and Riley longer now and get them back and forth to school, and what are we supposed to do with the animals? I was thinking Mrs. Johnson could let Cooper out for us, but what now?”

  “I realize now how much I am asking of you, Jim. I’m sorry, but I do still feel it is the right thing to do. I don’t know what to do about the girls. Jennifer is still managing her friend’s clothing store and we can’t expect Bob and Barbara to watch them, even though Bob is retired now. I’m sorry I got us into this mess, Jim. I just don’t see any way out of it now. Unless……”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless you would be willing to go by yourself to pick up and spread the ashes while I stay here with the girls and the pets.”

  Jim did not answer. He walked into the kitchen and po
ured himself another glass of wine, turned on the television, and did not speak to Sarah for the rest of the evening.

  Chapter 11

  Jim felt calmer when he woke up the next morning. He had had such a bad day at work yesterday. Coming home after that long day at work, looking forward to a nice, quiet evening with nothing that needed his immediate attention only to find himself set up for more troubles had really set him off.

  He would just have to take the time off of work and make this trip happen. Sarah didn’t ask for much and this seemed to mean a lot to her. Since he was always at work by six a.m., Jim usually got breakfast through McDonald’s drive through window. This morning he made a full pot of coffee for Sarah. It would be almost two hours old by the time she woke up, but he hoped she would see it as the peace offering it was.

  Jim let Cooper run around the back yard for a while, gave him his breakfast and put fresh water into the bowls before writing a note to Sarah and leaving for the day.

  He was not even to the end of their street before Thelma was pouring herself a large mug of coffee with a lot of cream in it and eating a piece of pumpkin bread, giving Cooper a big chunk for himself.

  Thelma knew that it would be awhile before Sarah and the girls would get out of bed, but she also knew that she could not be one hundred percent sure about that either. She took her coffee to the downstairs bathroom, took a quick shower, went back upstairs to get another cup of coffee and the journal, and went back downstairs to the basement.

  Thelma was deep into the reading of the journal when she heard an alarm go off. She thought it was still too early for Sarah and the girls to get up, but then she remembered that Sarah had promised to take the girls out for breakfast. Thelma quickly drank the rest of her coffee and turned herself back into cat form.

  When Thelma got to the top of the basement stairs, she saw Sarah in the kitchen, reading the note Jim had left her. Thelma had seen Jim write it, but she didn’t care enough to read what he had written, she had been too intent on getting to the coffee as soon as she could.