Page 48 of My Blind Date is a Ghost

We stopped before my grave and I looked at the headstone.

Cora Barnes

1760-1788

Loving Wife and Mother

“That’s…that’s it?” I ask.

Beckett Dawson nods. “That was the same feeling I had.”

“It seems so…inadequate,” I spit out. “Who ordered this?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe Veronica has a record—”

“What about my work?” I ask, growing more angry. “The service I did for this country? I was a spy for George Washington!”

“You were what—”

“I ran a business,” I go on. “I provided jobs for this town. I was an outspoken advocate for the rights of women and slaves. I was a rare voice in the Revolution. And what about my parents? Was I not also a loving daughter?”

I let out a frustrated grunt, march over, and kick the headstone. What’s that saying when you get a shiver? Someone just walked over my grave? Well, I didn’t feel anything when I walked over my own grave. I only felt pain in my toe from where it met granite.

“Ow, ow, ow,” I say as I limp over to the rock wall surrounding the cemetery to sit down. Beckett tries to grip my arm to help me, but I bat him away. “I can do it.”

He holds up his hands in surrender and leans against the wall next to me. We sit there in silence for a minute as I stew.

“It had to have been Edward who ordered that pitiful excuse for a tribute,” I say.

“That was my assumption when I saw it,” Beckett says.

“I died young, yes,” I say, “but I had still accomplished so much. It gave me some comfort to know that I had at least a few things to be proud of when I died. Of course, there were things I wished I’d had time to do, but I had no regrets. I’d lived a good life.

“But you’d never know it by looking at that headstone. I wonder how many women buried out here led extraordinary lives only to be reduced to whether they married or had children.”

“It’s not something I ever gave much thought to before I saw your grave,” Beckett says. “I knew you were more than that.”

“I wonder what my obituary said,” I say.

“You don’t want to know,” Beckett replies. We look at each other, and then we burst out laughing. After all, what can I do about it now?

“Edward never was a good writer,” I say. “He always joked that if he ran for office, I’d have to be his speech writer.”

“You would have been good at it,” Beckett says. “Were you really a spy for George Washington?”

I nod. “I was. Since I was a journalist, I was allowed to speak to soldiers and POWs behind enemy lines. I was able to gather information and deliver messages. I never talked about it, though, after it was over. I really need to write that book.”

“You really do,” Beckett says. We are quiet for another minute before Beckett asks, “Are you ready?”

I nod, and he hands me a folded up piece of paper from his coat pocket. It’s only a facsimile of the original form. I take a dep breath before I unfold it.

“That son of a—” I say when I see the names on the marriage certificate. Sure enough, Edward married only two months after my death.

“What is it?” Beckett asks.

“Edward married Elizabeth Crowley,” I say.

“And she was…?”

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