When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [12]
When I first hatched this plan to get out of going to funerals every weekend, we’d be at someone’s viewing and my grandmother would prompt me: “Mary Ann, is anyone here?”
“Nope, Grandma. Sorry. I don’t see anyone,” I’d say, desperately avoiding eye contact.
My grandmother would reach out, grasp my chin in her hands, and force me to meet her narrowed gaze. “Is that the truth?” she’d ask—her dark eyes looking right through me.
“Oh, fine.” I’d sigh, rolling my eyes. “He’s right over there by the flowers arranged like a horseshoe.”
“Bene. Good,” she’d say with satisfaction as she dragged me off to speak to the grieving widow.
My next move was to try to avoid my grandmother whenever possible, telling her that I was busy with school or friends or boys. But even that technique was unsuccessful. She was a willful woman, and I really wasn’t cut out for the life of a rebel.
Though this phase of denial didn’t last long, it was important in that it taught me how to tune out the ghosts who are present nearly everywhere I go. To me, earthbound spirits look just like living people—though if I stare at them and squint really hard, I can see through them. But at first glance, I just see a person. Maybe it’s a man with dark hair and brown eyes wearing a tan sport coat and plaid tie. He might even be smoking a cigarette—at least if he’s from a certain generation. An outfit can actually be a pretty good tip-off that I’m seeing an earthbound spirit. I mean, someone who died in the 1940s is probably going to be wearing something that sticks out in a crowd.
Pretty much anyplace I go has a few earthbound spirits hanging around, but I’ve learned to ignore them if I haven’t been asked to talk to them; I’ve learned not to stare. Just as I can sense if someone is watching me—and once I’m aware, glance around until I locate the person who is staring—so, too, can earthbound spirits become aware of my gaze. And if I stare, it doesn’t take long before they notice that I’m watching them.
In any case, my self-imposed retirement didn’t last long. Soon my grandmother was calling me regularly and insisting that I go with her to the calling hours at compa Aldo’s viewing, and off I would go, to help settle family affairs and bask in my grandmother’s proud smiles.
Besides, my social life was going just fine, thank you very much.
I was a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore when I first met Ted. He was a good friend of my boyfriend at the time, and we often double-dated. To tell you the truth, he and I didn’t get along too well at first. I went to Catholic school, and though Ted was Catholic, his parents had sent him to the local public school. Back in those days, the kids at the Catholic schools and those at the public schools usually didn’t mix socially.
Ted was a year older than I was, and after he graduated he joined the navy and went off to training. I really didn’t give him much more thought until he stopped by to visit Frank while he was on leave. By this time I was eighteen, Frank and I had broken up, and what can I say? I’m apparently a sucker for a tall handsome guy in a uniform. Ted and I began a long-distance romance, writing each other lengthy letters while he was in Vietnam.
When he came home from active duty, our romance continued. We became engaged and planned to marry in late February. Two weeks before our wedding date, Ted’s reserve unit was put on standby to head out to Cuba. When Ted called me at work to tell me he might have to leave immediately, I sprang into action, calling the priest at our local parish and pleading with him to marry us that night.
He did: We were wed on a February night in 1968. A year later, our first child was born. I still hadn’t told Ted about what I could do. I was enjoying being a new wife and figured there was no need to freak out my husband by telling him what I was doing with my grandmother when she asked me to attend a funeral with her. He probably thought I was just a devoted granddaughter.