The Things We Leave Behind

The Things We Leave Behind

A ghost story told by the one who never left

The first thing you should know about being dead is that it isn't nearly as peaceful as people imagine.

There are no angels waiting at the foot of your bed. No brilliant white light. No long-lost relatives reaching out their arms to welcome you home.

At least, there weren't for me.

There was only the sound of rain against the windows, the smell of burnt toast drifting up from the kitchen, and the rather unsettling realization that I was standing beside my own body.

I remember looking down at myself and thinking, *Well, that's inconvenient.*

My name was Eleanor Whitmore. I was seventy-eight years old when I died, although I still maintain that seventy-eight is hardly old enough to be finished with everything.

Especially when you have a garden to tend, a cat to feed, and a daughter who hasn't returned your telephone calls in eleven years.

I died on a Tuesday.

I have always disliked Tuesdays.

For the first few days, I tried to convince myself that the situation was temporary.

Perhaps I was dreaming. Perhaps I was in a coma. Perhaps someone would arrive with a defibrillator and a sufficiently determined attitude.

But then the men came with the stretcher.

They carried my body down the stairs, bumping my elbow against the banister I had polished every Sunday for forty-three years.

"Careful!" I shouted.

Nobody listened.

My cat, Mr. Pickles, sat on the bottom step watching the entire affair with an expression of profound disapproval.

At least someone understood.

When the front door closed behind the men, I attempted to follow.

I made it as far as the porch.

Something pulled me backward, like an invisible hand had caught hold of my collar.

I tried again.

And again.

By the seventh attempt, I was thoroughly irritated.

Apparently, death had come with a property restriction.

I was trapped inside the house.

My house.

The house where I had raised my daughter, buried two dogs in the backyard, celebrated thirty-nine wedding anniversaries, and spent eleven lonely years wondering how a mother and child could become strangers.

I suppose there are worse places to spend eternity.

Still, I would have appreciated being consulted.

Time behaves strangely when you're dead.

Days slip into weeks. Weeks tumble into months. You stop noticing the sunrise because you no longer need to wake up.

You stop noticing the sunset because you no longer need to sleep.

Mostly, you notice the silence.

And the things you can no longer do.

I couldn't pick up a book. Couldn't turn on the television. Couldn't scratch Mr. Pickles behind his ears.

That last one bothered me most.

He wandered from room to room searching for me. Sometimes he sat outside my bedroom and cried.

I sat beside him and whispered, "I'm right here, you ridiculous creature."

He never looked up.

Eventually, a woman from the animal shelter came and took him away.

I followed them to the porch, calling his name until that invisible force dragged me backward.

I hope he found someone kind.

Someone who let him sleep on the pillows.

Someone who understood that he preferred his water in a coffee mug rather than a bowl.

After he left, the house became unbearably quiet.

Then, one afternoon in October, the real estate agent arrived.

And everything changed.

"Charming historic property," she announced, leading a young couple through my living room. "Original hardwood floors. Beautiful natural light. So much character."

Character?

My house had character because I had spent fifty years putting it there.

The scratches beside the kitchen doorway marked my daughter's height as she grew.

The stain on the dining room ceiling came from the Christmas my husband decided he could repair the upstairs plumbing himself.

The crooked mantelpiece was crooked because my father had built it with his own hands.

The agent called all of that "potential."

I called it my life.

The couple bought the house three weeks later.

Their names were Daniel and Rebecca.

They had a little girl named Sophie.

She was six years old, with dark curls, enormous brown eyes, and the unsettling habit of staring directly at me.

The first time it happened, I was standing in the kitchen watching Rebecca unpack dishes.

Sophie appeared in the doorway.

"Mommy," she said, "who's the old lady?"

Rebecca didn't look up.

"What old lady, sweetheart?"

"The one standing by the refrigerator."

I nearly fell through the floor.

Rebecca glanced toward me.

Of course, she saw nothing.

"There's nobody there, Sophie."

"Yes, there is."

Sophie tilted her head.

"She's wearing a blue dress."

I looked down.

My favorite blue dress.

The one with the tiny pearl buttons.

The one I'd been wearing when I died.

Well.

This was interesting.

Children, I discovered, are much better at seeing the dead than adults.

Perhaps it's because nobody has convinced them that such things are impossible.

Or perhaps they're simply more observant.

Whatever the reason, Sophie saw me as clearly as she saw her own reflection.

At first, she was frightened.

I can't say I blamed her.

A strange elderly woman appearing in corners is hardly reassuring.

But after a few days, curiosity won.

"Are you a ghost?" she asked one evening.

I nodded.

"Did you die here?"

Another nod.

"Was it scary?"

I considered that.

"No," I answered. "It was mostly surprising."

She giggled.

I hadn't heard a child laugh in my house for years.

The sound was wonderful.

Soon we became friends.

Sophie told me about school, her favorite books, and the little boy who pulled her hair during recess.

I told her about the house.

About the hidden cupboard beneath the stairs.

About the old apple tree in the backyard.

About the time my husband accidentally brought a raccoon into the kitchen because he thought it was our cat.

Sophie laughed so hard she fell off her bed.

For the first time since my death, I felt almost alive.

Then one night, she asked me a question.

"Why are you still here?"

I didn't know what to tell her.

It was nearly Christmas when I began hearing the crying.

Not Sophie's.

Rebecca's.

She cried quietly, usually after everyone else had gone to bed.

I found her one night sitting at the kitchen table, holding a photograph.

In it, a younger Rebecca stood beside an elderly woman.

The woman had silver hair and a familiar, stubborn expression.

My heart—or whatever remains of it after death—seemed to stop.

The woman was me.

Rebecca wasn't Rebecca.

She was my daughter.

My little Margaret.

The girl who had left home at twenty-three after a terrible argument.

The girl who had told me she never wanted to see me again.

The girl whose absence had haunted me long before I became a ghost.

Eleven years had changed her.

She wore her hair differently. There were lines around her eyes. Her voice had deepened.

But once I recognized her, I couldn't understand how I had failed to see it.

"Mom," she whispered to the photograph, "I wish I'd called."

I moved closer.

She wiped her eyes.

"I was so angry. And then so much time passed. I didn't know how to come back."

Oh, Margaret.

My darling girl.

I had spent eleven years waiting for her to apologize.

And she had spent eleven years waiting for me.

What foolish, stubborn creatures the living can be.

And the dead, too.

I reached toward her.

For the first time since dying, I wanted something badly enough that I forgot it was impossible.

My fingers brushed her cheek.

Margaret gasped.

The photograph slipped from her hands.

"Mom?"

I tried to speak.

But my voice was no more than a whisper.

"I'm here."

She looked around the empty kitchen.

Then she began to cry.

And I stood beside her, helpless.

The next morning, Sophie found me by the window.

"You're sad," she said.

"Yes."

"Because of Mommy?"

I nodded.

Sophie climbed onto the window seat.

"She says this used to be her house when she was little."

"It was."

"She says her mommy lived here."

"She did."

Sophie stared at me for a long moment.

Then her eyes widened.

"You're my grandma."

I smiled.

"Yes, sweetheart. I suppose I am."

She thought about this.

"Mommy says you didn't love her anymore."

Those words hurt worse than dying.

"That's not true."

"Then why didn't you tell her?"

Because I was proud.

Because I was hurt.

Because I thought there would always be another tomorrow.

I looked at my granddaughter.

"Sometimes grown-ups make very foolish mistakes."

Sophie nodded solemnly.

"Like Daddy putting his red socks in the white laundry?"

"Much worse than that."

She considered this carefully.

Then she slid off the window seat.

"I think Mommy should know."

That evening, Sophie marched into the kitchen carrying a sheet of paper.

"I drew Grandma," she announced.

Margaret looked up from the sink.

"What?"

"Grandma Eleanor. She lives here."

The plate in Margaret's hands slipped into the water.

"Sophie, what are you talking about?"

"The lady in the blue dress. She says she loves you."

Margaret went pale.

"What blue dress?"

"The one with the pearl buttons."

I watched my daughter's face change.

Slowly.

Terribly.

"Where did you hear about that dress?"

"Grandma told me."

Margaret sat down.

Sophie handed her the drawing.

It was unmistakably me.

My silver hair. My blue dress. My pearl buttons.

And beside me, a little girl holding my hand.

Margaret covered her mouth.

"Mom?"

I stood directly in front of her.

For once, I didn't feel angry about the years we'd lost.

I didn't feel the bitterness that had followed me into death.

I only felt love.

The same love I'd felt the first time I held her as a newborn.

The same love I'd buried beneath pride and silence.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

The kitchen light flickered.

Margaret looked up.

"I'm sorry, too," she said.

And something inside me loosened.

That night, the house began to change.

At first, I thought the moonlight was playing tricks.

A soft glow appeared beneath the hallway door.

It grew brighter.

Warmer.

And then I heard a voice.

"Eleanor?"

I knew that voice.

I'd know it in a thousand lifetimes.

My husband, Thomas, stood at the end of the hallway.

He looked exactly as he had when we were young.

His brown hair was thick again. His shoulders were straight. His smile was the same crooked smile that had made me fall in love with him at nineteen.

"Thomas?"

He held out his hand.

"Good heavens, woman. I've been waiting for you."

I laughed.

I actually laughed.

"Well, you might have mentioned where you were."

"I tried. But you've always been rather determined to do things your own way."

I looked back toward the bedrooms.

Margaret was sleeping.

Daniel was snoring.

And Sophie lay curled beneath her pink blanket, one small hand resting on the drawing she'd made of me.

"Can I stay a little longer?" I asked.

Thomas followed my gaze.

"You can," he said gently. "But you don't need to."

I understood then.

I hadn't been trapped by the house.

I'd been trapped by everything I'd left unsaid.

By the apologies I refused to make.

By the love I thought my daughter no longer wanted.

And by the terrible belief that I had run out of time.

I looked at Thomas.

"Will I see them again?"

He smiled.

"Of course."

I reached for his hand.

For the first time since dying, I felt another person's touch.

Warm.

Solid.

Real.

Together, we walked toward the light.

Now, I imagine you're expecting me to tell you what happened next.

Whether heaven has golden gates.

Whether the angels sing.

Whether there are gardens and rivers and great shining cities.

Perhaps another time.

Because there is one last thing you should know.

Three months after I left, Sophie was playing beneath the old apple tree when she discovered something buried among its roots.

A small wooden box.

Inside were letters.

Dozens of them.

All addressed to Margaret.

Letters I'd written over eleven years but had never found the courage to send.

Birthday wishes.

Christmas greetings.

Stories about the garden.

Little reminders of childhood.

And on the very bottom, a letter written just two days before I died.

It said:

My dearest Margaret,

I don't know how to begin after so many years. I have written a hundred letters and sent none of them. I thought I was waiting for you to come home, but perhaps you were waiting for me to ask.

So I am asking now.

Come home, sweetheart.

I miss you.

I love you.

I always have.

Mom.

Margaret read that letter sitting beneath the apple tree.

Then she held it against her chest and wept.

Sophie wrapped her little arms around her.

"Don't cry, Mommy," she whispered. "Grandma knows."

Margaret kissed the top of her head.

"How can you be sure?"

Sophie smiled toward the branches overhead.

"Because she told me."

And just then, although there wasn't the slightest breeze, the apple tree shook.

One perfect red apple fell into Margaret's lap.

She looked up.

And smiled.

People think ghosts haunt houses because they cannot let go of the living.

Sometimes that's true.

But sometimes we stay because we are waiting for the living to let go of their pain.

And sometimes, even after we've found our way home, we return for just a moment.

Not to frighten anyone.

Not to rattle chains or slam doors.

But to remind someone we love that death is not the same as forgetting.

I was Eleanor Whitmore.

I lived for seventy-eight years.

I was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and for a little while, a ghost.

And if there's one thing death taught me, it's this:

Tell the people you love how much they mean to you while you still have a voice.

Because tomorrow is never promised.

And not everyone gets a second chance to be heard.

The End.