Ghost of Christmas Past

"What do you want for Christmas?"

The child on Santa's lap began a recitation of toys and gadgets that television had persuaded him were cool to have.

Jenna Ritter stood at a distance. The scene did not delight or amuse her. What did she want for Christmas? Charles Ritter of course. Charles in the flesh, by her side, as he had been a week ago.

Charles had died on December 10th. It was a senseless accident. He'd gone to the grocery and been hit by a drunk driver. Jenna had not wanted to believe the officer who knocked at their door that afternoon. But there was no sick joke; Charles was dead; his wife of ten years was suddenly, utterly alone.

She looked down at the shopping bags in her hands. They were full of gifts she had bought for him. It had seemed oddly sensical to return them. She looked at the happy child. She looked at the bags of gifts.

Nothing made any sense any more. She turned and left the mall, bumping into other shoppers as she blazed toward the exit. Nothing mattered any more, except that Charles was dead. She dropped the bags of gifts by the garbage bin.

Yes, Charles Ritter was dead to the world. Jenna should have been the first to attest to that fact: her fist had dropped a rose on his casket and the men had shoveled in the dirt.

Christmas was a piece of dog doo, in fact it was a great steaming heap. Jenna hired a cleaning service to take down the Christmas tree while she was at work. She instructed them to remove all decorations. "Make my living room look as if it's April."

They thought that was odd, but charged her credit card just the same.

She refused all invitations. When people insisted, she hung up on them. Emails got the delete key. Jenna wanted no part of Christmas. She worked until it was time for the break, went home, and waited for it to pass.

When April finally did roll around, a funny thing happened. Jenna had just gotten home from work. She dropped into the chair that had been her husband's favorite and sobbed, as she frequently did. The box of tissues was growing pathetically empty, she noticed, and snatched another one and blew her nose.

She leaned back and stared into the gathering shadows of the living room. Turning on the light had no particular appeal.

Then she heard his voice inside her head.

"Jenna."

Her dead husband's voice rang as clear and true as if he were right there beside her.

"Charles!"

She jumped up, looking for him. "Charles, where are you? I can't see you!"

"I can't appear physically. I'm in your mind, in your brain."

"Am I crazy?" Jenna sat down again, still looking around for him, despite what he had just told her.

"No," laughed Charles. "You're the only one who can hear me, but I assure you, I'm real."

"I miss you! I miss you!!" Jenna began sobbing afresh. She rocked back and forth on the sofa, hugging herself and crying piteously.

Charles' arms wrapped around her in a warm hug. His neck touched hers as he whispered words of love and comfort. She felt his face. The vertical scar below one eye made her certain. This was her husband. It was really and truly him.

Her first instinct was to burrow into his chest, bury herself as deeply into the longed-for embrace as she could. Then she pulled back with a frightened yelp! Nothing was holding her; nothing was there.

"Charles, I'm so confused," she whispered. Tears choked her voice and ran freely down her cheeks.

He sighed. "You can hear me, right?"

"Yes..."

"Okay, now listen carefully as I'm speaking. Where does my voice seem to come from."

Jenna furrowed her brow. "Inside my head."

"Does the sound seem to originate from somewhere in the room?"

"No." She swung her head around, trying to get a bead on the source. There was no external beacon.

"Okay now, my darling, think back to your classes on human physiology. How do you know when you are touching anything?"

"Nerve endings in the skin. I still don't understand."

Charles sighed again. "The nerves send a message to the brain, do they not? And the brain tells you that the touch is real."

Jenna finally got it. "So because you're in my brain, you can fool my nerves into thinking they are touching you physically?"

"Something like that."

"Then why not everything else? Why can't you fix it so I can see you?"

"The technical answer is, I don't know. I only know I can do some things, but not others. But I think I know the reason, if not the mechanics."

"Well tell me! What is it?"

"Jenna, my darling... you know we loved each other very much."

"Love, not loved. It isn't over. I still love you, I'll always love you. Don't you love me?"

An invisible finger touched her lips. "Wait. Please listen. Do you know what you've been like since I died?"

"Not so good, I guess."

"You've been terrible. Time for me happens more quickly unless I deliberately slow it down. I've watched you lose fifteen pounds by simply not eating. The weight is practically melting off your frame. You're frightening the children you teach. Your co-workers are worried sick about you."

Jenna squirmed. "I didn't mean to cause all that."

"I know you didn't, but Jenna, you've got to start taking care of yourself again. You've got to live, with or without me."

"Well, if you can be here — why not with you? I know it won't quite be the same, but if you're here with me, we can find some happiness together. Can't we?" Even as she asked the question, she sensed the answer.

"I'm sorry, baby. The deal is this. My purpose here is to help you get back on track. Once you've found your own joy in this world, I will move on, and so will you."

"But you were my joy in this world..." Tears ached in the widow's throat again, threatened, and spilled. "You were my joy in this world."

As she sat there weeping, the beloved arms embraced her again, and this time she did not draw back in fear. She sobbed until she wore herself out, like a child with a fever.

At last she let her husband's ghost lead her to bed.

The essence of Charles Ritter lay curled up beside his widow, giving her the comfort she so badly needed. The woman slept deeply.

He could feel the tangled, anguished state of Jenna's mind. Her brain was a dark thicket of grief and misery. Very gently, very carefully, he soothed little bits here and there, easing away burrs of fear and hopelessness. It would not be possible to change everything overnight. And he could not effect all of her healing — Jenna would have to reach a point where she wanted to help herself get better. But on this night, this first night of ghostly comfort, he could grant her a little peace.

Jenna slept straight through the night for the first time in over three months. She woke feeling rested. For once her mind was not frazzled with chronic, aching grief ... For a moment she merely blinked at the soft morning light. Then she remembered.

"Charles!"

"I'm right here."

"I thought I had a dream ... a really good dream, that you were alive again."

An invisible kiss pressed against her cheek. "I'm not really alive, darling, don't be fooled into thinking that. My happiness is tied to yours, and so until you move on, my spirit cannot let go, either. I'm just here to help you bridge the gap."

"So what you're really saying is you don't want to be here, you're just stuck here because of me." Jenna sounded very sad.

"Jenna, my love, you know that's not true. I love you very much and always wanted to be with you —"

"Wanted, past tense —"

"Please listen. Think of the phrase, 'Until death do us part.' There are some laws in the universe over which mortals have no control, and death is one of them. Once you cross over, who knows? We may be together again. But today, you are in the world of the flesh, and I am in limbo, neither here nor there."

"So all I have to do is kill myself? Then we can be together?"

"NO!! Jenna, please, don't even joke about that. Please."

"What, then?" The widow leaned back and stared out the window. She looked inconsolable. In a voice barely above a whisper, she asked, "Why can't you just stay with me?"

Charles snuggled next to her. She leaned her head on his shoulder in their old familiar pose of comfort. His hands softly patted her back.

"Jenna, I'm going to give you an example. Suppose you had a friend who was 99 years old."

"Okay."

"Now suppose your friend has a stroke and is placed on life support."

"Uh huh."

"And your friend is in a coma for over a year, with no signs of brain activity. Only medical machines connected to her body force the heart to beat and the lungs to breathe."

"Yeah."

"What do you think is the most fair thing, the kindest thing, that should be done for your friend."

Jenna sighed. "Pull the plug," she said dejectedly.

"That's right, and why do you do that?"

"So she can be free to die, to move on to the next stage of existence."

"Exactly."

Jenna leaned her face against her husband's invisible shoulder and wept softly for a few minutes. Her words were barely intelligible: "So you're telling me you aren't free to die."

An invisible chin nodded against her hair. "Something like that. You are my unfinished business."

She hugged him tightly, squeezing her eyes shut with desire to block out the impossible. As she held him she became aware of another desire, one that hadn't crossed her mind for a long time. She'd had no interest in sex, not even to masturbate.

But now here was Charles, firm and muscular in her arms. She lifted one knee and rubbed her inner thigh against his hip. The sensation of his pajamas melted away. He became naked in her embrace.

"How do you do that?"

Charles chuckled. "It's all in the brain, remember?"

"Touch me in my mind, then."

Even though she had requested it, Jenna was still surprised when her husband's hands possessed her body. He swept a caress up her legs and squeezed her butt. A mouth she couldn't see engulfed her nipple.

After the initial shock of sensing a man she could not see, Jenna gave in and enjoyed making love to her husband for the first time in months. Much of the time she kept her eyes closed to heighten the illusion. It couldn't be helped that the sounds of his pleasure originated between her ears.

Still, the intimacy brought was a flashflood of relief after the long drought of cheerlessness. The moment of penetration brought tears of joy to her eyes.

"Oh ... Charles ... god, I've missed you..."

"Mmmm, I've missed you too," he murmured. He rocked in and out of her, pushing waves of delight through her senses.

Jenna opened her eyes. She was on her back with her knees high and wide, with no one apparently there.

"Touch yourself!" Charles demanded.

"What?, how can I?" she panted. His thrusting was growing more insistent, as if his peak was near.

"Do it!"

Jenna was confused but reached between her legs. Her fingers plunged into the hot spring and met the wet folds of flesh. At the same time she could still feel Charles fucking her.

"Diddle yourself. Masturbate," growled her husband. "I want you to cum with me, Jenna!"

Frantically she played with her clit, circling and attacking the hard bud. The spirit's cock swelled and grew harder. She squeaked in a rising pitch as her lover grunted and finally shouted!

"Oh,... oh..." Jenna lay back, gasping and panting. "Oh, Charles, that was fabulous."

His heavy breathing was not quite in her ear. "Ummmmmmm. It was nice for me, too."

His voice faded. "Have to go ... rest, now ... Jenna ..."

Jenna lay quietly as her dead husband's presence disappeared from her mind. For several minutes she laid on the bed, just breathing and holding still. She focused on the wetness between her legs. It didn't seem like the gush of a man was there.

Finally she squatted in the bathroom and used a tissue. She smelled it. The evidence was definitely hers alone. What had she expected? He'd told her it was all in her mind.

Still it was disappointing. How wonderful it would have been, to feel him come inside her one more time.

Charles reappeared within a few hours of their love-making. For a long time they sat closely together on the couch, talking. They had chosen wisely in marriage: each enjoyed the other in conversation.

"So tell me about this time business. What do you mean, it happens more quickly?"

"It's like watching a movie in fast forward. I can watch, but I can't interact with you."

"Oh." She worked this out in her mind. "So you can step back and forth, between the two worlds."

Charles lifted his invisible hands. "That's my best understanding."

* * *

Jenna went back to work Monday in better spirits. Principal Cartwright called her in to his office.

"Ms. Ritter. You're looking a bit better today."

"Thank you." Jenna smiled. Charles didn't say anything, though she could tell her was in her head.

"How would you like to go to Florida?"

"I'm sorry, excuse me?"

Her boss laughed and looked pleased with himself. "Go to Florida! There's a conference in Orlando this weekend and Barbara Rodewald was supposed to go, but she's come down with the flu. I'd love it if you would represent us."

"Yes, I would love to go," Charles instructed.

Jenna said his words out loud. "Yes, I would love to go."

Cartwright shook her hand. "Excellent! I'll send you an email with all the details."

He put one arm on her shoulder and walked her toward the door, chatting like a used-car salesman who'd just struck a deal. "See Nancy on your way out, she'll arrange your flight and hotel."

Jenna nodded. "Okay." The door closed behind her.

"What was that all about?" she muttered.

Charles took it upon himself to answer. "Your friends care about you, Jenna, they want to see you happy again."

At the same time, Nancy was waving Jenna over to her desk and saying something.

"Ssh! Not right now, I can't hear," said Jenna.

"Sorry," said Charles.

"What?" asked Nancy. "This isn't a good time?"

"Oh, no, no, it's fine. Now is fine. I was just, uh, talking to myself."

Nancy exuded good cheer. "As long as you don't listen to yourself!" She turned her attention to her computer.

Inside Jenna's head, Charles singsonged, "We're going to Florida, we're gonna have fu-un!"

Jenna rolled her eyes just as Nancy looked up.

"Are you sure nothing's wrong?"

* * *

The conference was about diversity in education. Jenna thought it was pretty much pointless, because to her the truth of the matter was universal. A good teacher would adjust her pedagogy to meet the learning needs of the individual.

That is, until said teacher was burdened with several oversized classrooms per day. At that point, you were lucky to preserve order. No amount of Small Group Techniques or Snowball Games would magically permit a teacher to be in two places at once.

After a day of workshops that she doubted she'd have a chance to apply, Jenna spent the second day strolling through the vendors' booths. Many of them had raffle prizes. Jenna dropped her business card into baskets and goldfish bowls, knowing she was signing up her school for piles and piles of junk mail. What the hell! Maybe something useful would come of it.

The last booth in the aisle was plain in comparison to the others. No monitor played a continuous loop extolling a product. There was no sign yelling "ENTER TO WIN!!!!!!!"

The simple white tablecloth held only a modest display of children's books.

Jenna browsed the titles: The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The Stars: A New Way to See Them, by H. A. Rey. Where the Wild Things Are. The corners of her lips moved upward. Seeing the old favorites was like seeing long-lost friends.

She picked up a book and sat down in one of the dreadful plastic-and-metal chairs. The fable so engrossed her that she didn't notice when Charles slipped out the back door of her consciousness.

At the end of the chapter about the baobabs she looked up to see the man in the suit smiling at her.

"I'm sorry. I guess I should buy this book." She reached into her purse to hunt for her wallet.

"You can have it." The man's blue-green eyes radiated a gentle happiness.

"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly."

"Sure you can. Give me the book."

Obligingly Jenna placed it in his outstretched hand.

The man drew the slender paperback through the air, crossing its plane with his fingers, behind it and in front. "Watch my eyes ... don't look away..." he intoned.

Then he reached for her totebag. Jenna followed the motion.

"Ah, ah!" he warned. She looked in his eyes again and smiled.

The impromptu magician dropped the book in her bag.

"Done! See? That was easy."

Jenna applauded. "Thank you." She looked at his name tag. "Dr. Hart."

"Tim, please. And I'm not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV."

She laughed and stuck out her hand. "Jenna."

"So what brings you to the conference?"

The smile fell off her face like an over-buttered pancake. My husband died and my principal sent me because he feels sorry for me and wants me to cheer up.

"Uh, oh. I can see I shouldn't have asked that question. Why don't you ask me first?"

"What brings you to the conference, Tim?"

"I'm celebrating the last time I'll ever sell a book that's not my own."

"What do you mean by that?"

Tim shrugged. His gesture was not one of confusion. It was more like a physical manifestation of a giggle. "Want to have lunch, and I'll tell you all about it?"

"Okay."

The hotel restaurant was overpriced and understaffed. Jenna's new friend explained that he was a book salesman.

"Sometimes you reach a point in this life where you have a stick at one end and a carrot at the other," Tim said.

"So the stick is that you're tired of selling books?"

Tim nodded. "Tired of traveling, tired of selling people things that I'm not always sure they want."

"So what's the carrot."

"I want to write the kind of children's books that should be written. I mean, that there should be more of. You may have noticed that I only laid out classic titles today."

"Yes, I was wondering why there weren't more current ones."

"These are the ones I remember from my childhood. I got to thinking a few months ago, why do these works make me feel good? What is it about them that makes me feel moved, even though I'm supposed to be a grown-up now?"

He paused to take a sip of his water. The slice of lemon bobbed against the ice.

"I think it's because every single one of those stories had something deeper to say, kind of a lightly camouflaged life lesson. The reader can just enjoy the story, or choose to look into the metaphor and find something deeper."

Jenna was thinking of the baobabs: how habits could grow until they consumed a person, and tore them completely apart. Maybe it was time to get out of the rut of grieving. Maybe she wasn't ready yet, either.

"Sounds hard to do," she said, partly to herself.

"It is. But I think anything worth having, anything wonderful, isn't easy to obtain."

"There's your first book."

"Oh! Great idea. I gotta write that down." Tim whipped out a small notebook.

The waiter came by to take their orders. Neither of them had even looked at the menu. Jenna gave it a swift glance.

"Fettuccine Alfredo, please."

"Same."

"So tell me about you, I take it you teach?" Tim asked.

"Fifth graders." She didn't really feel like talking about herself. Any minute the subject of family would come up, and yet another person would offer a pitying look.

"I'm very sorry."

"What?"

"You look like the thought of fifth-graders gives you a toothache. I'm sorry."

"Oh! It's not that." She grimaced as she realized she had just painted herself into a corner. What is it, then?

Tim's look of concern was offset by the quirk of one brow. "I have never seen anybody work so hard to keep from shouting what they are thinking. Why don't you just tell me, and we can let the elephant go home to Africa? I promise not to judge."