When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [15]
So in a way, I was grateful for the hours alone in the car on days when I was called to homes fifty or sixty miles north, toward Cleveland. Usually I tried to minimize my driving, grouping my visits together by location. Still, it was exhausting, and in the back of my mind I knew that something had to give. The solution, when it came, was not one I would have expected.
It was a dreary, gray February day, and I had arranged to visit three homes west of Cleveland. I left in the early morning and arrived at the first house just after breakfast time. The woman who had called had told me that she was quite certain she had a ghost. She had a long list of unexplained occurrences: lights flickering on and off, appliances turning off midcycle, strange bumps and thumps from her heating system. It certainly sounded likely that an earthbound spirit was sharing her residence.
But when I arrived at the small, neat ranch house and took a look around, I could immediately see that there were no spirits present at all, and told the woman so. She was hugely disappointed to find out it wasn’t my services she needed, but rather those of a good electrician. I drove on to the next house, where the woman eagerly greeted me and explained that she had heard me speak on the radio. “I’ve told all my friends that you’re coming to get rid of my ghost,” she said, looking at me expectantly.
I walked through her house several times. I went from the attic to the basement and even checked the garage that was attached to the house by a breezeway. But once again: nothing. No spirits. And this woman wasn’t simply disappointed about it—she was angry with me. “I’ve told all of my friends that you were going to tell me about my ghosts,” she snapped. “Now what am I supposed to say?”
As you might imagine, I was getting a bit frustrated. I felt like telling her that my gift was for making ghosts leave, not appear. Instead I just got back in my car. After stopping for a fast-food lunch, I arrived at the third and final house. I’m sure you can guess what happened: no ghost.
At the homeowner’s insistence, I examined tiny crawl spaces and even a root cellar, but in the end all I could tell her was that she did not have any spirits. This woman, however, was relentless. She had gone to all the trouble of getting me out there, and she wanted a ghost.
“You just need to stay until you find me one,” she declared, standing in the middle of her living room, her hands firmly planted on her hips.
“That’s ridiculous,” I told her as I opened the front door. “I can’t summon up a ghost for you.”
Livid, the woman followed me out to my car, complaining bitterly the whole way.
I was only too eager to go home. I was frustrated, too. I’d spent the whole day away from my family and my work and I hadn’t been of help to anyone, human or spirit. As dusk fell, I began the long drive. About an hour away from home, a freak snow squall blew in out of nowhere and I sat stranded in my car, waiting for it to pass. By the time I got home, it was well after dinner, Ted had already put the kids to bed, and I had decided I was finished with traveling house-to-house to clear out ghosts.
“I’m done,” I said to Ted. “I can’t do this anymore.”
To his credit, Ted, who has never been anything less than supportive of what I do, didn’t say a word.
That night, as I lay in bed, exhausted from the day, I added a little PS to my bedtime prayers: “By the way, God, if you want me to keep doing this kind of work, you’re going to have to help me come up with Plan B.”
For the next two weeks, although I felt guilty every time I received a message from someone who lived more than a short drive away, I didn’t go to any houses or funerals outside my own neighborhood. Then one day I picked up the phone when it rang instead of letting the machine get it. The caller said she had heard me on the radio up in the Cleveland area and wondered if I could help her. She believed she had a ghost in her house.
Forgetting my resolve not to travel out of my own neighborhood,