Unfinished Business An Angela Panther Novel (A Chick-lit Paranormal book) (The Angela Panther Series)

by Aspenson, Carolyn Ridder

  They did. “What?” Paul asked.

  Ma winked at me and laughed. They couldn’t see her.

  “Oh, nothing. I thought there was a spider or something on the wall, sorry.”

  Probably it wasn’t a good time to tell my brothers I could see our dead mother and I wasn’t sure there would ever be a good time for something of that nature.

  Paul started to say something again, but Comb-over walked back in. The man may have been a fashion nightmare, but his timing was impeccable. He coughed lightly and straightened his tie. “We don’t normally allow anyone into the crematorium, but given the circumstances, we’ll make an exception.”

  We. Uh huh. We, as in the big boss, I bet. I smiled my I won smile and thanked him. Comb-over explained since our mother was being cremated, they didn’t prepare her body as they would for a traditional burial. I assumed that meant she’s not made up and nodded my understanding. He walked over to the closed door behind my brothers and walked right through my mother.

  She shuddered. “Oh, Madone, that was creepy.”

  I concentrated on the wall and searched for the imaginary spider and tried to ignore her.

  Through the doorway I saw my mother lying on a gurney, the mother that wasn’t floating in the room with me, that is. My eyes shot back and forth between the horizontal Ma and the floating Ma. This was all a little confusing. First I had one Ma, and then she died. Now I had a dead Ma and a ghost Ma. If they both started talking to me, I’d get right up and drive myself straight to the loony bin. I stood up and shook off the crazy. “Ah, Paul, you can go first.” He did.

  The fact that I took control of the meeting was not lost on me. As the youngest of the siblings, my brothers always considered me the baby, never quite aging me past a toddler in their mind so for them to acquiesce authority in this situation was surprising. I wrote it off to their shock and grief at losing Ma and expected the newfound respect to burn out quicker than a birthday candle. But I would be lying if I didn’t admit to enjoying it just a little.

  We all said our goodbyes to my mother. I couldn’t hear their private whispered words, but I could hear Ma responding. Not the Ma lying on the gurney, the ghost one. As I said, it was confusing. Like the loud Italian woman she was in life, her raspy, I’ve had one thousand too many cigarettes, voice enveloped the room, for me at least, since apparently I was the only one who could hear her. “Oh Pauly, it’s okay. I’m not mad that you weren’t here. Don’t be upset. It’s okay.”

  I always knew he was her favorite.

  Paul and I haven’t always had the smoothest of relationships. In fact, as a child he wanted me dead. No, really. He tried so hard to make it happen he actually pushed me in front of slow moving cars three times. I was lucky to suffer only emotional, not physical, damage. Attempted murders aside, my heart ached for him now. The guilt of not being there when Ma passed would haunt him forever, though I couldn’t help but wonder if that was easier than being haunted by her ghost.

  ###

  An hour later, the four of us sat with coffee in hand, at Starbucks. Coffee made everything seem better, if only a little. Before we left the funeral home, Paul asked Comb-over to let us know when Ma’s body was cremated. I preferred not to know, but everyone handles death differently and Paul needed what he needed so I didn’t argue. Admittedly, backing away from an argument with Paul was a new thing for me. Ma’s death had really messed with my brain.

  We were discussing the arrangements of her burial when I got the call. Comb-over told me they’d started, and as I nodded to Jake and my brothers, a heavy sadness filled the air.

  I disconnected from the call and stayed on task. “Okay. When should we go to Chicago?”

  “That’s a good question,” John, the over thinker of us siblings, said. “I’ll call the cemetery later today and find out if we can bury Mom with Grandma and Grandpa. If they won’t let us, we’ll have to figure out what else to do. I was thinking maybe we could each take a portion of her remains and do something with our kids to honor her.”

  Oh, no. No, no, no. That was not going to happen. I promised Ma I’d do this for her and I’ll be damned if I didn’t do it right. Especially since she was haunting me. There was no way I would to spend the rest of my waking days with the ghost of my mother pissed off because we didn’t honor her final wish. No way.

  “It’s okay,” I blurted out before Paul agreed with John. “Ma was worried about the same thing, so we called the cemetery a few weeks ago and found out that it’s fine.” I took a quick breath and hoped God wouldn’t strike me dead for lying.

  “They told me that as long as we’re not getting a stone, the plots are ours to do with as we please. Except for digging up our grandparents, that is.” I checked the sky, but still no lightning. Phew.

  My brothers nodded. “Okay.”

  Dodged that bullet. What’s wrong with a few little lies? This was what Ma wanted and eventually I’d tell them the truth, once she was buried and we were on our way home. Or maybe next year. What’s the saying? Ask for forgiveness, not permission. That’s what I’d do, eventually.

  I offered to make the memorial arrangements even though we all knew they’d have asked me to do it anyway.

  I filled them in on my call to our cousin. “I already called Roxanne, who said she’d make the rounds of calls, and since the funeral home here said they would put the obituary in the Chicago papers, that’s covered. Does the weekend after next work? That gives us all time to plan accordingly.”

  “I don’t see a problem with that, but I’ll have to check with Elizabeth and see what her schedule is,” John said.

  Jake nodded in agreement with his eyes still glued to the screen of his iPhone.

  Paul nodded too. “Let’s go through all of our pictures of Mom. I can make a video with music, and we can show it at her memorial.”

  We all agreed that was a great idea and made plans to confirm the date over email by tonight. My brothers left Jake and me there to share our addiction to the warm, smooth taste of coffee. We got refills before we headed home, too.

  The rest of the day I was on autopilot and truth be told I couldn’t remember much of it. One minute Jake and I were getting coffee and the next it was after ten p.m. I kissed Jake goodnight and went upstairs and checked on the kids, who were already blissfully sound asleep.

  “It’s done,” I texted Mel after I settled under the covers.

  “I’m sorry,” she texted back. “Do you need anything?”

  “No, I’m okay. Going to bed. I’m tired.”

  “K. I’m here if you need me. (HUGS).”

  Chapter Two

  “Angela. Angela Palanca. Wake up, dear it is me, your mother.”

  As if I couldn’t recognize her voice. Fighting off the chill, I pulled the covers up over my shoulders and reminded myself to turn the AC down before bed next time. “Again with the Angela Frances Palanca. It’s Panther, Ma. Panther. Should I spell it for you?” I turned my head, hid under the covers and willed this to be a dream.

  “Ah, Madone, child, I can spell Panther, I just don’t like it. It’s like Richter, too damned German. Why didn’t you marry someone with a good Italian name like Angelini or Marconi? Those I could use, you know? Now turn over and look at me. I’m real, Angela.” She nudged my shoulder and I opened my eyes to see her crouched down and floating next to my bed.

  “Told you so.” She smirked.

  I sat up. “Angela Angelini? Really, Ma?”

  Wait. She nudged me, and I felt it.

  I glanced at Jake who was doing his freight train imitation again. Clearly he didn’t hear Ma ranting about his name, either because he was asleep or because I’d gone insane and she wasn’t real. If I had to guess, I'd guess he'd pick I was insane. I got up, grabbed my robe, and quietly left the room. Gracie got off her chair in the corner, pointed her nose up and sniffed the air. With her ears straight up, she followed me out. Unbelievable. Gracie could smell ghosts. I wondered if she smelled dead people every time sh
e sniffed the air? Goodness, I hope not. If that were true, I would probably never sleep again.

  I tiptoed down to the kitchen. If I was going to see the ghost of my mother at such a miserable hour I needed caffeine.

  “Where are you going?”

  I turned and gave her the evil eye. “Shh. Come,” I whispered, and crooked my finger for her to follow.

  I turned on the coffeepot but lacked the patience to wait for it to finish, so I cheated and poured myself a cup before it was done. Thank God for the auto stop feature. Ma quietly floated near the kitchen sink, and I motioned for her to go down to the basement where no one could hear me. I didn’t want to wake the kids and have them think their mother was loony, not that they didn’t already think that anyway.

  “Look at you, pointing and motioning, telling me what to do. I may be dead, Angela, but I’m still your mother, and it’s disrespectful to point at your mother.”

  There was something innately wrong with her last sentence, so I did what any crazy person would do. I ignored it, but then the nudging from earlier came back to haunt me. No pun intended. “Holy mother of God, I’m going insane. I have to be." My mother floating around the basement family room. “You nudged me Ma and I felt it. I felt it.”

  “Ah, you’re not any more crazy than you were before I died,” she quipped. Then her mouth took on the shape of a capital O. “I did nudge you, didn’t I? Well whaddaya know. I can touch things.” She surveyed the wall, leaned her shoulder into it, and disappeared.

  “Ma?”

  I heard her laugh her loud, that’s really funny laugh.

  “Ma?”

  “Whoops.” She reappeared and shuddered. “I guess I can’t touch everything, and I gotta tell ya, that’s okay.” She shook her whole body and little flickers of light floated from her.

  It was disturbing. My mother sparkled. Never would I have used the word “sparkled” when describing Ma. “Exploded like a bomb” would have been a better description, but at that moment, she actually sparkled.

  “That whole passing through things feels creepy,” she continued. “When that man at the funeral home walked through me, I thought I might barf. It made me sick to my stomach. Huh. I wonder if I still have a stomach?” She tried to touch where her belly should be but couldn't grab anything of substance. "Humph."

  In life, my mother was a beautiful, robust woman. She had curves that she hated, and always wanted to be thinner, smaller, and taller. I’m not sure if I got my body image issues from her or if that’s how all women feel, but I loved her curves. She wasn’t fat. To me, she embodied strength, both mentally and physically. I admired that and yearned for it for me. It was heartbreaking to watch cancer rob her body of its stature, in the end leaving her nothing but skin and bones. She often joked that she’d be skinny for eternity, but I never quite saw the humor in her dying. In that moment, as I watched her floating next to me, I saw the more voluptuous Ma, just a little transparent. The irony of how she was when she died and what I saw then was not lost on me, but I wasn’t stupid enough to say that out loud. It wasn’t just her shape that changed. Her eyes regained their bright blue hue, and her nose was no longer red from years of uncontrolled allergies. Her lips were fuller, like the lips I remembered from my childhood, not lips that were permanently crinkled from inhaling the poison of a cigarette. She was beautiful, but something didn’t seem right. I stared at her until the little light bulb over my head turned on.

  “Ma, where are your dentures?”

  She touched her hand to her mouth. “Huh. Beats the hell out of me. Maybe ghosts don’t need dentures.” She smacked her lips together, making an odd sound.

  I hugged myself to ward off another chill. “I have them. They’re in the medicine cabinet in the kitchen.” Tears welled up in my eyes and I wiped them away, not wanting to cry about something as simple as her dentures.

  “Ah, Madone.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Throw those things away. They’re older than dirt. What did you think you’d do, use them for yourself some day? Goodness, child. You have beautiful teeth. I always loved them. They were like my real ones, so big and strong, until I was pregnant with your brother and he sucked the calcium right out of them, that is,” she touched her mouth again and sighed.

  “And you wonder why I’ve never really liked him.”

  Ma was serious. “Ang, you gotta let that go and be nicer to your brothers. Leave the past in the past because pretty soon it’ll be just you three.”

  The hairs on my neck stood up. “What are you saying, Ma? Are you saying something’s going to happen to Dad?”

  She shrugged and gazed up at the ceiling. “I’m not saying anything, Angela. It’s just the way it is. No one lives forever; so don’t waste your time on the past. What’s done is done. You gotta move on.”

  “What’s this? You die and suddenly you’re all patient and forgiving? That’s a crock, Ma, and you know it. Patience was never your virtue and forgiveness wasn’t even in your vocabulary, so don’t go acting like you’ve seen the light or something and tell me how I should act now, because you know if you were still alive, you’d be singing a totally different tune.”

  She widened her eyes and we both burst out laughing.

  “So you believe me now? You believe I’m a ghost?”

  “You’re not my imagination, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then why are you here? Didn’t you see the light? You’re supposed to go to the light, Ma. I mean, there is a light, right?”

  My mother threw her arms up in the air, and floated around the room. “All my life I told you if I could, I’d come back, and you always said, good Ma, come back. But when I do, you tell me I should have gone to the light. For the love of God, Angela, make up your mind.”

  She was right. I did always say that, I just never thought it would actually happen.

  “Geez, Ma." Like mother, like daughter, I threw my hands up in the air, too. “Cut me some slack here, will you? I don’t know what to think. It’s not like I’ve been seeing ghosts my whole life. This is new to me, and honestly, you’re freaking me out a little. I can see through you, and you’ve got these little sparkly things flying off of you. This is messed up, Ma.”

  She frowned and mumbled, “Caro Dio perdona la mia figlia per la sua crudeltà.”

  Ma always spoke in Italian when angry or when she prayed for her kids. This time she was praying.

  “I don’t mean to be cruel, Ma. God doesn’t need to forgive me. In fact, you need to understand how freaked out I am right now.” “I freak you out, do I? You want I should disappear and not come back? I can do that, Angela. Say the word and I’m gone. Poof. Out of your life and back into the light forever.”

  I rubbed my temples, and felt a headache starting. “No, Ma. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying you need to give me a little leeway here, so I can wrap my head around this, is all. You think you can you do that for me Ma?”

  She bent her head. “You should clean this carpet.”

  “Ma.”

  “Oh, fine. Fine.”

  “Thank you. So about the light, there is a light, right?”

  “Yes, Ang, there is a light, and I’ll go back to it. I just got some stuff to do down here first.”

  I didn’t know how this afterlife stuff was supposed to work, but I thought that once a person died and went to the light, they were supposed to stay there, not go back and forth. Maybe Ma didn’t actually see the light and she was afraid to tell me.

  I’m no ghost whisperer, but I was willing to try. I leaned forward, and put on my most sincere face. “Do you see the light? Go to the light, Ma. Your family is there, waiting for you.” I couldn’t help myself. I searched for the light.

  “Ah, Madone, knock it off, will you? I’ll go back when I’m darned good and ready. Your grandmother, she knows I’m busy taking care of things down here. She was just dead once too, ya know.”

  I instantly felt tears well up in my eyes. “You saw Grandma?�
��

  “Of course I saw Grandma. What do you think happens when you go to the light? Didn’t you ever listen to that psychic on TV? The one from that show, what was his name again?” She paused, and then flicked her hand in the air. “Pfft. I can’t remember. But yes, I saw your grandmother and your grandfather and your auntie Rita, too, but I told them I’d be back. I said to them, I said, I’ve got affare non terminato down there, and here I am.”

  “John Edward, Ma.” I told her. “John Edward is the psychic with the TV show. And what do you mean you’ve got affare non terminato, unfinished business? We took care of everything before you...you know.”

  “I died Angela. Before I died. You can say it, you know. It’s not like it’s gonna change. I’m deader than a doornail, already a pile of gravel in a fancy little bottle, so you might as well get used to it.”

  Get used to it? It hadn’t even been forty-eight hours.

  “What unfinished business, Ma? Maybe I can help you with it, so you can, you know, get back to the light?”

  “Stuff. I’ve got stuff to do, and...and it’s not your business anyway, so don’t you worry.” She turned and stared at the wall. “You really need to paint down here. A nice light gray would be pretty.”

  I fell back onto the couch and covered my head with a throw pillow. Flip me over and put a bun on me because I was done. I was seeing the ghost of my mother and she was telling me to redecorate.

  Chapter Three

  The sound of feet thumping on the ceiling woke me out of a sound sleep. Emily was getting ready for school, and at fifteen and one hundred and five pounds, she carried herself like a Clydesdale. It took me a minute, but I realized I’d fallen asleep on the couch in the basement. I wasn’t sure when or how, but when I tried to stretch, my body felt like it was in rigor, so I knew I slept hard. Yikes, the thought of a body in rigor sent a chill up my spine. I never realized how often I referred to death in some way until Ma died. It was sort of like buying a new car. You never notice the color of the car you want to buy until you buy it, and then suddenly everyone has your car in your color. I snuck a quick peek around the room but didn’t see Ma. I felt a little guilty as I breathed a sigh of relief, so I made the sign of the cross, even though I’m not Catholic. Better to be safe than sorry was my motto. I dragged myself upstairs and straight to the coffeepot to reheat what had been fermenting since the day before. Reheated coffee is better than no coffee, especially when you’re desperate.