Page 28 of Having the Time of My Midlife

“I’d rather not,” I replied.

The Keeper of Fate threw her head back and laughed. “You best watch that smart mouth, shitball.”

“You’re one to talk, turdknocker,” I shot right back.

“I ain’t the one goin’ to the Higher Power,” she reminded me.

“Point. Taken,” I replied.

“As for the dead that ain’t supposed to be here, they’ll go back once you’ve mended the tear.” She paused and scratched her head with the toothpick that had been in her mouth. “I don’t know what the tear means, and I don’t know how to fix it. But remember, nothing is impossible.”

“I just have to believe,” I said, finishing the phrase that had become our motto.

“That’s right, motherfucker,” she said, patting me on the head. “You’re a badass. Be the badass.”

She was correct. I was the badass. People I loved were in danger. I was about to believe more than I’d ever believed. “How will I take Gram and Alana Catherine with me?” I hated the words that left my lips, but time was moving forward and I wasn’t. If it was destined to be the past the present and the future, then it would be. I would not screw around with fate. Period.

“Gram can slip inside you as a ghost. Just make sure that you don’t mind dive with her. That’ll fuck everything up,” Candy said.

I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth to keep from telling Candy to fuck off. That would serve no purpose other than getting myself electrocuted by Candy and yelled at by Gram for dropping an F-bomb. I didn’t have time for that. “I’d have to hug her with the intention to dive into her mind to make that happen,” I told her. “How can Gram slip inside me? Will she get stuck like Pandora did with Cecily?”

As much as I loved Gram, it wasn’t an appealing thought to think she might live inside my body for the rest of time.

“I think it’ll be just fine, baby girl,” Gram said. “Might be a little cold, though.”

Cold was an understatement. When a ghost went through a living being it was like being stabbed with icy daggers. The saying ‘no pain, no gain’ came to mind.

“Gram, I don’t mind being cold as long as you’re safe,” I told her.

“Daisy, you in menopause yet?” Jenifer asked, waking up from her snooze and hearing the tail end of my response to Gram. Jennifer couldn’t see or hear the ghosts, but she usually got the gist of the conversation by what everyone else said.

I wanted to remind my buddy that I was only forty and had just given birth, but being rude to Jennifer was not necessary. “I’m not.”

“Well balls,” Jennifer said. “I was thinking if you got hot flashes, it might counteract the cold. My psychic, Becky, had ‘em bad. Poor gal could look right as rain one minute then the next she looked like she’d just taken a shower while fully dressed. Y’all remember Lettie May from the butcher shop?”

Candy Vargo squinted at her. “The nut job who tried to off her husband with a salami?”

“That’s the one,” Jennifer confirmed. “Lettie May’s hot flashes were so terrible that she went into the meat locker to cool down and got locked in their for three days.”

“Wait. What?” I asked. “That can’t be true. How would no one know she was missing?”

“Her son of a bitch husband locked her in there thinkin’ she’d freeze to death,” she explained, much to our horror. “The joke was on him. She loved it! She wasn’t sweating, and there was plenty to eat. Although, she did try to off him with a spicy, three-foot-long frozen deli stick when she got out. Concussed the daylights out of that old fool. Lettie May got the butcher shop in the divorce. Renamed it Salami Slammer in honor ofher ex doing six years for tryin’ to kill her and the beautiful fact she beaned that bastard with a log of meat. She makes a mean summer sausage.”

“True that,” Candy Vargo agreed.

“Menopause is such an interesting phenomenon,” Tim announced, flipping pages of his notebook. “I’ve studied it so I can be helpful to my friends. Did you know that women not only suffer from hot flashes, mood swing and insomnia, but can gain weight too? Also, menopause can affect your sex life making the vaginal cavity dry and uncomfortable for copulation.”

All of the women in the room gave Tim the evil eye—even the dead women. Tim turned bright red and slammed his notebook shut.

“Too much?” he whispered, mortified.

“Way,” I said. “Do not ever utter those words in that order in front of a woman again. Ever.”

“Good to know, friend,” he said.

I shook off Tim’s unfortunate overshare and got back on track. “No one ever answered if Gram would get stuck in me.”

“Because we don’t know,” Charlie admitted. “While I don’t think so, I can’t be definitive in my answer.”

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