Page 9 of Baking With A Ghost

From the fridge, I grab her smelly wet cat food and slop it in her dish, once again repulsed at the food this cat likes. For an animal with a superior attitude, she sure has low standards for food.

I place a bowl of last night’s supper into the microwave and strip off my clothes on the way to my room. The only thing on my mind is putting on comfortable PJs, a bowl of pasta goodness for supper and my laptop for research before my bedtime.

All those thoughts fly out the window when I enter my bedroom.

The laundry I started yesterday, and I know for a fact didn't finish, is folded and piled on my bed.

Unless Snowball grew opposable thumbs and figured out how to operate the dryer, someone was here.

My mind immediately goes to Mary and her ghost story, and my gut tells me there's truth to it. I'm looking at folded clothes on my bed I didn't put there.

I may be losing my marbles, totally a possibility, but I think I'd remember if I folded my laundry. Something not of this world is afoot here. If Mary is right, I know what it is.

Or rather, who.

With all the courage I can muster, I speak to the empty room.

"Simon?"

The microwave beeps, signaling my dinner is ready and I stand waiting for an answer, heart banging in my chest, like I had just finished aerobics class with that cute instructor at the YMCA.

I've never had the experience of waiting on a ghost before. That's what this is, isn't it? Nobody has a key. No one just snuck past me into my loft and decided to say, "Hey, let's do John's laundry for him because he's so busy."

Or, maybe I'm so overworked I actually did do it and I forgot.

I don't believe that. At least, I think I don't believe that.

When I'm about to give up waiting and shake it off, an answer comes, and I nearly scream out loud.

John

It's Not Exhaustion

Apuffofwarmair caresses my cheek and I freeze. The blood pounds in my ears as a gentle pressure envelopes me. It's like another body is pressing into me from the front. It's comforting, like a hug.

Is this a ghostly embrace?

Before I can consider raising my arms to return the gesture, the pressure is gone.

The microwave beeps again to remind me of dinner, but my feet are fused to the floor, as my mind races. Snowball’s meowing snaps me from my trance and I finally return to the kitchen for my supper. Only once I sit firmly in a chair, do my legs start to shake, and I process what may have just happened.

I shove my bowl away, hunger evaporating as the enormity of this slams into me.

"Here, kitty." Snowball prances over, probably hoping for fallout, but instead I pick her up onto my lap, needing something of this earthly world to hold my spiraling thoughts together.

"Kitty, am I losing it? Ghosts aren't real right?"

Purring and kneading is my only response.

"Well, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation. Let's look."

With a cat balanced on my lap, I search not for ghosts, but symptoms of exhaustion. In the list of symptoms, short term memory loss is near the top, not to mention hallucinations. Also not a stretch of the imagination for me to be suffering exhaustion. I've been working seven days a week and twelve hour days for the last two months getting the bakery first ready to open, then actually open for business.

My hot dream with the guy in the window box was my brain trying to get me to sleep and I simply hallucinated seeing the impressions in the cushions. That makes sense. Reading on, the laundry folded could definitely be me doing it and forgetting.

I once made a pot of coffee and forgot about it, that was during a pretty stressful time in my life too, now that I think about it.

I'm overreacting and I should probably take Ivy’s advice and take a few days off to rest. Or hire some help.

---