Sarah lay the cheese and crackers on Margaret’s coffee table, scanned the room for Adele, and settled into an armchair beside the only woman in peach.
It seemed that Bob’s son wanted to liquidate everything. He thought they should hold a massive estate sale, transforming his father’s life into a pile of money that could be divvied up. But Ruby refused to abandon the house, and insisted that she would spend the last years of her life within the space she had called home for the past decade. Stubborn Bob Junior, who had grown up within those same walls, resented his stepmother’s intrusion, and now lawyers were scripting the family drama while their fees whittled away at Bob’s estate.
Ruby’s tale sparked a flurry of lamentations about wills, annuities, and government entitlements, all of which made Sarah newly grateful for Nate. He had handled everything after David’s disappearance—insurance, taxes, Social Security. Nate had filled out all the paperwork, consulting with David’s accountant and the college’s personnel office, and scouring desk drawers for every policy, every receipt. Sarah had only to locate the “sign here” stickers at the bottom of each form.
David had left her with an insurance policy for four hundred thousand dollars, a sum he had chosen back when they were planning a family. Add that to the college’s death benefit and her monthly Social Security checks, and widowhood had proven to be an enormous windfall. She planned to give half of the insurance money to the college, to establish a memorial scholarship for each year’s top premed student, but thinking about the money only made her restless. Margaret’s widows sounded more like an investment club than a bereavement group.
Sarah wondered what these women were really thinking. Did they feel lonely or liberated? Bottled up with rage, or drowning in apathy? She, who loathed group therapy, found herself wanting less talk about money and more about misery. She wanted someone to break down.
Perhaps that was why, when Ruby tipped her head and asked, “How are you doing?” she let the truth drop so abruptly.
“Not so great. I think I’m being haunted by my husband’s ghost.”
She expected silence. She thought her words would stain the atmosphere like a glass of red wine spilled on the carpet. But the reaction was just the opposite. The group seemed to bubble into life.
“Have you seen him?”
“Do you talk to him?”
“How does he look?”
She told them about the two occasions when she had seen David’s ghost, and explained how she had often sensed his invisible presence, and all the while the women nodded, as if she were giving a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. When she finished, the red-haired professor spoke for the first time.
“It’s not that unusual. Statistics show that widows are the most likely demographic group to report contact with the dead, everything from sightings of apparitions to vague feelings that ghosts are present.”
“Of course,” Ruby interrupted, clearly impatient at words like demographic, “women are much more psychic than men.”
“I don’t know about being psychic,” the professor pressed on, “but women are more pious, and that makes them more likely to believe in ghosts, whether or not they’re real.”
“They’re real all right.” An older widow spoke up. “I saw one in my grandmother’s backyard in Missouri, when I was eight years old. It was Thanksgiving morning and I was inside, reading in a window seat, and when I looked out there was a man standing under the big elm. It was my grandfather, clear as day. I recognized him from the pictures in Gran’s bedroom. He died of a heart attack before I was born, right in the middle of a church service, and Gran always said that meant he’d gone straight to heaven. He was still wearing his Sunday best when I saw him, and it was windy, and his hair was blowing, and he looked cold. But he was gone in an instant, like it was
It seemed that Bob’s son wanted to liquidate everything. He thought they should hold a massive estate sale, transforming his father’s life into a pile of money that could be divvied up. But Ruby refused to abandon the house, and insisted that she would spend the last years of her life within the space she had called home for the past decade. Stubborn Bob Junior, who had grown up within those same walls, resented his stepmother’s intrusion, and now lawyers were scripting the family drama while their fees whittled away at Bob’s estate.
Ruby’s tale sparked a flurry of lamentations about wills, annuities, and government entitlements, all of which made Sarah newly grateful for Nate. He had handled everything after David’s disappearance—insurance, taxes, Social Security. Nate had filled out all the paperwork, consulting with David’s accountant and the college’s personnel office, and scouring desk drawers for every policy, every receipt. Sarah had only to locate the “sign here” stickers at the bottom of each form.
David had left her with an insurance policy for four hundred thousand dollars, a sum he had chosen back when they were planning a family. Add that to the college’s death benefit and her monthly Social Security checks, and widowhood had proven to be an enormous windfall. She planned to give half of the insurance money to the college, to establish a memorial scholarship for each year’s top premed student, but thinking about the money only made her restless. Margaret’s widows sounded more like an investment club than a bereavement group.
Sarah wondered what these women were really thinking. Did they feel lonely or liberated? Bottled up with rage, or drowning in apathy? She, who loathed group therapy, found herself wanting less talk about money and more about misery. She wanted someone to break down.
Perhaps that was why, when Ruby tipped her head and asked, “How are you doing?” she let the truth drop so abruptly.
“Not so great. I think I’m being haunted by my husband’s ghost.”
She expected silence. She thought her words would stain the atmosphere like a glass of red wine spilled on the carpet. But the reaction was just the opposite. The group seemed to bubble into life.
“Have you seen him?”
“Do you talk to him?”
“How does he look?”
She told them about the two occasions when she had seen David’s ghost, and explained how she had often sensed his invisible presence, and all the while the women nodded, as if she were giving a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. When she finished, the red-haired professor spoke for the first time.
“It’s not that unusual. Statistics show that widows are the most likely demographic group to report contact with the dead, everything from sightings of apparitions to vague feelings that ghosts are present.”
“Of course,” Ruby interrupted, clearly impatient at words like demographic, “women are much more psychic than men.”
“I don’t know about being psychic,” the professor pressed on, “but women are more pious, and that makes them more likely to believe in ghosts, whether or not they’re real.”
“They’re real all right.” An older widow spoke up. “I saw one in my grandmother’s backyard in Missouri, when I was eight years old. It was Thanksgiving morning and I was inside, reading in a window seat, and when I looked out there was a man standing under the big elm. It was my grandfather, clear as day. I recognized him from the pictures in Gran’s bedroom. He died of a heart attack before I was born, right in the middle of a church service, and Gran always said that meant he’d gone straight to heaven. He was still wearing his Sunday best when I saw him, and it was windy, and his hair was blowing, and he looked cold. But he was gone in an instant, like it was
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