Unfinished Business An Angela Panther Novel (A Chick-lit Paranormal book) (The Angela Panther Series) (14 page)

I got my super power stare-down ability from Ma so I’d be damned if I was going to cave first.

“Ah Madone, Angela. You want me to apologize for protecting you? What was I supposed to do, tell you when you were a child? Maybe I should have told you when you were a teenager? For all I knew, once I told you, it could have started up again and Madone, wouldn’t that have been fun? Didn’t we have enough drama what with your father and I divorcing? I could have told you when you were in your twenties or even before you married Jake. Yes, that would have been great. You were older and more mature. You would have understood then, right? Sort of like you’re understanding right now, all mature.”

“Ma, I –” She cut me off before I could finish.

“I am not going to apologize to you for trying to protect you, Angela. I’m your mother. It’s my job to protect you and even now, that’s what I do. You should appreciate me instead of giving me grief for keeping this from you.” She lifted her chin and turned her head to the right, effectively telling me to stick it.

She did sort of have a point. I probably wouldn’t have handled it well as a teenager, and as a young woman, even in my thirties it would have been tough to understand. Still, I was frustrated. “Ma, I get it. I do. It would have been tough on me at any age, but at least I’d have had time to deal with it and adjust, you know?” I knew I wasn’t going to win this one. I could feel it. Sometimes it took me hearing myself to realize I was saying something stupid. I leaned my head back and rubbed my forehead, fearing a migraine coming on. “You know what, you’re right. It would have sucked regardless of when you told me. I wouldn’t have wanted this no matter what age.”

Ma frowned. “I know, Ang. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to be upset or think of yourself as different or like you said, as a nut case. I just wanted to protect my little girl. I’m sorry I screwed it all up now. You’re right. I do owe you an apology...for that.”

I sipped my coffee and gave my mom a half-hearted smile. “May I ask you something?”

She floated closer and bent her head right next to my coffee cup. “Oh, how I wish I could have some coffee or at least smell it. I miss coffee.”

“You can’t even smell it?”

“Nope. I try but I get nothing. I can’t smell anything. No flowers. No gravy and meatballs...not that you ever make gravy and meatballs but if you did, I wouldn’t be able to smell them.”

I giggled at her attempt to guilt me. “Ma, you want me to make your gravy and meatballs? Is that what you’re saying? Fine. I’ll make them this weekend. But Ma, I need to know something.”

She floated over to the coffeepot and tried to smell it. “Oh, this is just sinful. I’m supposed to be in Heaven and I can’t even smell coffee. What’s Heaven without coffee?”

“Ma, you’re not in Heaven. You’re in my kitchen. Maybe if you actually spent some time in Heaven you could smell coffee there.”

“Pfft. I got stuff to do here.”

Even in death my mother could avoid a question better than anyone I knew. “Ma, I know what you’re doing, so stop.”

She floated back over to me and hovered near the chair. “I know what you’re going to ask, Ang.”

“What? Can you read my mind now, too? Crap. Ma, if you can read my mind, then we have to –”

“No, Angela, I can’t read your mind. I’m a ghost. I’m not a psychic. You’re my daughter. That’s how I know what you’re going to ask me.”

“No, Ma, you don’t.” Okay, so maybe she did but I that annoyed me so I didn’t acknowledge it. My mother always had a knack for knowing what I was going to say before I said it. I didn’t know if that was a gift or a curse for either of us.

“You want to know why I showed myself to you after I died and opened up this door, don’t you?”

I really hated when she did that. I shook my head in defeat.

“I don’t know, Angela. Part of me wanted to let you know I was okay. That it didn’t hurt to die, and that I heard all of those wonderful things you said to me. I tried to tell you when I was lying there, but I couldn’t. My head wanted to respond, but my body wouldn’t work, and I was so tired. I didn’t think this would happen and I’m sorry you’re upset.”

Who was this woman? Ma didn’t apologize. She never considered herself wrong. Even when it was obvious she was wrong, she never acknowledged it. When OJ Simpson was on trial for killing his ex-wife and her friend, she insisted he was innocent. The whole glove fiasco solidified her opinion even though she was probably the only person in the world to think he didn’t do it.

I loved my mother. Her heart was golden, even if sometimes she was a royal pain in the butt. “I know, Ma. I know. So that’s why you’re still here then, to tell me all of that? Is that what psychic Linda meant about me being your unfinished business?”

“It’s more complicated than that. Madone. No one wants to die and leave their children, especially mothers, even if their children are adults, but it’s not really that. When you die, things happen. You see things. You know how they say you see your whole life pass before your eyes? Well, you do, but that’s not all. You see other things too, and what I saw made me feel like I needed to be here, for you.”

“What did you see?”

“That’s the thing, Angela. I can’t tell you.”

“You can’t tell me or you won’t tell me?”

“There are rules, Angela. I have to follow the rules.”

“Rules? What rules? I thought once you die and go to Heaven there are no rules? And I thought they’d have unlimited coffee and chocolate and no calories and tons of cupcakes.”

“Yeah, I thought so too and I thought your grandmother could make her spinach but she laughed when I asked her to." She tried to smell my coffee again. “Just one sniff. That’s all I want. One sniff.”

I stood up and stretched, tiredness finally hitting me, along with the realization that I wouldn’t win this battle. “I’m going to bed now." I poured the rest of my coffee down the drain.

Ma's eyes grew big and her mouth opened in shock to see the precious liquid disappear. “What a waste."

“I’m sorry, Ma. I love you.”

“Ah, it’s okay. It’s just coffee.”

“No, not about that, about how I behaved today. I’m sorry about how I treated you.”

“Pfft. You’re my daughter. I forgave you before you even did it.”

Tears welled up in my eyes and I and wanted to say something more but she’d already shimmered away.

T
he next morning I woke up before Jake, fed Gracie and made a fresh pot of coffee. Josh got up shortly after me. “What are you doing up so early, little man?”

“It’s eight o’clock. It’s not early, Mama.”

“Seems pretty early for a boy to be getting up in the summer if you ask me.”

“I like getting up early. I feel like I’m wasting my day if I sleep too long. Can you make me a bagel with peanut butter, please?”

“Sure, little man. Want some milk, too?”

“Yes, please.”

I made Josh his bagel and said a silent thank you to God for my son. He was the easiest kid alive, not that I actually knew any dead kids. Yet. Yikes. If Emily were up right now, she’d be a total crab because it was so early, and she’d either want something full of sugar or nothing at all. I’d talk to her about metabolism and the importance of eating breakfast, she’d roll her eyes at me, I’d get mad, and she’d stomp to the family room, turn on some stupid reality show she taped the night before, and pretend I didn’t exist. Yes, Josh was so much easier.

Thinking that through made me understand how Ma knew what I was going to say the night before and I felt a renewed connection to her.

I spent a few minutes talking to Josh about his plans for the day. Basketball with friends and then maybe a little Xbox 360 topped his priority list, and I gently reminded him of his time limits on the game. He smiled and assured me he wouldn't go over and I believed him.

Josh ate his bagel and I fixed Jake a cup of coffee, my best tool for waking him, other than sex.

“’Morning,” Jake said as I snuggled up next to him. “Not looking for a repeat of last night?”

After being married for practically, ever, he knew what the coffee meant.

I laughed. “Absolutely I am. How fast can you shower and brush your teeth?”

Jake rolled over onto his side. “What happened to the days of sex in the morning, night and any time in between, dirty bodies and unbrushed teeth?" He pouted.

“Kids and a dog. Oh, and errands, and work and cleaning, and PTO and laundry, and...shall I continue?”

Jake lifted up his head to see Gracie lying on the bed, staring at him. “Growing up sucks.”

“Yeah, buddy." I got up to get dressed.

“What’s your plan for the day?”

“Heading out to the greenway to walk with Mel, then run some errands, come back and do laundry. All that exciting stuff that gets in the way of sex. What about you?”

“I’ve got a conference call at ten o’clock and then have to catch up on my expenses. Are the kids up yet?”

“Josh is. Apparently he’s setting his alarm now because he doesn’t want to waste his day by sleeping. He’s going to play basketball in a bit but is eating his fantastically prepared breakfast.”

“A bowl of cereal?”

“No, I made him a bagel with peanut butter on it. I cooked.”

“You toasted.”

“Close enough.” I pulled a tee shirt over my workout bra. “If Emily gets up while I’m gone, which I hope she does, can you make sure she eats something reasonably healthy and find out what her plan is for the day?”

Jake swept his legs off the bed and rubbed his eyes. “Sure. What do you consider reasonably healthy, a Pop Tart?”

“Not so much.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she has some fruit or yogurt or something.”

“Thanks." I kissed him. “I gotta run. The dog has been fed and let out, but you need to make sure she goes out a few more times, please.”

He saluted me. “Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s a good boy. Love you." I walked out of the bedroom.

“Love you too.”

###

“H
old on,” I said to Mel after we’d started walking. “My watch isn’t starting up.” We stopped and moved to the side of the path, and I reset my Polar watch. It took a few tries, but I finally got it to give me a heart rate over zero, indicating that I was in fact, alive. “I think I need to send this thing in or something. My heart rate is zero more often than any other number.”

“Maybe you’re a ghost and you don’t know it.”

“That’s all you’ve got?”

“Yeah, that was pretty lame, wasn’t it? I guess I’m still tired.”

“You disappoint.”

“Sorry, I’ll work on it. So how’s things?”

“You know,” I paused to figure out what I actually felt but couldn’t come up with much. “I don’t really feel anything specific. I’m not really mad anymore, but I’m not gung-ho to go out and ghost hunt and heal the emotionally wounded either. I talked to my mother and I think that actually helped a little.”

“You did? When? What did she say?”

“I couldn’t sleep last night and ended up in the kitchen where she was floating around.”

“Had sex, huh?”

“Yup and of course Jake was out less than five minutes after. How do they
do
that?”

“It’s Eve. It all comes back to her eating that damn apple first. Screwed us all. That beyotch.”

“I hate Eve.”

“Me, too. She’s the reason for PMS and every other annoying and bad thing we have to deal with. I hope she has cramps for all of eternity. So tell me what Fran said.”

I filled her in on the conversation with Ma.

“So you’re not mad at her anymore?”

“I wasn’t really mad at her to begin with.”

Mel tilted her head and gave me a funny look. “Um, yeah, you were. Actually I’d say you were more like furious.”

She was right. “Okay. Maybe I was a little mad, but I wouldn’t say furious. Seriously though, wouldn’t you be? The whole situation is way out of my comfort zone.”

“I don’t know. If it were me, I’d like to think I’d be pretty psyched about it. You’ve got a gift and that’s pretty cool. I can see how it would freak you out, though.”

“You have no clue. I don’t even know if the people I’m looking at anymore are real. This isn’t part of the life I imagined for myself.”

“You imagined yourself wearing a tiara Ang, and that’s not gonna happen. And life threw you a curve ball but you’ll adjust. You may even end up liking it.”

“Maybe.” I didn’t really think that but this was one of those times when discussing it more wouldn’t make a difference.

“I wonder what that whole, ‘they have rules’ thing means though? You need more info on that one. I don’t think Heaven is supposed to have rules. It’s sort of like calories. If Heaven has those, what’s the point then?”

“Maybe there are calories in Heaven but they don’t count.”

“Or, maybe the more calories you eat, the thinner you get. How awesome would that be?”

“Totally awesome. Like everything here that’s bad for us isn’t bad for us in Heaven. I could work with that.”

“I could eat shrimp all day long and not have the shrimp squirts. Now that’s Heaven to me.”

“Can we not talk about your digestive issues, please Mel? I would like to eat in peace today.”

“You sure? I could give you some details on the last time Nick and I went for Japanese.”

“Thanks, but I’ll take a pass on that for now.”

“Your loss. Anyway, back to the rules. I really can’t imagine Heaven having any. It just seems sort of anti-climatic. You live your life following rules and then one day you’re walking down the street and a bus runs you down and when you get to Heaven, the first thing you find out is you’ve gotta follow rules. That would suck. I mean, where’s the reward?”

“The reward is getting into Heaven, Mel. Instead of toasting for eternity in a fire pit.”

“Good point.”

“About the rules, I’m not sure if she meant rules like we’re thinking. I think it’s more of what she’s able to discuss with me about what happens here or there, you know? Either way it doesn’t matter. I’ve realized whatever’s gonna happen is gonna happen and I’ve just gotta go with the flow. It’s not like I can control it anyway.”

“Who are you and where is my anal retentive, control freak friend, Angela?”