The Practicalities of Ghosts

The Brock County Cemetery was not given to ghosts. It was small and orderly with far too many of those flat grave markers that make mowing easy. Jill Bright was not given to ghosts, either. Fairies, she thought, absently, working grass seed into the bald spot on her brother's mound. If I had to pick something, it would be fairies. The rainbow-y, friendly kind. A cricket sang, hiding from the hot sun in the grass roots around Freddie's headstone.  

Several plots behind Jill, a beheaded silk arrangement fluttered like a dead bird in the gust of a passing car. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. I'm getting sunburn, she told herself. I should have worn a hat. Hastily, she sprinkled water from her water bottle over the seed, then over a tissue she fished out of her pocket. She rubbed the tissue over the words "bravest of brothers," removing the mulberry-tinted droppings that grackles had splattered over her brother's tribute. And he had been—always the brave one, with Jill trooping along behind.

Her arms prickled now, the fine hair standing upright like fuzz. The cricket fell silent. She scrubbed until the tissue turned dusty between her fingers. Then she straightened up and stared over the flat cemetery. Impulsively, she took one big step onto the middle of her brother's mound and flung the tissue shreds away. "That's it!" she shouted. "Come out!" 

There was a ghost after all. "Isn't new grass such a hopeful thing?" it chirped. "Like a wound healing over. You're standing on the seed."

             

"Oh, for heaven's sake, who cares!" Jill leaned toward the ghost, "Shut up, Stupid. Just shut up and listen for once! You left him alone! You with your 'laughter is good medicine' and 'hope for the best' and your everlasting antioxidant-rich juices! You saw that look in his eyes. He was scared and he was dying, but you pretended not to know. He had to carry it all by himself! So you lost each other." 

Her voice grew soft, regretful: "You lost each other before he was even dead." She reached for the ghost. And throwing her arms around her own shoulders, wept at last.