Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Later that evening, Charles found Molly and I curled up on the leather loveseat in the library. She was doing her nightly 20 minutes of reading. Unable to study, I was straining to overhear Dad's nightly conversation with Mom. He was in the kitchen with the door closed. We were in the library with both pocket doors wide open. His voice was low. I wasn't getting much more than flight details and the expected weather. By the dim light of the library sconces Charles appeared in black and white. As if he were inserted from an old movie.

“How are the lambs?” That's what he called us girls; the lambs. It was a term of comfort.

Molly looked up from her reading and by how her weight shifted I swore she was getting up to hug him. When we first discovered our friendly ghost, she was less than 5 years old, and always trying to hug him. To which end she would wrap her arms through him and around herself. “Hi Captain,” she replied.

Looking directly and specifically at her, he smiled back, “Hello little lamb. How is the homework?”

“I have to read 20 minutes every night. I'm reading Frog and Toad.”

“Excellent choice for such a young reader.” Then turning his attention to me, “Did you have something you wanted to asked me?”

At first I was puzzled, something I wanted to ask... and then I remembered, Mom, Bainbridge Island, home. “Charles, does this house, now, you being a ghost and all, is this home for you?”

If a ghost can have a pensive look, Charles now owned one. “Home,” he uttered in a low drawn out voice. “Is this home?”

Molly stopped her reading. Did she understand the depth of the question? Had I when I asked it?

“Lamb, home is where the heart is, is it not? And this house was the heart of my childhood and then it housed the only woman I truly loved. So yes this is my home. But I won't stay here forever.”

“What?” Charles not be here. That would be like peanut butter without jelly. I started to ask when, why... he'd been here since 1944, what was going to change that, when he changed the subject. “And you young lady? Homework? Studying for your missed exam?”

How did her know? “Mom is supposedly coming home tomorrow.”

He appeared to lean back onto the library desk. “Yes, she will be home tomorrow; around noon time I suspect. With the time change and all. Flying into Albany.” Again how did he know? Then again, why wouldn't he know.

Seeing him reminded me that we hadn't been to see Martha in over three weeks. Unheard of. But with Mom gone, and having to pitch in more at home, we weren't getting out to Kimball Farms for our usual on a Saturday visit. We would have to go this week; no excuses.

“Girls, dinner!” Mom and Dad's conversation over. We were summoned. But would we get any details on how our lives would be altered by a plane flight arriving tomorrow at noon in Albany? Probably not. And the less they told us, the more I worried.

Late Night Text

Melody: Any more news?

Me: No

R u nervous?

Yes

Don't know what to say?

Nothing 2 b said

Ans to 35?

x = 9 y = 13

thx