Ghost Mother

Xenia Sylvia Dylag

A week after we buried her, my mother appeared at the grocery store. I was looking for the DiGiorno Cheese Stuffed Crust Supreme. There she was, reflected in the freezer glass, face framed by the square pizza box. She smiled, winked, and then she was gone. I thought I must have been experiencing delirium from all the crying and the lack of sleep, so I just went on with my shopping.

     On my walk home, I noticed a second shadow beside mine. I ignored it. I am just going a little fucking crazy, I told myself. I approached my apartment, and there, hanging on the doorknob, was the silk handkerchief with red poppies that I had embroidered before my mother died. She’d forced me to make it for her.

     Stop crying and make use of yourself. Make something nice for your dying mother, and then you can bury me with it, she demanded.

     And I did. She wore that handkerchief until her last rattling breath. I watched the casket close with the handkerchief still tied around her stiff neck. Now here it was hanging on my doorknob. I dropped the grocery bags, heard a few eggs crack, and in desperation, I recited the Hail Mary. I snagged my bags and went inside.

     “Kochana, my love,” she said. My dead mother was sitting on my couch.

     I dropped my grocery bags again. If the eggs didn’t break from the first drop, they were definitely broken this time. Slimy egg innards all over my garlic and onions.

     I pinched myself. Isn’t that what they did in the movies? I pinched myself again, but she was still there, wagging her leg up and down and up and down. The way I remember her wagging that leg, making my heart beat faster and faster with each movement. My anxiety went straight up the wall to the ceiling before crawling back down into my chest.

     Sloneczko, we don’t have a lot of time, and I need your help. I can’t seem to grab anything now that I’m dead.” She stuck her hand straight through my lamp to prove her point. “So that’s why I’m here. I know this must be a shock for you. But you’re the only one. Well, the only strong one with a head on her shoulders who won’t go running off to the mental institution because her dead mother is haunting her. Kochanie, you’re keeping yourself together very well right now. I trust I made the right decision in seeking you.”

     I was struck stupid. Of her three daughters, she actually thought I was the strong one? She called me a damn cry baby my whole life. She told me I needed to toughen up. Both of my sisters were so much more stable and put together. 

     “Yes, but they’re stubborn. Stubborn and close-minded. Do be careful what you think around me. Your sisters. . . well, um, how else can I say this? They’re crumbly, soggy gingerbread houses. I told you to toughen up because I knew you’d be able to take it. That you’d adapt. You are the sensitive one, but it’s because you’re seeking more in this life. Your sisters are facades. It doesn’t matter now anyway. What does matter is that I am here, and I need you to do something for me. And quickly.”

     “Seriously? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I responded.

     “No, no. This is no joke. It’s Babcia’s lighter.”

     “What in the world are you talking about? Grandma’s lighter? What lighter?”

     “The gold one she always held onto. Your cousin told you about it, I know she did.” 

     “The lighter she called her husband? The one you stole from her before she died?”

     “Yes, yes that’s the one. You need to retrieve it for me, and you must do exactly as I tell you. Once you get it, you need to grind the lighter into a powder, and then drink it down with warm milk and honey. That is the only way to get rid of the soul that possesses it. Do you understand me?”

     “Grind it? How the hell am I supposed to do that? With the lighter fluid still in it? Did you come back from the dead just to poison me?”

     “No. Not at all. The fluid has evaporated and there should be no residue left. It’s in the instructions. I wrote it all out. There is a spell. It will extract anything that might be harmful to digest.”  

     “Oh, some spell Babcia taught you from Poland? Fantastic. And where is this lighter?”

     “It’s hidden in my yard under the southern window, the one that looks out to the garage and the graveyard. You must dig under that window. After six feet you will find a brazen box. The code to the lock is 11144. In the box, you will find a deer antler. Crack the deer antler in half and a silver egg will fall out. Crack the egg, and you’ll find a turtle shell. The lighter is inside the shell. Place the lighter in the velvet pouch that’s inside the box underneath a ball of yarn. Wear the pouch around your neck. Don’t let it leave your body. Oj! I hope we have enough time. This could mean a world of problems—mostly psychological, you know what I mean? Of course, you don’t. You don’t know about the past. The past that followed us from Poland and what we created on our own here. Kochanie, you must believe me when I say that some things are best kept secret. The mistakes of your ancestors aren’t yours to bear. Not anymore. And whatever you do, don’t tell your sisters.”

     “What do you mean? The mistakes of my ancestors?”

      “It’s best that you don’t ask questions. Not yet,” she said, and her figure evaporated into a cloud of sparkling golden dust above my couch. A tiny insect flew up and around and out through the glass window.

     She was gone.

     I stared toward the window for some time, lost in some space between myself and my existence. My mother said jump, and I was jumping. Again. I gathered myself and grabbed my keys. 

     I parked in front of her house and looked at myself in the rearview mirror. My face was ghastly. I looked like a dried-up rag. The realization that my mother was still controlling me tugged at my throat. I coughed and tried to spit into the mug beside me. I just dry heaved. Nothing was left inside. What am I doing here? She’s dead.

      I readjusted the mirror and saw my sister’s Mercedes pull up behind me. I’d forgotten that it was Sunday, the day my sisters had planned to come to our mother’s house to start cleaning it out. I put my sunglasses on and opened my car door.

     “What are you doing here, Ela?” I heard Beata’s nasally voice before I even stepped out of the car. “I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with this house and this whole process. You must have realized that you left something important in there, huh?” 

     “Hi, Beata. It’s good to see you too.” I gave her a hug. She barely hugged me— she just tapped my back with her long, acrylic fingernails.

     “Tosia is on her way. She stopped at the deli to pick up some food,” Beata said.

     “That’s nice. Well, I don’t plan on staying long. I just wanted to look in the house,” I said, adjusting my sunglasses.

     “You said you didn’t want anything to do with this place.”

     “I don’t. I just came to look,” I responded.

     “Well, isn’t that interesting,” she said. 

     She took the piece of gum out of her mouth with the tip of her long fake nails and flicked it onto the grass.

     “Now that mama’s gone, I thought I might want something to remember her by,” I said hesitantly.

     “Oh, what bullshit. Don’t we have enough scars to remember her by?”

     I didn’t know how to respond. She was right. Tosia pulled up before I could muster a response. Tosia got out and our mother came out of the passenger seat. My mouth dropped.

     “Oh, so you’re shocked to see me?” Tosia said.

     I watched our dead mother stroll to the back of her house.

     “What’s the matter with you?” Tosia asked.

     “Nothing. Let’s go inside,” I said.

     The three of us walked into the house. Inside it smelled of old, diseased flesh, mixed in with hints of lilies, mothballs, and mold. Boxes lined the narrow pathway into the living room. Memories of our childhood pulsated through the walls and flashed before my eyes. I saw us dancing to ABBA tunes. Beata yelling at me for stealing her makeup. Mom screaming at us for leaving lights on in every room or not eating all our food. Beata and Tosia simultaneously placed their palms on the wall—they must have seen it too.

     As if in a trance, I followed them to the spare room. Mom had converted the spare bedroom into a storage closet and forbid us from entering. If we even tried to touch the doorknob, we were smacked on the back of our legs with the wooden spoon she always carried in her apron. 

     Boxes blocked the actual closet in the bedroom, and they were stacked all the way up to the ceiling. The bed was completely covered with piles of sheep’s wool and all sorts of other furs. The fur grazed the light fixture. More boxes and shopping bags towered around the pile.

     Tosia grabbed the first box and pulled out skirts, ripped jeans, t-shirts, jewelry, purses, and magazines. They were Tosia’s things from her teenage years. She grabbed another box, and it was filled with Beata’s childhood stuffed animals. We found decades of our possessions molding in this spare room—items from different stages of our lives. Our mother had held on to everything. 

     Tosia melted to the ground surrounded by items of her former self. Beata dropped down next to her. They held each other and started sobbing uncontrollably. 

     When our mother died, my sisters were stoic. I was the one who crumbled. They made all the necessary arrangements. They called the funeral home. Watched her body get taken away. Organized the viewing and burial. Called family and friends. Picked out the casket and the outfit to bury her in. I didn’t see them cry at all. Until now. Bawling their heavy mascaraed eyes out like rejected beauty queens. 

     “Let it out. It’s okay. Let it out,” I said over and over, but they just kept on sobbing and snotting all over each other. Mucus ran from their noses down to their mouths like teething toddlers. I couldn’t stand it anymore; I got up to get some tissues. 

     In the bathroom, the embroidered handkerchief lay on the sink. The same silk one from my apartment. The same one I embroidered, and my sisters buried her with. 

     I heard my mother’s words in my head: They are crumbly and soggy gingerbread houses. I stuck the handkerchief in my pocket and went to the garage. I grabbed the shovel leaning against the door.

     At the southern window, I dug. I dug and dug and the deeper I dug, the heavier my eyes felt. I thought of my sisters opening all those boxes, and I started to cry, but through my tears, I kept digging. I dug and dug and cried and cried. I let my tears drop down into the soil. I wiped my eyes with my dirty hands and looked down. A small pond had formed in the hole below me. I took my sandals off, sat on the edge, and dipped my feet in. It was cold. Ice cold. I stuck the shovel in the water to see how deep I’d dug. I scraped up some of the dirt. I dropped the dirt onto the ground next to me and noticed a coffee-stained tooth, complete with its curly root. I jumped down into the hole and dug through the wet dirt with my hands. I found another tooth. And another. And then another. I grabbed the shovel with my muddy hands and scraped up another shovelful of wet dirt and found a little figurine of a mermaid.

     I heard my sisters’ sobbing again. I wrapped the teeth and the mermaid in the silk handkerchief and shoved it in my pocket. As I walked back into the house, the crying suddenly stopped.

     In the hallway, where I left my sisters between boxes and all our old crap, sat a gold serving plate topped with two crumbly, soggy gingerbread houses.

     “Well, I had to do something with them,” my dead mother said, appearing behind me. “They wouldn’t shut up.” 

     I turned around and went back to the hole. It was now completely dry. I dug feverishly with my bare hands. Six feet, she said. I dug and dug until I scraped the brazen box with my fingernails.

     “Yes, you found it,” my mother whispered. “Get it out. Get it out!”

     A heavy, dark cloud moved in above us and rain came spitting down from under it. Thunder boomed in my chest and lightning brightened the sky. A bolt hit the oak tree in the graveyard across the alley.

     “Why am I doing this for you?” I asked out loud. I was drenched and tired.

     “Ela, I said not to ask questions. Just get the damn box out, and do as I say,” she said and turned to look in the direction of the graveyard. “I am running out of time.”

     Here I am again, I thought to myself. Running another one of her errands. Why did I do this to myself? Do these things for her? And then regret it because it was never good enough and there was never even a thank you. She’s dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. I repeated the word over and over. I didn’t need to do this for her. Not ever again.

     “Ela, no, no, no, you must destroy the lighter.” 

     “You’re dead, mama. I can’t do this anymore. Fuck this lighter and its curse or past or whatever. And everything you left behind. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re dead, and I’m done.”

     She tried to say more, but she was struck suddenly voiceless. She looked up into the sky, and then at me, and finally she disappeared. 

     I dropped the handkerchief and all the teeth into the hole. 

     I put the mermaid in my pocket. 

     I covered the hole with dirt. I lifted the last pile, and I heard my sisters’ crying again. My car keys were still inside, but I didn’t want to go back there and have to deal with my crumbly, soggy sisters, so I walked home. 

     I felt lighter. The mistakes of my ancestors weren’t mine to carry. Not anymore. 

     When I got home, I turned on the oven and took out the DiGiorno Cheese Stuffed Crust Supreme. As I waited for the oven to preheat, I remembered the mermaid in my pocket. I placed it on the frozen pizza and wondered what it would be like without feet and without a care in the world afloat upon an ocean of cheese. 

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