Chapter 7

OAHU, Christina Goldberg talked to one of the customers at Magic Dirt, her health food store.

He had recently become a vegetarian and worried about visiting his boyfriend's parents. They were big meat-eaters.

She liked having these discussions. It was her favorite part of the job. She enjoyed meeting new people and hearing about their lives. She liked listening and occasionally giving advice, whether it was with her young employees or the customers.

Usually, people just wanted someone to listen. They gave themselves advice; she agreed with them, and they ended up thinking she was a huge help.

Today's customer advised himself to stick to his diet but not be obnoxious about it. It wouldn’t help anyone to shove his beliefs down their throats. If he acted respectful of their food choices, it was likely they'd respect his.

"But does that mean I don't feel strongly enough about it? Do I really care about animal rights that much? What if they were raping someone at the dinner? Would I just stand back? Abstain from rape but respect their choice to do it?"

Christina smiled. She liked when people asked difficult questions.

"I know I shouldn't compare rape to eating meat."

"Maybe not," she replied.

 A middle-aged woman walked into the store. Christina made eye contact and smiled at her.

The woman smiled shyly in return; then began to browse.

"But why can't you compare rape to the mistreatment of animals?" he asked.

"You could," she said. "But some people won't like it."

He thought for a moment. "I suppose one difference is rape is against the law. You can argue on that. Meat is still legal."

"And probably always will be."

"Times change," he challenged her.

 That's for sure.

"You're right about the legality," she said. "I imagine it's easier to speak out when friends are doing cocaine. It's different when they're drinking."

"You're so right." he said.

She laughed.

"So anyway….I'll behave with my boyfriend's parents."

"Good," she said.

"What if I brought a vegetarian dish to share?"

"Brilliant," she said. "I like that idea."

"I better let you get back to work." "It was very nice talking to you."

“Same here.”

She watched as he took his reusable bag full of groceries. She then left the counter and went to check on the other customer. "Can I help you with anything?

"No, thanks. I'm just looking."

 "Okay. Well, let me know if you have any questions."

The woman nodded.

Christina started to walk away. She didn’t want to hover. 

"There's one thing," the woman called out.

"Yes?"

"Do you have anything…like herbal…for....." She looked very embarrassed. Maybe even ashamed.

Christina hated playing mind-reader, but these days, nervous customers were usually after the same thing. "Are you looking for a repellant? Something like that?"

"Yes!" The woman seemed very relieved to not have to spell it out. "But not for bugs or anything like that."

"I understand," Christina said.

"I'm fine with bugs." 

"Me too," Christina said. She was also fine with spirits. But not all people were.

The woman's eyes filled with tears. Christina hated that they might be tears of relief. Here came the bad part.

"I'm really sorry," Christina said. "The truth is, we don't really have anything yet. A few people claim that garlic helps, but I think they're confusing spirits with vampires." She smiled at her little, sort-of joke.

The woman didn’t smile along with her. Tears escaped her eyes. She wiped her cheek. "I'm sorry," she choked back a sob.

Christina puts her arm around her. The woman stiffened a bit but didn't pull away. "I wish I had something for you. Do you want to try the garlic? It might help. And it can't hurt." She skipped the joke about bad breath.

The woman gave a small nod. Christina gently removed her arm from the woman's shoulder. She pointed in the direction of the dried herbs aisle. "There's some right over there"

"Thanks," the woman's voice came out as a whisper. Christina went back behind the counter. She flipped through her cell phone and saw an email from her online friend in Australia.  She'd read it later. First she wanted to check her texts. There was one from her husband. Can we FaceTime after you pick up Kayla from school?

After that one, there was a second text. Kayla says hi.

How many times did she have to tell Albert not to visit Kayla at school? She laughed at his disobedience. She had to admit that she liked him breaking her rules to spend more time with their daughter. She texted Albert back and promised a FaceTime conversation. 

He texted back a moment later. Kayla wants Nachos for dinner.

Okay, she texted.

No, vegan cheese, he wrote.

Tell her to stop talking to you and get back to her school work.

Okay. Then he texted again. We love you.

And I love both of you.

She then read her email from Loretta, which shocked her so much she dropped her phone. Fortunately it didn’t break. Apparently that weird thing on the news—the one about the twins committing suicide and then appearing on TV. That was at Loretta’s husband's restaurant.

Christina felt like a teenager as she wrote a simple OMG and then pressed send. 

She flipped through various apps on her phone, waiting for more customers. She played a trivia game and did quite well. She played again; then remembered the customer. She hadn’t come back with the garlic. Maybe she found something else?

Christina walked over to the herb area and saw the woman still standing there, gripping a display case. As Christina got closer, she heard the woman crying. Oh dear. She stood close to the woman but didn't touch her.

"I'm sorry," the woman said.

"Don't be," Christina said. "It's okay. We all have to cry sometimes." 

"I'm a horrible person."

Christina was about to provide some platitude to argue against that but decided to keep her mouth shut. She didn't know this woman. Her guilt could have merit. Not that Christina agreed that the woman was horrible. A horrible person wouldn't be so broken by guilt. But she might have done something horrible.

"She's my daughter."

"The one visiting you."

The woman nodded. "And I want to get rid of her. What kind of mother does that?"

"I don't know," Christina said. "But I doubt you're the first."

"She was…." the woman stops. She can't say it.

"You didn't get along with her?"

"She screamed a lot. She threw things. She took off her clothes in public."

"It must have been very hard on you."

"She'd pull out her hair. She'd gag herself and throw up."

Christina continued listening.

"I hate vomit. I think I have a phobia. And I had to clean it up almost every day. I thought I might get used to it eventually, but I didn't."

 "I'm sorry."

"Her father left us. He couldn't handle it. I needed to get away, but I couldn't ever find a babysitter. And I couldn't even escape her at night. She woke up often in the middle of the night. She'd want to sleep with me. Then she'd wet the bed."

Christina felt very thankful for her healthy, beautiful daughter.

 "She choked on a piece of hard candy. I had told her not to eat them. She didn't listen."

Christina nodded. She was very nervous when Kayla ate hard candy; always insisting she be in the same room with her; watching her like a hawk.

"I tried so hard to save her. I did the Heimlich. Over and over. I did the finger sweep. I called the ambulance. I waited for them to come. They took too long. I was desperate, so I went online and found something about emergency tracheotomies. I used a knife.``

 Christina looked down at her hands. She was shaking.

 "There was blood everywhere."

Christina took a deep breath. Now she was close to crying herself. She really hoped she didn’t get any other customers right now.

 "She was dead when the ambulance arrived."

 "I'm so sorry." Christina started to cry.  She couldn’t help it.

The woman looked at her surprised; like she couldn’t fathom how her sorrow could infect others. "When they told me the news, all I could think was that people were going to blame me for her death. They're going to think I let her die on purpose."

"But that's not true," Christina said quietly.

 "No, but that's not the point," the woman said. "The thing is my daughter was dead, and I worried more about what people would think than the fact she was gone." 

Christina didn’t know what to say.

"Now she's back." the woman looked around in a paranoid sort of way. "I think she was back before the…"

"But now, you know she's there."

"I hate knowing she's there. I hate knowing she's always been there. After the funeral…I hate myself for saying this…but I felt relieved that she was gone. I thought I could have a normal…happy life. And I did. I could do this, because I imagined Lenora was happy in heaven. A little angel who was beautiful there when she couldn't be beautiful here. She was okay. I was okay."

"But you found out it wasn't true."

"I should have known all along. I'd hear noises. Crying. Things would fall. I'd lose things. Appliances would break."

"She was haunting you." 

The woman nodded. "Now she talks to me. I get texts. She took out her phone and showed it to Christina. One of them said Mommy repeatedly. Another said, You bitch.

Christina got the chills. She'd wanted to believe children like that had brain defects; that once they were released from their bodily prison, they'd be okay. You could talk to them and have reasonable, decent conversations. "Do you have video chats with her?"

"Yes," the woman said. "And sometimes, she's okay. She's sweet. She said she misses me, and she says it's not my fault. Other times she seems confused, like she doesn't know she's dead. She asks me to get her a vanilla milkshake."

"It's confusing for some of the spirits."

"Sometimes she screams that I killed her."

No wonder this woman wanted a repellant.

"Sometimes she just sits there and laughs at me. It's almost…demonic".

Christina predicted she was going to have some nightmares about this conversation tonight.

"And now they're saying the EB's and OS's are going to be appearing on our TV's. It's going to get worse for me."

 Christina put her arm around the woman's shoulder. "I hope not." She sighed, wishing there was more she could say or do.

 ***

Christina and Kayla talked to Albert while they ate dinner. Nachos with real cheese. Not the vegan type.

"Do you eat, Daddy?" Kayla asked. She had asked the question many times before. She tended to do that. 

Albert was very patient. Each time, he answered her like it was the first time. "Yes, I eat. But it's different. I have to imagine the food."

"And it takes practice."

"You got it, Kiddo." He said; then added. "It's like when you eat in your dreams."

Christina thought about her own dreams. She ate sometimes. The food never tasted as good as it did in real life. She'd miss food when it was her time to go.

 "Do you eat meat, or are you vegetarian?"

Albert chuckled at Kayla's question. "I'm vegetarian. Just because that's what I'm used to. But it wouldn't harm any animals if I ate meat."

"Okay," she said..

"A lot of times, I eat what you eat. Because that's what I imagine."

"Okay."

 "You know when I move on…it's different. I've heard there's more food there. It doesn't always have to come from your own imagination."

"The Other Side?

"Yes," Albert said.

 Kayla gave a sad little sigh. She did this every time the subject came up. "I don't want you to go." 

"I can still talk to you."

"It's not the same," Kayla said. For most people, it didn’t make much of a difference. If anything, they preferred the OS's, because then they felt they had control over when they were being watched.

But Kayla was a medium. She had seen and talked to her father way before most other people were talking to their loved ones. He had died in a car accident when she was three. The visits began soon after the funeral. Christina had wanted to believe her daughter when she said things like "Daddy is with us." 

She could have asked for some kind of proof, but she never had. She didn't want to demand something like that from her daughter. It seemed insulting. Also, she hadn't wanted to ask a question and then have Kayla fail with the answer. 

It had felt better holding onto the fairy tale. She had liked imagining Albert was really with them.

She did worry.  She had times of doubt where she had thought, maybe it really wasn't a healthy overactive imagination or a normal reaction to stress. Maybe it was a serious problem.

Certain teachers hadn’t helped. Kayla's kindergarten teacher suggested several times that Kayla be evaluated. "It's fine to have a fantasy, but Kayla is taking this too far."

Kayla's grandfather was a bit judgmental as well. He didn't suggest mental illness. But the guy was an atheist. He thought it best that Kayla not become prey to the afterlife delusion.

When he had visited from California, and Kayla would mention her father, he'd offer various platitudes to distract her. "He lives on in your memory. He'll always be there. And when you grow up, you'll tell your children about him. Then they'll tell their children. He'll live on and on."

Once Kayla responded to one of those speeches with "Molly thinks you're very silly."

Christina's dad had turned red with anger. He excused himself and went for a walk. Christina had fought back tears. Molly was her twin sister. She had died in a car accident when they were twenty-two, along with their older sister.

Christina had been the only surviving child of her parents. Seven years after that tragedy, Christina lost her husband in a car accident. She had bad luck when it came to motor vehicles. 

Things were better now, though. She had her husband back in her life. In some ways, they were raising their daughter together. She had her siblings back; her mother as well. All of them were now OS spirits. None of them hung out in the living Earth world. But they kept in touch on a regular basis.

She would see Kayla's kindergarten teacher sometimes during drop off and pick up, and she loved the feeling of vindication. She hadn’t said anything yet but had grand plans to walk over and say, "Do you still think my daughter needs to be evaluated?"

She also felt vindicated when it came to her father; though less so. She felt sad for him. She had compassion. He was so confused. He avoided the subject of death and spirituality. He hadn't denounced his atheism. Even after the president proclaimed that the after-life was a reality, he said to her. "In time, scientists will be able to come up with a reasonable natural explanation".

Christina had a hard time understanding why he was so stubborn. It was almost like he didn't want to believe. It made little sense to her.

***

Kayla asked for more nachos.

"You must be hungry." She went to the kitchen.

Kayla followed. "I want lots of cheese," she said.

"Did you leave Daddy on the screen? Did you say good-bye to him?"

Kayla shook her head. "He's in here now."

"Oh, hi Albert." 

Christina waited for Kayla to say, he says hi back.

Instead she said, "He's not listening. He's singing."

Christina smiles. "Okay." She put the nachos in the microwave.

 *** 

Christina had forgotten about the woman at the shop but as she lay in bed, she remembered.

It spooked her.

She imagined the ghost child in the room, watching her.

No, she told herself. The child was attached to her mother. She wouldn’t leave her mother and follow Christina home. 

That wouldn’t make sense.

Right?

"Albert," she whispered. "Are you there?" She liked knowing that Albert the Friendly Ghost might be around.

He didn't answer. Or maybe he did. She couldn’t hear him, so she didn’t know. She could contact him on her phone, but she didn’t want to bother him with this. It was too ridiculous.

That woman had to deal with the troubled spirit all the time. And here Christina was terrified of the simple idea of the spirit. 

She turned on the light. 

It was silly to sleep with the light on.

But....

So be it.

With the light on, the master bedroom felt much more benign. She tried to fill her mind with happy thoughts: Kayla, Albert, the nice man she met at the shop, chocolate covered cherries, jasmine green tea, reruns of Charmed, baby alligators, her plans to visit Australia someday…..

She fell asleep and dreamed that she and Albert were sitting in a library together.

When she woke up, she felt a happy warmth, remembering the dream. 

What was so great about sitting in a library? She didn’t know. And she didn’t  know if the Albert in the dream was a figment of her imagination or a real visitation. She dreamed about him a lot and would later ask if that had been really him. 

Every so often, he would say it was. And he'd remember details of the dream she had forgotten until then. He had said it's hard, though, to visit dreams. It took a lot of energy.

"It's easier to just use the Internet," he had said. She understood that but still liked seeing him in her dreams. She hoped he would continue to make the energy sacrifice every so often.

Continue to Chapter Eight

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