Merry, Merry Ghost

CHAPTER ONE

Bailey Ruth, honey, always wait to be invited.”

I edged a little nearer an arch of clouds suffused with gold and rose. Once around that cumulus corner, I knew what awaited, softly rolling hills, a redbrick train station, and shining silver rails stretching to the horizon.

I wanted to break into a run, yet I couldn’t quite dismiss the memory of my mother’s caution when I was a child. Certainly, I didn’t want to impose myself upon anyone even though in Heaven I’d always found welcome everywhere.

Heaven?

Do I detect skepticism?

That’s fine. Avert your eyes from beauty. Ignore love. Yawn at the splendor of the universe. Insist that the world is nothing more than rollicking atoms. Someday you’ll see.

I always knew there was a Heaven, even before Bobby Mac and I met our demise when our cabin cruiser went down in the Gulf of Mexico as Bobby Mac pursued a tarpon on a fatefully stormy day. There’s nothing like going out with a big splash. I recalled with pleasure the Adelaide, Oklahoma, Gazette and the front-page story with a picture:

OIL WILDCATTER,

MAYOR’S SECRETARY

PERISH IN GULF STORM

Robert MacNeill (Bobby Mac) Raeburn II, 54, and his wife Bailey Ruth Raeburn, 52, of Adelaide were presumed lost at sea following a storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Their capsized cabin cruiser Serendipity was discovered yesterday off the coast of Texas. Despite a massive sea-air search, no trace has been found of the Adelaide natives and well-known civic leaders.

Raeburn was a successful oilman…

The photograph on the Serendipity had been taken in sunshine, unlike the lowering black clouds and driving rain we faced that final day. It was an especially fine picture of Bobby Mac with his dark hair, dark eyes, and a daredevil smile. He held a rod bent against the pull of a tarpon. I lounged against a railing, red hair tangled by the breeze, smiling freckled face lifted to the sun. I remembered that lime green blouse. The color was a nice contrast to crisp white shorts.

On impulse (I’m afraid I often succumb to impulse), I envisioned myself in an identical blouse and shiny white cotton shorts and espadrilles. I paused and took a peek at my reflection in a sheet of crystal. Of course, I abjured vanity in Heaven. I was simply enjoying a memory. There I was, a youthful and lively ethereal me with red curls bright as flame, narrow eager face spattered with freckles, and curious green eyes. I smoothed my hair, beamed at the reflection. In Heaven, no matter our age at death, we are seen at our best, whenever that was. I’d enjoyed all my days, but twenty-seven had been a very good year. Occasionally I was reflective—not, I will admit, a usual state for me—and then I might appear a confident forty, but twenty-seven was my age of choice.

The Gazette story told all about Bobby Mac and me and our families, and son Rob and daughter Dil and their children and spouses. I was described as “the vivacious redheaded secretary who added a lively element to the mayor’s office and was known for her frankness.”

Frankness.

I sighed, came to a full stop. Frankness was a nice way of saying I often spoke without thinking. That’s why I was uncertain of my welcome around the cumulus corner that was now close enough to touch. I reached out, stroked the soft wall of cloud, filmy as springtime fluff from a cottonwood tree. We had lots of cottonwoods in Adelaide.

Frankness.

Okay. I’m forthright. Quick to act. Some might say hasty.

All right. All right. I spoke aloud in admission.

I wanted to go around that corner.

All right, around that corner I would go. All Wiggins could say was no.

My heart would be broken.

Before I could change my mind, I strode around the cottony column touched by streaks of pink and gold and there was the adorable old-fashioned country train station, silver tracks stretching into the blue sky. Department of Good Intentions was emblazoned on a golden arch. Wiggins, who ran the department, had been a station agent when on earth. Since a well-run station was his sense of Heaven, here he was, in charge again, sending out emissaries to help those in trouble. On earth I’d often felt I was the beneficiary of celestial grace. Giving back is one of earth’s—and Heaven’s—greatest pleasures.

This wasn’t my first visit to the department. I’d been eager to return to earth to help someone in a tough spot, and truly I’d done the best I could on a previous mission. All emissaries are issued a parchment roll inscribed with the Precepts for Heavenly Visitation. I’ll admit I’d run afoul of Wiggins’s rules a few times.

To be accurate, I had transgressed a great many times.

I drooped. If Wiggins listed my infractions, they’d run a page or more.

Yet when I had made my final report, Wiggins had clearly said I might be used again as a Heavenly agent, though, he’d hastened to add, I would still be on probation. Had Wiggins decided I was too unsuitable? Was even probationary status not possible for me? Was that why I’d had no summons from him for another adven-mission?

Possibly he’d simply neglected to consider me for a task. Mama told us kids not to invite ourselves, but I remembered quite a few instances when being bold paid off. The squeaky wheel and all that.