seasonal ghosts

On a typical Thanksgiving, family descends on my parents’ house for turkey and dressing, pies and casseroles, pickled peaches, strong coffee and the annual viewing of a particular movie classic, A Christmas Carol.  Watching the black and white version with Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge has become as much a part of our holiday tradition as outlet malls the day-after.  This year is a little different.

With Covid infections spiking, Thanksgiving this year was pretty much a Zoom.  Family members dropped off their specialty dishes with my mother who repackaged two-dozen foil-covered lunches and, together with my dad, delivered two-dozen Thanksgiving-on-wheels meals.

And that was that. 

If anyone wanted to carry on the Dicken’s tradition, they were on their own. 

By one o’clock, Toby and I were literally staggering under the influence of turkey and tryptophan.  My sole object of interest was my Royale Deluxe recliner (the Hibernator II), which I took back—way back—to its optimal sleep-accommodating setting.  Toby recognized where I was going with this and climbed on board just in time for a spectacular doze-off.

Next thing I know, Toby and I are floating in the air next to this guy who looks like a cross between Andre the Giant (wrestling legend known for his terrific size) and a red-headed Santa (another legend known for his list-making).  He announces grandly, “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.” 

Toby scoffs. 

“Seriously?” our ghost says.

“It’s not that we doubt you,” I explain.  “It’s just we don’t believe.  Not without compelling evidence.  Now, if you have a few ghosts of reindeer past with you…”

“Hmph.”  Now he’s scoffing the scoff.  Then he says, “That’s a mighty fine Royale Deluxe Hibernator II you’re floating in.” 

Toby and I look at each other.

“How did he know it’s a Hibernator…II.”

“Because three years ago, someone wanted to one-up his father who had a Hibernator I.”

OMG!  And just like that, Toby and I believe…that he is either who he says he is, or perhaps the ghost one of the higher-ups at the Royale Deluxe manufacturing plant. 

“Now that everyone believes everyone,” he says, “I want to take you on a little trip, and I won’t take no for an answer.” 

In the absence of no, I guess, we’re in.

Off we fly, through time and space, to this house the spitting image of my parents’ house when I was a kid.  We slip in without an invite and just float above the dinner table where family is gathered for the holiday.  Everyone’s eating turkey, shoulder-to-shoulder. 

“Remember when no one had to wear a mask,” the ghost says, floating majestically with his red cloak blooming open below him. 

Toby’s leans over the arm of the RDH II and swats at forks and spoons laden with food he can’t possibly snatch.

“This is a memory,” I remind him.  “This was another year.  We’re not really here.”  And just like that, he snatches the dollop of broccoli casserole poised on my aunt’s fork.  

She looks up.  “What in the hell…”

Apparently, expression of said crude incredulity is a cue for future eavesdroppers, and we are out of there, once again traversing time and holidays until we land at the same house several years later.

“Try not to interact with the past this time,” the Ghost says.  “I didn’t even have a chance last time to touch on any of my talking-points.”

Still floating, we are directly over a table of loved ones who think nothing of accepting the piece of pumpkin pie someone has just sneezed on.  How I long for the dismissability of pre-covid aerosols. 

Once again, however, our cover is blown by my interacting cat.  The casserole he snatched from several years ago is now a rancid goo on his paw.  He gives it a good booger-shake and flings it expertly back—remarkably—on the same aunt’s fork. 

But before anyone can give us our cue, there is a knock on the door.  Our host to the past looks startled and says we should go.

“Are you expecting someone this year you don’t want to meet?” Toby asks. 

I am floored.  Not only can my cat talk, he has called out the Ghost of the Past about something he might not want to face in that past. 

I ask Toby if he can say the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

It’s a silly thing to ask, but it gets attention. 

Everyone seated below us looks up.  That’s when someone says the big guy floating over their head is wearing nothing under his blooming cloak.

“What in the hell…” Toby says. 

Poof! 

We’re back in my den, still in the RD Hibernator II.  It was all a dream.  But we are not alone.  Something more than casseroles-past has followed us out of the dream, into the year 2020.  And it is knocking on my front door like a census taker who takes orders from no one.     

Toby and I go to the door and open it.  There is a scream.  A manly, seasonal scream.  But a scream, nonetheless, justified by the visage standing on my front stoop. 

I am quite familiar with the Dickens chronology of haunting visits, and we have clearly skipped over a ghost or two to discover a horrific figure in full compliance with Dr. Fauci’s covid fashion tips.  The ghost before us now is wearing pale blue surgical scrubs, a full-head respirator with darkened visor and making creepy Darth Vader gasps. 

“Oh spirit,” I utter.  “I fear you most of all.”

The thing steps forward and Toby and I jump back and meow like a couple of banshees. 

In classic Future spirit non-talk, the figure points to a picture pinned to its chest.  It looks almost like a wanted-poster.  A cute wanted-poster.  And rather familiar.  I look closer. 

“Ally?”  It’s a picture of Telly’s granddaughter…how she would look in baby blue scrubs and crocs if she weren’t wearing a scary respirator.  I have heard of hospital doctors, cloaked in full protective gear, wearing pictures of themselves to prove their human identity to their infected patients.  “Is that you?”

When Ally removes her helmet there are tears on her cheeks. 

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“It’s Grandfather.”  She chokes up.

“Telly?”

“Scottie…”

“Your husband is your grandfather?”

“No!” she cries like a diner whose broccoli casserole has been spirited away from her fork.  “My husband—Scottie—tested positive for covid.”

Suddenly, the scrubs Ally would typically wear in the OR where she works, now make sense.  With an infected husband in the house, it’s Casual Scrubs Day, 24/7.

“I told Grandfather and he locked me out of my own house.”

“Now…you’re talking about Telly the Grandfather…Right?”

“Loch, you’ve got to help me talk some sense into him.”

“Of course,” I tell her.  “First…”

She helps Toby and me down from the table.  I grab a couple of masks and tell Toby to suit up.

“So why did he lock you out?” I ask her as we walk up the street to her house.  “And why is he in your house if Scott is infected?  Given his age, Telly would be considered at high-risk of infection.”

“He IS at high risk.  But he said he’s lived his life and that it’s okay if he dies.  He says he doesn’t want me to get sick.”

“What about Scott?”

“Grandfather said he’s the best one to play nursemaid to Scott.  Not me, the actual licensed nurse.” 

“Telly is going to nurse Scott?” 

“Yes,” Ally says miserably.  “I know.”

She knows that the two men’s relationship is acutely defined by how far from each other they stand politically. 

“But I believe in silver linings,” she says.  “If they don’t die from covid—or each other—maybe this will be the bonding experience for them I’ve prayed for.”

That seems as likely as a Biden/Trump ticket in 2024.

“I think maybe the stress of the last eight months—and my three years of marriage—have finally gotten to him.”

“Telly, or Scott?”

“Seriously?” Ally huffs. 

“There he is,” I announce, glad for the distraction.  We look across the front yard to the house where Telly is waving behind a glass storm door.  We go to front steps.   

“Hey there, Loch….Toby,” he says congenially.  “Granddaughter.”  His eyes are focused, his grooming as up-to-date as a cat’s.  There is no salient evidence yet that anyone has lost his marbles.  “I’d offer you some coffee, but there’s been a bit of a covid spill inside.”

“Telly, what’s this I hear about you locking Ally out of the house?”

He nods.  “I locked Ally out of her house.”

“Well…why?”

“It’s for her own good.”  He points upstairs above him.  “You-know-who has come down with you-know-what-19 and it’s not pretty.  Plus, its highly contagious.”  Now he’s shaking his head.  “I’m not willing to take that risk.”

“But you are taking a risk by being in the house with him,” Ally yells at him through the door.  “I know how to treat this.  You don’t.  I have the PPE.  You’re not even wearing a mask.”  Ally is practically beside herself, next to Toby and me.

He pshaw’s her.  “At my age, I pick up a cold just by reading about it.  If I don’t already have the virus, it’s a matter of divine intervention.”  He shrugs.  “Look, I’ve lived my life.  My hope for future family is bound up in you.”

“Scott too,” she sulks.

“Sure, we’ll include Scottie for now.”

“Grandfather,” she cries fearfully.

“Call me old-fashion.  But I believe in silver linings.”  Telly continues to dig a hole between him and his granddaughter, a real chasm at this point.

“Anyhow,” he tells her, “I’m not letting you in.  I left my in-laws suite in the back yard unlocked.  So you have a place to sleep and bathe.  I’ll take care of the raspy one.  You know, I was a medic in the war.”

Ally gives me a look.  It’s a look I know well from the Ghost of Marriage Past.  It’s a look that begs me to do something.

“Loch, do something.” 

And now, as then, I’m not convinced that either of us really knows what that something would look like.

“Telly,” I begin.  I wait for the words of a brilliant argument, for why he should open the door, to come into my head. 

“Lo’ och?” Ally prods me.

Still waiting.

Finally.

“Do you want me to bring you some left-over turkey and dressing?”

Ally stomps her foot and gives me another look that means I better not ‘do something’ ever again.

Telly smiles at me with nothing in his face of tryptophan or a cognitive marble drop.  His actions are a little over-the-top, but it’s not inconceivable that a call from the local police or health department could rein him in.  But he’s just looking out for the beloved Democrat in his life, even if it means sacrificing for the Republican who married her.

“Loch, that would be lovely.  Don’t take offense, though, if I ask you to leave it on the welcome mat and step away so I can retrieve it without worrying about my granddaughter storming the house.”

“I have enough for two,” I say to Ally, hoping she will recognize a peace offering. 

Her hard glare melts and she kicks the ground.  “I guess,” she says, and mopes with me and the cat back to our house.

Hurtling through space and time to holidays past in the Royale Deluxe Hibernator II.