Chapter Two

The Ghost of Birthdays Past

Jordan nervously paced the floor of her apartment. She had worked with dead people a long time….one part of her figured that dealing with ghosts would be no different. After all, ghosts were just another form of…well, dead people, right?

Maybe….bodies don't talk. Ghosts do.

And she wasn't sure she was going to like the messages she was given. Finally her clock chimed midnight and no ghost appeared. For a moment she held her breath as her eyes darted around her apartment. Nothing. No ghosts….not even a person covered with a sheet. No smoke. No mirrors. She sighed and decided to go to bed when there was a knock at the door.

Ghosts…using the door? That didn't seem so ghostly…Apprehensively, she began to undo the locks on her door and swung it open. There…in his robe and slippers was Dr. Stiles.

"Dr. Stiles?" Jordan asked, still uncertain at what her eyes were telling her. "But…you're not dead… at least I don't think so….you haven't been in the morgue anyway."

Impatiently, Dr. Stiles tapped his foot. "May I come in, Jordan? I normally don't make house calls…"

"But I don't understand….Devan said I would be visited by three ghosts…"

"Oh she did? She always did have a flare for the dramatic. Maybe you'd see people with ghost-like qualities, but not necessarily ghosts."

Jordan signed with relief. "So then, you're really not…"

"Dead? No. But I have dealt with your past so much that Devan thought it appropriate that I be the Ghost of Chri….I mean, Birthdays Past."

Jordan nodded. That was true. Dr. Stiles knew more about her past and how it affected her than anyone. "So Dev said you'd have some kind of message for me?"

"Lessons are better caught than taught. Hold on to my robe and let's take a trip to the past."

"How far past?"

"Well, we're going to skip the mother-part. For one thing, it may send you careening off the deep end again and God know where you'll end up. And I don't think Woody would follow you and bring you home this time. And another thing, the writers of Crossing Jordan have nearly beat that horse to death. We bring that up and NCCJFAN may lose readers right here and you know how she lives for reviews and this is her story….Plus the readers have sort of been promised a resolution to the crime in episode 100, which comes up in season six…so, we're going to lay low on that topic."

"So we've been renewed for season six?"

"Looks that way."

"And Jerry signed again to play Woody?"

"Indeed."

"Well…maybe we'll at least get a kiss in this season…."

"If you two don't, the Coffeeroom Boards are going to disintegrate into total chaos and anarchy. Did you read the all posts there after Embraceable You? Hang onto my robe, Jordan."

Jordan grabbed Dr. Stile's robe by the collar and felt herself being lifted up and out the window…….


"Where are we?" she shouted as she could see all of Boston beneath her feet.

"Oh, we're still in Massachusetts. Do you remember you're sixteenth birthday?"

Jordan nodded, a smile lighting up her face. "Yeah…Dad got me a car…" And instantly, Jordan was whisked down into the front yard of her old house….watching much younger Max surprise a sixteen year-old Jordan with a Mustang. The younger version of herself hugged her father and murmured something about the best birthday ever.

The older Jordan found herself with tears in her eyes. "What's wrong?" asked Dr. Stiles.

"It's just…I knew times were hard with just one parent's salary…and a cop's salary at that. He must have sacrificed all kinds of sick pay and worked all kinds of over time to buy me that car."

"And you loved it."

"I loved the car and him…I kept the car until I went to med school and needed a more dependable one…."

"Did you love the car so much or what it represented….a father's sacrifice for his daughter?"

Jordan didn't have to think about this one. "What it meant…that he loved me enough to give up things he needed in order to make me happy. He didn't have to do it. He did it because he loved me and wanted to see me be on cloud nine a while."

Dr. Stiles looked at her closely. "You need to remember that, Jordan. People do love you and are willing to sacrifice things and themselves in order to see you happy. You have got to learn to accept it as graciously as sixteen year-old Jordan did."


"Are we through yet?" Jordan asked as they were suddenly whisked up into the air again, away from the younger versions of herself and her father.

"No…we've got one more stop to make before my job is done and the Ghost of Chris…Birthdays Present takes over. Hold on tight to my robe."

They flew over the town of Boston until they came to the tony Beacon Hill section…making their way through the posh neighborhoods until they came down in the front of a vaguely familiar house. "Grandma's…..I've been summoned again, so it seems…." Jordan said, warily making her way through the bushes to a window and peeked in. "What is she up to?"

"Don't you remember, Jordan…each year on your birthday…what she would do?"

Jordan lowered her head. "Yeah…each year she'd invite me up for birthday cake and tea…" her voice trailed off. Her grandmother was putting the finishing touches on a cake and setting out her tea cups….that would never be used.

"And every year you'd refuse. Why?"

"I never knew her that well…and she tried to take me away from Dad after Mom died."

"And didn't your dad and your grandmother tell you they had forgiven each other…it was water under the bridge…each of them thought they were doing what was best for you?"

Jordan nodded.

"So why couldn't you accept that…and her invitations?"

"I thought I'd be betraying my father…"

"And all I see is two people who loved you very much….and wanted what was best for you. In front of you there is a woman who wanted to know her granddaughter…her last living link with her daughter….better. And she was rebuffed every time without a good reason."

Jordan swallowed hard. She had never thought of it that way. "I wish….I wish I would have accepted."

"Did you get an invitation this year?"

"Yeah…but I haven't answered it yet."

Dr. Stiles regarded her for a moment. "It's not too late….maybe you can call her when you get home…You know, Jordan, for a woman that seems to have a hard time with being loved and loving others, you seem to have been surrounded by it from an early age."

Jordan nodded and clutched onto Dr. Stiles' robe one more time. She was sure they needed to be heading back to her apartment…the next spirit should be arriving at any minute.