Page 44 of My Blind Date is a Ghost

I shrug. “I always supposed he did. I think I overheard my son mention his stepmother once or twice. But I didn’t look into it. I didn’t want to know.”

“Did you know he remarried only two months after your death?”

My heart seizes in my chest and I blink. I have to clear my mind to make sure I’d heard Beckett correctly. “What did you say?”

“He remarried only two months after your death. Was that a common thing to happen back then?”

“I… Well, I can’t speak on other people’s marriages. It sometimes happened that a man would remarry quickly if he had small children.”

“And your son was only five, correct?”

“Yes, but my mother was around, as was his mother. There was no need to rush into anything…” I shake my head, trying to sort through my thoughts, my feelings. Why am I so shaken by this? He’s been dead for over two hundred years. I’ve accepted his death. I’ve moved on. I’d always assumed he’d remarried. What does it matter if he moved on two months after my death or two years?

For whatever reason, it does matter. We’d had our difficulties, but we were happy together. He surely would have mourned me. I cannot imagine him falling in love with someone else so quickly. It isn’t…it isn’t normal. It isn’t right.

“Do you know…do you know who he married?”

“I didn’t get that far in my research yet,” Beckett says. “Would you like me to find out?”

I pause and take a swallow. Do I really want to know? Does it matter? I don’t know. I don’t think it does. My husband didn’t kill me. And I was dead. I didn’t, I don’t, have a right to judge how he did or didn’t mourn me. So, if none of it matters, it won’t hurt to at least find out who she was. Find out who it was that brought my husband such great comfort after my death.

“Yes,” I say. “I want you to find out.”

CHAPTER 19

It’s the middle of the night. I still haven’t been sleeping, and I’m not even tired. Why couldn’t I have had this much energy when I was alive? I would have gotten so much work done.

I’m at The Book Coven. Even in life, I cannot seem to escape this place. Instead of an invisible ghost, I’m like a living ghost, still haunting the same place after all these years. Maybe it is just the comfort of the familiar. Maybe I am literally drawn here. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. All I can do is accept it and try to live my life as best I can while I have it.

I’m doing my best to concentrate on contacting Sabrina, Beverly’s mother. After Beverly goes to bed, I usually take an Uber—she’s gotten me my own cell phone—and come back to The Book Coven to spend a few hours working on contacting the other ghosts that haunt this place. I’ve gotten better at seeing them, at sensing their presence, but I’m still working on speaking with them.

I’ve read several books on contacting the dead, and while I still have my doubts that any of the authors really did speak to the dead, they have offered good suggestions on learning to focus and meditate. I’m sitting on my knees, staring into the flame of a candle, emptying my mind, and listening for messages.

“I’m here, Sabrina,” I whisper. “Are you there? I’m listening.”

In the middle of the night, the bookstore is as quiet as a tomb. There’s no traffic outside, no shoppers walking by, no animals making noises. From somewhere in the room, I can hear a clock ticking. I try to focus on that, to keep my mind from wandering. My mind constantly flits from one thing to the next. It seems that sitting silently and mindfully is the hardest thing in the world for me to do.

The candle flame flickers as if a door has just opened. I look up and nearly yelp as I see Sabrina sitting on the sofa across from me. She looks confused, as if wondering why I would be afraid. Of course, I’m not afraid. I know Sabrina and the other ghosts mean me no harm. It is simply the surprise of her sudden appearance that startles me.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just never seem to expect you to really appear. After all, I never saw you in all the years I was a ghost.”

She gives a small nod, as if to say she understands.

“Did you ever see me? When we were both ghosts?” I ask.

She opens her mouth and then closes it, as though she wanted to say something and then thought better of it. Then she shakes her head.

“You didn’t see me,” I say, confirming her answer. “But do you see other ghosts?”

She nods.

My jaw nearly drops at this. “You see other ghosts?” I am so shocked, so…jealous. She’s not alone! Why was I alone?

Sabrina rolls her eyes as if to say, Didn’t I just answer that question?

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m just so frustrated. I don’t understand why my ghostly experience was so different. And I certainly don’t know why I’m back in the land of the living now.”

Sabrina shrugs. She doesn’t know either.

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