Nov. 14, 1968
"Do you think you're the only mortal who's seen a ghost?"
Mother wasn't even looking at me as she clasped Daniel's hand firmly in hers. "Enchante," she murmured to my equally charmed Captain, who towered over her in his best naval commander fashion.
"Well, Carolyn," she practically purred (a cliché I do not use lightly), "for once, I think you've chosen wisely."
Silently, I began counting to 10.
At two, the Captain kissed the back of her hand. At five, they kissed each other's cheeks in the phony European manner favored by her social set. By eight, I was so incredulous that I plopped abruptly onto the bed. At the count of 10, Captain Gregg and my mother remembered I was in the room.
"To the point, Mrs. Williams," the Captain purred suavely, with equal savoir-faire, "I think your beautiful daughter was more concerned her enchanting forbear might not be inclined to believe in me."
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I simply stared. How had Martha and I gotten it so wrong? My mother hadn't flown to Gull Cottage on a broom – she'd materialized magnanimously right here in my bedroom, unannounced, just five minutes earlier. With nary a knock at the door. She'd simply barged on in, stared intently at me, and extended said hand to Daniel's. Introducing herself as though I were the invisible one.
"More to the point, my dear Captain," mother continued, her eyes holding his, "I think we both believe in you – completely."
With that, the Captain withdrew his hand. "Apologies, Madame," he said regretfully to my mother. "It is very difficult for me to maintain sustained corporeality with anyone other than Carolyn."
"Mom," I began with slight trepidation that flashed quickly into near tears and anger. "Daniel! If the two of you have finished fawning over each other, mother… Over the phone, you sounded, well, less-than-pleased with Marjorie's description of, how do they describe us in Schooner Bay? The ghost. The ghost and Mrs. Muir. We thought you were headed up here to try and get me back to Philly before the Muirs threaten to take the children away again."
The Captain's expression changed rapidly from studied obsequiousness to sheer terror. Martha hadn't forewarned him of that part.
"Dear, surely you realize that little telephone charade was purely intended for your eavesdropping father? When have you ever known me to fly so literally, so quickly to judgment? To upset myself with anything that comes out of the Muir's lips?"
"Besides, I'm guessing there is nothing haunted about what goes on in this very room at night!"
At this, Daniel's eyebrows shot up in horror. It would have been amusing if I hadn't had enough of them both.
"You'll excuse us, Captain?" This, from me. For a change, he vanished without a word or even a hint of his trademark reverberating laughter.
"How do you know he's not snooping, Carrie?" Need for theater ended, my mother closed the distance between us and sat on the bed beside me.
"Because he knows I can sense his sneaky little presence." I saw no reason to share with mom my ability to sense his emotions, and sometimes thoughts, too. "Please don't tell him my nickname is Carrie."
"Mom, do you really believe in ghosts? You aren't shocked?"
"Don't you think that was rather clever of me, dear?" she asked, completely ignoring me. "No matter how young or old, men cannot abide the thought their daughter's mother really knows what goes on in those virile little heads of theirs. Your Captain may be older than me, but he died young, without growing wiser, a virtual virgin to the married way of thinking. To me, he's but a boy, Carolyn. A very lovely, sincere, insecure, pathetically in-love-with-you young man."
She drew me to her. "Carrie, Carrie," she crooned softly, again using the special nickname reserved only for my most-vulnerable moments. "It doesn't matter whether I believe in ghosts. You do, and that's enough for me. I have it on very good authority anyway that higher command thinks very highly of your Captain." My eyes widened. She pulled away, and I noticed for the first time that our wide smiles are identical. Almost as an afterthought, I wondered whether she meant Martha or naval ghosts-of-her-own in historic Philly.
Mother's face was lovely in the firelight flickering from the hearth. As I begin to age, withering past the prime of my mid-thirties, I can only hope I look anything at all as enchanting as she does at 60.
"I wanted to meet your Captain, Carolyn. To see how the two of you interact. To see for myself the happiness on your face. To make sure the past is dead, and buried, that the real ghost who's haunted you all these years has finally been laid to rest. To see for myself you'd learned the truth about yourself. I wanted to know with certainty the bloody cycle of marrying cold, uncaring men stops with your generation. Jonathan and Candy can venerate their father from the safety of his grave. They need a benign father-figure. They need, too, the first mature love you've ever known."
I tried to interject, to defend Daddy in some way, but my mother touched her finger to my lips. "Yes, I know, dear. It's a little ironic that we're laying one ghost to rest with another while dissing the one specimen still alive. How wildly improbable is that? I'm still unsure as to how things really work in the afterlife, but I'm fairly certain of one thing: No mortal man could love you more."
Later, I learned she'd shanghaied Martha earlier in the day, after she who I thought was my loyal housekeeper dropped the kids off at school. Martha, the really only true friend my mother's ever had. Naively, I'd wanted my mother to draw the same conclusion I had just minutes after my own arrival at Gull Cottage – "what a magnificent man!"
But it doesn't work that way with mothers. They leave little to chance, even where their 35-year-old children are concerned. How did I get so lucky? Mom and Martha.
I was so indescribably happy that I began to blubber, exactly like the bride-to-be I suddenly am.
"I think we missed this part when you married Bobby," mother said. "I was so caught up in the fantasy-world of bridal gowns, so in – as our mutual psychoanalyst so charmingly puts it – in, denial about my own marriage, that I never looked out for you properly. Never protected you from the folly I brought you into when I married your father."
She glanced at my ring finger. "Of course I know you're engaged. I noticed the indentation. You pulled that ring off when you sat on the bed. I saw you. I could tell you were engaged to your Daniel just by the way he behaved, anyway. It was so hard not to laugh when he kissed my hand, mon cherie, but I knew I had to keep a straight face. He tried so hard!"
I shouldn't have been caught off-guard by the wave of indignation that burst suddenly in my head, assaulting my sensibilities.
"Madame! Now I will be unable to propose properly!"
"I think he's listening in now," I whispered to my mother. "Captain…"
"Then he'd damned better well materialize right here, right now, with a bottle of the house finest so we can toast this most proper and auspicious occasion properly. Oh, and bring Martha with you, too…Daniel. May I call you that?" Nothing ruffles my mother's feathers, unless she decides to let it.
Fortunately, we all were able to sober up before Mrs. Coburn dropped off Jonathan and Candy. The children rushed to Grandma Williams and her unpacked suitcase. The three of them headed off to the guestroom to unpack without any prodding on my part. Big announcements would have to wait. Martha retired to her room for a much-needed, après engagement celebration. Daniel pulled me into the alcove where, for the first time-ever, I made love holding onto a chart rack.
We are both virgins, I thought as I clung to the Captain's cherished possession for balance. One of us is dead and the other of us middle-aged, but we are both very, very young at heart.