Chapter 1 - Rethink Everything

It hadn't started being about Dipper. She had started by rethinking everything else. Which led to everyone else.

Wendy took off her fur lined hat and set it on top of one of the bedpost logs, took off her boots, and then lay back on her bed, looking up at the ceiling. She was so blown away by the sheer fact that ghosts were real. She could still see them floating as if she were once again in the abandoned convenience store, their blue evanescence emanating some strange ethereal power. But now the implications…Wendy was brave, but the implication of afterlife led her to a place in her heart that had been shut for a long time. Shut because time heals all wounds but also shut…to seal off the pain. Biting her lower lip she rolled over onto her side, placing her hands together under the side of her face in the pillow, and with courage, stared at the wall nearest her bed. The wall where a picture hung, a photo yellowed by age.

A picture of her late mother.

Her mother, with short brunette hair and brown eyes, pregnant with her youngest brother Josh, holding three year old brother Jay, and with seven year old Wendy holding the hand of her five year old brother John.

Are you…a ghost too?

The implication was strong. She had seen with her own eyes that there was life after death. The store ghosts remembered their past lives. Her face slowly frowned, eyes and eyebrows sad.

If you are ghost, then why haven't you come and seen me mom?

The ghosts in the store were affectionate with each other, even holding hands and rubbing noses. Love survives death.

Don't you love me mom?

Now the memories came ripping through the scar as Wendy pursed her lips together, fighting back tears. Instantly she could see herself eight years ago:

There she was, herself in the front seat of the truck next to the door as they drove home from the hospital, holding her newborn baby brother Joshua, her other brothers next to her in between her father and her. Even at seven she knew how to hold her baby brother, to coo to him softly, kissing his forehead now and then, telling him it will be OK, that even though mommy died in childbirth, Wendy was here to take care of him, rocking him and patting his back holding him close to her face. She could still see the tears running down her father's cheeks as he drove them home, the only time she ever saw him cry.

As she grew older she learned to dismiss the resentment she sublimated, the resentment of her brother Josh. If it wasn't for you she would still be alive today! Why did you have to be born?

There was no time for resentment as Wendy took care of Joshua and her brothers. She became their mom, the only mother they ever knew as they were so young when she died. Only John barely remembered her. And because of the pain it caused their father they never mentioned her. Many diapers and dishes later Wendy was the matriarch of the family, what she said goes, her father telling them to "do what your big sister says…or else!". Wendy had to grow up fast. Without her mother.

"Are you a ghost mom?" Wendy lay on her back again looking up, looking somewhere beyond the ceiling, looking to…heaven?

"Why haven't you visited me mom? Where are you?"

Wendy thought back to the ghosts again: They died from heart attacks. Maybe they are ghosts because of…how they died? Unexpectedly?

Maybe mom…didn't have to be…a ghost. Maybe she didn't have any "unfinished business"?

"But what about me mom? We…we didn't finish!" And she slammed down her fists on both sides, punching the bed through blankets.

I had to learn about becoming a woman by myself! Surrounded by boys, with no...no female role model, no older woman to look up to. Just an old picture and some earrings and bracelets from your jewelry box.

Now a few tears trickled down her cheeks and past her ears to her neck as she grimaced in pain, still looking for something in the ceiling…some sign.

"Mom?"

Nothing.

She turned onto her other side, away from the wall of pain, and reached for a tissue from her nightstand to sop up her tears. She sat up, and looked at the wall above her bed: photos of her and the crew, her and the twins, and her…and Dipper. She smiled, eyes still watering.

Adorable little dork. Him and his attitude. He is so grown up for his age. My little man.

The maternal instincts came back, as if he was another brother. I've got to protect him, watch over him, but show him some fun too, show him the world.

She took the picture frame off the wall and held it in her lap. But *you* showed *me* instead! Not only this world but the next!

She ran a finger down the side of the picture frame. It was Dipper and her in the shack store, her behind the register, and Dipper sitting on the counter, both of them smiling and looking at each other, clinking a toast with cans of Pitt Cola.

Thanks for showing me how it's done Dipper. You figured out those ghosts! No one else could think of anything but running away. But you were brave and smart under pressure! I hope I meet a guy like you some day, an older guy of course.

As she looked at the picture, she suddenly imagined the clock going forward: six years later when Dipper was eighteen, her twenty one.

Meh, that doesn't sound so bad. But…heh! He will probably have some other girlfriend by then. And I…I may even be married? But nah, I don't want to get married that young. Maybe in my late twenties.

The thought kept coming back but she tried to push it down.

I…I could wait for him.

No.

Live life Corduroy! There are too many guys out there now that you don't have to wait for! Guys that have more than a …a twelve year old. Are you crazy? Ha! Waiting for a twelve year old to grow up. Riiiiiggghhhht. You dingbat.

She hung the picture frame back up on the wall and smiled. She realized her tears had stopped.

He always makes me happy. And he wasn't even here!

She turned to the picture of her mother, then looked back at the one of her and Dipper.

Maybe…maybe you can help me find my mom Dipper. Or at least explain…why she hasn't seen me?

She picked up her cell phone from the night stand.