Cursed with early developmental Generalized Anxiety Disorder gifted to her by a dysfunctional family, Janine Fetterman always felt more at ease conversing with the dead than she did with the alive. Her palms didn’t sweat, her stomach didn’t tie in knots, nor did she feel panicky around them, such as they did around flesh-and-bloods.
Her first encounter with the non-living happened at 3rd grade recess. While most of her classmates were playing dodgeball, she was sitting on the teeter-totter, alone, when she heard a voice out of nowhere.
“Hey, this is Paul Trout,” it told her, clear as a bell, telepathically. “I’m going up, now.”
Janine knew there was an elderly wheelchair-bound man in town with that name, but she never had any interaction with him, so she wrote it off as just the wind blowing through her earmuffs. But when she got home from school that day, and Mom, in between barking orders and hurling put-downs, told her that an old invalid named Paul Trout had died that morning, she knew she had been given another gift, one far apart from GAD.
Her clairvoyant abilities developed, as she did as a woman. By the time she graduated, Janine had bid adieu to a classmate killed in a car wreck while driving drunk, “Hey, this is Brian Cheneworth. I’m going up now,” he slurred at two in the morning; to her 46-year old neighbor who dropped from a heart attack while mowing his yard; and to the town librarian who told her that she was grateful that she died peacefully in her sleep and to keep reading!
Janine’s high school diploma was more of a get-out-of-jail-free card than a reward for menial intellectual achievement–she was finally free of the family that had fucked her up. Apart from beloved Aunt Hilda, the rest can go to hell, she declared as she left town, college-bound. She earned a degree in accounting and hung up her shingle in a city many states away. With therapy, she began to shuck the shackles of the blue sadness that had stalked her since childhood, and became a somewhat confident conversationalist with those of skin-and bones-like she was with those without. She was a fairly happy medium.
Over time, every poisonous Fetterman died, all without an advanced heads-up, thank god. It was a relief to Janine that they didn’t announce their departures. It was a relief that the guilt she felt lying her way out of those family reunions and holidays dinners for decades that she hated since childhood was gone now, too!
The last to go was beloved Aunt Hilda, who died in a nursing home at age 101. Janine was heartbroken—twice; once because she truly adored the sweet old gal, and again, because the sweet old gal never told her good-bye, either in person or telepathically. I thought sure she’d come through, the grieving CPA sighed.
Life went on, but even with mental health counseling, Janine never felt secure enough to flirt with a man—sober—or to be seen naked by one during a drunken one-night fling, or to be fully loved by one until she fully loved herself. That was okay–she had her business, romance novels, and fresh-dead buddies, who now seemed more anxious to hang around than they were to go up now.
On her thirtieth birthday, Janine hit the bar side of town to get her share of complimentary natal day tequila shots. There was no manflesh to potentially fling with, much to her carnal disappointment, so she brought a bottle home and summoned the spirits to have some spirits with her. But tonight the house remained quiet. No action here, either, she sighed between quaffs of Cuervo Gold.
Lonely and in a boozy, sentimental funk, she started reminiscing about her late, great relative. “Why didn't you bid me farewell?” she implored the sweet old gal’s ghost. “I was hurt that I had to read your obit in the newspaper, when you could have come to me in person . . . sort of,” she asked in a sloppy state. No response. “Aunt Hilda, are you here? Can you hear my voice?” Nada.
Life went on. Janine celebrated her fortieth birthday with one hand holding a ginger ale, the other, a 5-years sober AA chip. With the group’s great help, she felt good enough in her own skin now not to need 90-proof confidence to interact with others. She even began flinging with the lights on. Her tax business thrived. The negative was falling away. She began to accept the person in the mirror as worthy!
After a dinner date complete with a flaming cake and flaming sex, she returned home and made a gingle ale toast to all the vagabond ghosts. “Love bein’ with you guys. You’re like family to me,” she told her ethereal guests who were coming and going like crazy now, almost airport-like. Thinking of family, she again reached out to Aunt Hilda. Again, Aunt Hilda did not respond.
At her half-century mark, Janine Fetterman’s life was flourishing. She had just rented a larger office building for her growing staff, bought a half-million-dollar place on the lake, and fell in love with the man of her dreams. She knew the night they met that he was the man of his dreams because he was the only human she met in her entire life whom she wasn’t nervous around–including family. Except she wasn't nervous around Aunt Hilda and tried to contact her again. This time with success.
“Yes, I’m here, Dear. You finally broke through.”
The sweet old gal sounded just like she did when she was alive! Hearing her disembodied voice was the cork popping on her bottle of sparkling cider, the spit-shine on her 15-years sobriety chip. They talked through the night–Aunt Hilda even divulged her secret potato salad ingredients. It felt great having her here! “Happy 50th Birthday, my Dear,” the long-time-ago voice gushed.
**********
Two days into her second half century mark, Janine Fetterman was deep in work, trying to make a client’s numbers add up, when her concentration was shattered by another long-time-ago voice.
“Where’s the rest of the money, Janine?” it shrieked accusingly.
“What money . . . Mother?” she demurred meekly, shocked to the core.
“The Girl Scout Cookie money you collected. The sales card said you received a total of a hundred and fourteen dollars when your cash amount is only ninety-seven! WHERE’S THE REST OF THE GODDAMN GIRL SCOUT COOKIE MONEY, JANINE?”
The pencil that Janine Fetterman was holding in her hand snapped, as did the firm sense of control she had developed of herself.
Caustic Mom then reiterated, word-for-word, her belittling diatribe told originally 41 years before: Seething about how irresponsible the little ingrate was. That she didn’t grow up in the Depression after her Dad died, leaving the family penniless—therefore, she had no value of money. Imploring her to be more like her older brother, David, and make a budget. She strove to be an accountant, right then and there, just to prove the old bitch wrong.
Janine called a staff meeting, telling them she just fell ill–must have been the fish at lunch, she lied–and had to go home immediately. For them to carry on. She looked the part, her face camouflaging nicely with the whiteboard behind her. With one bare-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, the other on her sanity, Janine heard the same acidic voice again on the way home, this time backseat-driving:
“My god, Janine, you still suck at this, don’t you? Watch out for the kid on the bike over to your left, Janine! Janine, don’t apply the brakes so hard! Janine, hit your goddamn brakes! Janine don’t accelerate so fast! Janine, slow down! Janine, speed up! You didn’t use your blinker, Janine! Looks like you’re lost again–typical, as you couldn't find a photon with a flashlight, Janine! Janine, pass the car ahead of you! Pass him, Janine! Pass him, Janine! Pass him, Janine! Jesus Christ, Janine Marie, I’m half ashamed of being seen in the same car with you!”
Janine’s drive home required a detour to the liquor store, her AA chip tossed to the parking lot. Half the Cuervo Gold was gone by the time she reached her lake-front estate and the refuge of her still-here, still-dead friends. She sat on the sofa with the remaining tequila, trying to convince herself that all she needed was a hearing test, or two. Or twelve.
“Ohhh, girl, I see you’re drinking now,” another long-time-ago, lecherous voice observed. Now Janine began to get the same sickening feeling that she did when boozed-up Uncle Eddie tried to cop a feel while the two were shooting a game of 8-ball the Thanksgiving when she was thirteen. The old perv was now here, in sound anyway, in her living room. “You’re looking pretty, all grown up, and in all the right places.”
“Hey, Aunt Hilda, I ever tell you about the Turkey Day in your basement when your husband and I were shooting pool?” The room grew still.
She hugged the bottle as she would a long-lost friend (it was), enjoying a quiet interlude, until–surprise!--long-dead Grammy Fetterman showed up. “Tsk, tsk! What a shame. 50 years old, and still single. I guess you didn’t get David’s looks or his personality, did you, you poor thing.”
“No surprise, is it really, that she hasn’t found a husband?” Mom piped in. “She was always such a homely, awkward kid. Didn’t have one date in high school, so what’d you expect?”
Janine could use another fifth and her therapist. She was a grenade with the pin just pulled.
“I guess I never noticed her looks all that much, being busy with more important matters,” admitted Dad, who came out of nowhere.
Now in a panic attack from hell, Janine demanded that the sweet old gal explain the dynamics of clairvoyance, as experienced from the Other Side.
“I was afraid it might come to this, my Dear,” the old ghost bawled. That’s why I resisted your summons the first couple of times. But you slowly chipped away at the portal that connects our two worlds until I got sucked through to yours. The bad news, my Dear, is that when you cracked open my tiny membrane, the entire Fetterman Vortex collapsed and everybody spilled out. But the good news is, we can now enjoy family reunions and holidays dinners together for the rest of your life!
The next day, while dragging the lake a second time, divers found the body of Janine Marie Fetterman. She had surrendered to brother David’s advice — the same snarky advice he gave her when she was sixteen and darkly depressed—to go ahead and do it. You’re just sucking up our air, anyway.
Paraphrasing an old dog-eared maxim: It’s best to let shitty kin die.
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