The Inn at Laurel Creek (11 page)

THE AIR IN
the room felt frigid and sent an icy chill deep into my bones. Searching for comfort, I lay on the rented hospice bed, closed my
eyes, and snuggled under Ma’s floral print quilt. I breathed in her scent,
a mixture of Dove soap, Calvin Klein Eternity perfume and stale cigarettes. The stench of death lingered in the air, trying hard to take over my senses, but I refused to let it in. Death may have taken my
mother, but not her smell. Not yet.

“You little thief, I know what you did now.”

I opened my eyes and searched the room, but other than my Pit Bull, Greyhound mix Gracie, and me, it was empty. Gracie sensed my ever so slight movement, and laid her head back down. I saw my
breath, which wouldn’t have been a big deal except it was May, in Georgia. I closed my eyes again.

“I know you can hear me, Angela. Don’t you ignore me.”

 
I opened my eyes again. “Ma?”

Floating next to the bed, in the same blue nightgown she had on when she died, was my mother, or more likely, some grief induced image of her.

“Ma?" I laughed out loud. “What am I saying? It’s not you. You’re dead.’

The grief induced image spoke. “Of course I’m dead, Angela, but I told you if I could, I’d come back. And I can so, tada, here I am.”

The image floated up in the air, twirled around in a few circles
and floated back down.

 
I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to right my brain or maybe shake loose the crazy, but it was pointless because when I
opened my eyes again, the talking image of my mother was still there.

“Oh good grief, stop it. It’s not your head messing with you, Angela. It’s me, your Ma. Now sit up and listen to me. This is important.”

 As children we’re conditioned to respond to our parents when they speak to us. We forget it as teenagers, but somewhere between
twenty
and the birth of our first child, we start acknowledging them again, maybe even believing some of what they tell us. Apparently it was
no different when you imagined their ghost speaking to you, too. Crazy maybe, but no different.

 I rubbed my eyes. “This is a dream, so I might as well go with it."

 I sat up, straightened my back, plastered a big ol’ smile on my face, because it was a dream and I could be happy the day my mom
died, in a dream and said, “Hi Ma, how are you?” 

 
“You ate my damn Hershey bars."

 “Hershey bars? I dream about my dead mother and she talks about Hershey bars. What is that?”

 “Don’t you act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, Angela."

“But I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ma.” I shook my head again and thought for sure I was bonkers, talking to an
imaginary Ma.

“Oh for the love of God, Angela, my Hershey bars. The ones I hid in the back of my closet.”

Oh. Those Hershey bars, from like, twenty years ago, at
least. The ones I did eat.

“How do you know it was me that ate your Hershey bars? That was over twenty years ago.”

The apparition smirked. “I don’t know how I know, actually. I just do. I know about all of the stuff you did, and your brothers too. It’s all in here now.” She pointed to her, slightly transparent head and smirked.

She floated up to the ceiling, spun in a circle, and slowly floated back down. “And look, I’m floating. Bet you wish you could do that, don’t you, Angela? You know, I’d sit but I tried that before and fell right
through to the damn basement. And let me tell you, that was
not
fun. It was creepy, and it scared the crap outta me. And oh, Madone, the dust between your two floors! Good Lord, it was nasty. You need to
clean that. No wonder Emily’s always got a snotty nose. She’s allergic.”

“Emily does not always have a snotty nose.” She actually did but I wasn't going to let Ma have that one.

The apparition started to say something, then scrutinized at the
bed. “Ah, Madone, that mattress. That was the most uncomfortable thing I ever slept on, but don’t get me started on that. That’s a
conversation for another time.”

Another time?

“And I hated that chair.” She pointed to the one next to the bed. “You should have brought my chair up here instead. I was dying and you wanted me to sit in that chair? What with that
uncomfortable bed and
ugly chair, my back was killing me.” She smiled at her own joke, but I sat there stunned, and watched the apparition’s lips move, my own mouth gaping, as I tried to get my mind and my eyes to agree on what floated in front of me. 

“Ah, Madone. Stop looking at me like that, Angela Frances
Palanca. You act like you’ve never seen a ghost.”

 “Ma, I haven’t ever seen a ghost, and my name is Angela Panther,
not Palanca. You know that.” My mother always called me Angela Palanca, and it drove both my father and me batty. She said I was the closest thing to a true Italian she could create, and felt I deserved the honor of an Italian last name. She never liked Richter, my maiden
name, because she said it was
too damned German
. 

“And that recliner of yours was falling apart. I was afraid you’d hurt yourself in it. Besides, it was ugly, and I was sort of embarrassed to put it in the dining room.” I shook my head again. “And you’re not real, you’re in my head. I watched them take your body away, and I know for a fact you weren’t breathing, because I
checked.” 

 
Realizing that I was actually having a discussion with someone
who could not possibly be real, I pinched myself to wake up from
what was clearly some kind of whacked-out dream.

“Stop that, you know you bruise easily. You don’t want to look
like a battered wife at my funeral, do you?”

Funeral?
I had no intention of talking about my mother’s funeral
with a figment of my imagination. I sat for a minute, speechless, which for me was a huge challenge.

“They almost dropped you on the driveway, you know.” I
giggled, and then realized what I was doing, and immediately felt guilty, for a second.

Ma scrunched her eyebrows and frowned. “I know. I saw that. You’d think they’d be more careful with my body, what with you standing there and all. There you were, my daughter, watching them take away my lifeless, battered body, and I almost went flying off
that cart. I wanted to
give them a what for, and believe me, I tried, but I felt strange, all dizzy and lightheaded. Sort of like that time I had those lemon drop drinks at your brother’s wedding. You know, the ones in those little glasses? Ah, that was a fun night. I haven’t danced like that in years.
I could have done without the throwing up the next day, though, that’s for sure.”

Lifeless, battered body?
What a dramatic apparition I’d imagined.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes and considered pinching myself
again, but decided the figment was right, I didn’t want to be all bruised for the funeral. 

There I sat, in the middle of the night, feeling wide awake, but clearly dreaming. I considered telling her to stay on topic, seeing as
dreams
didn't last very long, and maybe my subconscious needed my dream to process her death but I didn't. “This is just a dream." I tried to
convince myself the apparition wasn’t real. 

She threw her hands up in the air. “Again with the dreaming. It’s not a dream, Angela. You’re awake, and I’m here, in the flesh.” She held her transparent hand up and examined it. “Okay, so not exactly
in the flesh, but you know what I mean.” 

 This wasn’t my mother, I knew this, because my mother died today, in my house, in this bed, in a dining room turned bedroom. I was there. I watched it happen. She had lung cancer, or, as she liked to call it,
the big C
. And today, as her body slowly shut down, and her mind
floated in and out of consciousness, I talked to her. I told her everything
I lacked the courage to say before, when she could talk back and acknowledge my fear of losing her. And I kept talking as I watched her chest rise and fall, slower and slower, until it finally stilled. I talked to her as she died, and
because I still had so much more to say, I kept talking for hours after her
body shut down. I told her how much I loved her, how much she impacted my life. I told her how much she drove me absolutely
crazy, and yet I couldn’t imagine my life without her.

So this wasn’t Ma, couldn’t possibly be. “You’re dead.”

The figment of my imagination shook her head and frowned, then moved closer, and looked me straight in the eye. I could see through
her
to the candelabra on the wall. Wow, it was dusty. When was it last dusted?

“Of course I’m dead, Angela. I’m a ghost.”

I shook my head, trying hard not to believe her, but I just didn’t feel like I was sleeping, so God help me, I did. 

My name is Angela Panther and I see dead people. Well, one
dead person, that is, and frankly, one was enough..

***

 “Honey, it’s time to wake up.” My husband, Jake, shook me softly. “We have to go to the funeral home. Come on, your brothers
will be there soon. Wake up.” He shook me a little harder. 

 
I sat up. “Where’s Ma?”

 He studied me, his expression a mix of sadness and compassion. “I know this is hard but it’s going to be okay.” He hugged me and it felt
good, comforting. I let him hold me a little longer, and then I remembered the night before.

“No,” I told him, pulled away, and rubbed the sleep fog from my
eyes. “Ma. She was here. Last night. I know she’s dead, but she was here. I saw her.” I grabbed his shoulders, trying to show him how
serious I was and whispered, “She told me she’s a ghost.”

His eyes widened and all of the sadness and compassion flew right out the dining room window. Jake was a fantabulous husband, and
supported me in ways that often tried his patience, but to see the
gray
area of what he considered to be only black and white was asking
too much. Fantabulous and all, he had his limits. 

“Ang, it wasn’t Fran. It was a dream. I’ve read that kind of stuff happens. People dream about the person who died and think it’s real.” He made a small attempt at comforting coos, but they just
sounded like our cat before she died.

I pushed away from him and got up. “Stop it. You sound like a sick cat, and I need coffee.” My mind barely worked without a good night’s sleep, but without coffee, even the simplest conversations were practically impossible. Besides, it wasn’t the time to get into a
debate about the
hereafter. I walked to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee and said a silent thank you to Jake for making a pot. I would have said it out loud but I was a little miffed at him for discounting my ghostly
experience.

Jake was kind enough to get our two kids, Emily and Josh, off to school while I slept. I felt a sense of relief for not having to deal with them and then felt a little guilty for that. They left me a handmade card near the coffeepot knowing I’d be sure to see it there. It had red hearts and sad faces drawn all over the front, most likely by Josh, because he drew eyes with eyelashes. The inside of it read, “We’re sorry for your loss. We loved Grandma and miss her.” 

They weren’t here last night. I knew it was Ma’s last day, and Jake and I didn’t want them to see her die, so we made arrangements for them to spend the evening with friends. Jake picked them up after the funeral home took Ma. I lacked the energy and courage to
talk to them, so Jake asked them to give me some alone time.

The card was sweet, and I got a lump in my throat just reading it even though I was sure they’d never work for Hallmark. 

“What time is it?” I asked, and then checked the clock. “It’s ten a.m. What the – we have to be at the funeral home at eleven fifteen.” I finished pouring my coffee, took a huge gulp, and cursed myself as
it burned my throat, then rushed upstairs to get ready.

We arrived at the funeral home just before eleven fifteen. My long, blond hair was pulled into a ponytail since I didn’t have time to style it.
I didn’t have on an ounce of makeup and was dressed like a typical soccer mom heading to a yoga class. Normally I wouldn’t go to an
appointment like that but considering the fact that my mother just died, I didn’t really give a crap.

We walked in through the front doors into a sitting area I’m sure was meant to seem comforting and inviting but instead felt like a grandparents’ family room, old fashioned and overstuffed. The couch was a ridiculously
huge, twenty years outdated, 1980s floral print of mauve and gray, flanked with humongous pillows in matching solid colors. There
were
two matching and equally uncomfortable looking chairs and ugly, ornate tables that didn’t match, intermixed with the seating. A few magazines and tissue boxes sat on the tables. I grabbed a couple
tissues just in case I
needed them later. Overhead, soft music played, and I was sure they thought it made someone in my position feel better, but mostly it was just annoying. 

Carnations in various colors sat in vases on stands around the lobby, attacking my nasal passages like an old woman drenched in
White
Diamonds perfume. Almost instantly I had a sensory overload headache. The entire room smacked of old people, but I guess it should since it was really mostly old people who died. Jake crinkled his nose at the smells, too. We both moved quickly as we followed
the signs to the assistant
funeral director’s office, almost like we were running from a skunk. I silenced my cell phone, knowing my best friend, Mel, would probably text. I’d talked to her just after Ma passed but not since. I was sure she’d check on me sooner rather than later.