Coffee with Ghosts
They follow me outside when I water tomatoes in the morning.
Shit, if you had a gardening hose you wouldn’t have fill the watering can so many times, says Grandma. She wears a pink housedress, plump arms crossed, hair set in immovable curls.
Be careful you don’t get it too full and hurt your arm, says Grammie, still clad in gray slacks and a cardigan. I’m so proud of you for starting a garden. It looks beautiful.
You need to learn how to can things, says Grandma. Nobody cans things anymore.
I pick the tomatoes when they blush orange, bring them inside to ripen so I can monitor their progress. A few tomatoes have ripened too far and burst their skins, but I let those seeds return to nature. Maybe next spring a few plants will come up volunteer, like the petunias that surprised me by sprouting next to the driveway.
You need flowers for the table, says Grandma. Doesn’t look right without a centerpiece.
Your kitchen is lovely, says Grammie.
You should clean the sink, says Grandma.
I think this is a sixth stage of grief, halfway between denial and acceptance, the place of memory where the people we love live in our consciousness. We know what they would say and can imagine conversations, or maybe their thoughts filter through the ether and mingle with ours. I don’t think about it too deeply, just nestle the tomatoes in a plastic bowl and pour a mug of coffee for myself, drizzling a little down the kitchen sink for my ghosts. Since I’m blind in my right eye it’s easy to imagine the ghosts live there, a magical space where they can wave at me with fingers I can’t see.
Thank you, says Grammie.
Where’s the sugar? says Grandma.
I know people have invented AI programs to simulate the thoughts of loved ones who’ve passed on. Those electric brains feast on emails and texts, simulate syntax and create e-memories, but I don’t want to think such a device could capture the scratch of Grandma’s voice or the lilt of Grammie’s. I’d rather keep to the daily conversations everyone has with ghosts, people who are always with us, advising and counseling and questioning.
You’re wearing jeans to work? says Grandma. Hell’s bells, what will people think?
You look so pretty in that blouse, says Grammie.
I wish I could see everyone’s parade of ghosts, the brigades that follow us all day, memories of the living and the dead that would explain so much about the novels we become, but that’s why I need my morning moments with muttering ghosts, while I remember we all contain multitudes.
END
Read more Fiction by Teresa Milbrodt in this issue of Wordgathering.
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About the Author
Teresa Milbrodt has published three short story collections: Instances of Head-Switching, Bearded Women: Stories, and Work Opportunities. She has also published a novel, The Patron Saint of Unattractive People, a flash fiction collection, Larissa Takes Flight: Stories, and the monograph Sexy Like Us: Disability, Humor, and Sexuality. Milbrodt is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Roanoke College, and teaches fiction, speculative fiction, poetry, and disability studies. She loves cats, long walks with her MP3 player, independently owned coffee shops, peanut butter frozen yogurt, and texting hearts in rainbow colors. Read more of her work at: http://teresamilbrodt.com/