Time Well Spent as a Ghost

Chapter 10

She not only couldn't tell anyone what she did, she had to make sure she was never found out. The boys hadn't been too troubled by the loss. With Pa gone they liked having control of the farm and were more than willing to make a start from where they stood. They had the barn rebuilt by November of that year and so the steady routine of twice-daily milkings, running the livestock to graze, and harvesting grain, apples, and blackberries was keeping them busy. Although they'd have to wait until spring to restock the laying hens that had either wandered off or gotten snatched up after the fire, there was a quiet peace around the place that was keeping Sylvia from painfully mourning the loss of her small family. The boys were talking more about crop farming than Pa ever would've allowed and their optimism was reassuring, especially to Ma.

The loss of the money tin drove Pa to drink harder and was probably what caused him to be stabbed to death in Skipper's Bar that night. Sylvia wasn't sure how guilty she should feel about the matter. Of course it wasn't directly her fault. Pa could've handled his problems sober, or been handier in a knife fight. She and her sisters and brothers were adults now and could manage the farm, and with a little more ease than if they had to run each and every idea past him. It was dead wrong, though, to wish another human being bodily harm, let alone to set in motion events that could cause someone else to stumble. She didn't lie to herself that she missed Pa, but the fact was she had hidden the money tin which made him crazy-mad, so his drinking at the bar that night was practically inevitable.

Any guilt she felt was just a fraction of what she'd have to endure if the others knew. Sylvia's own burden was difficult enough to bear; missing Bruce, knowing that his deep love for Benjamin was what kept him from saving himself that day. Her heart broke a little bit each morning when she'd wake up and welcome in the painful memories and dwell for just a few minutes on the "what if's" ... would Benjamin have liked school? Would he have made friends easily? Would he outgrow the mischievous streak that Bruce and she had disciplined him for but then laughed about together. Just a few minutes each morning to think about that bright little life. Sylvia didn't try to avoid the pain because the memories of them were all she had left and she still considered herself a wife and mother. But she was maybe starting to feel older, quieter because of it. And a little less tolerant of the memory of Pa's selfishness that had been worsening with age.

What concerned her now was the question of Judgment Day. Her fever had been worsening and the fatigue was so heavy that she could only sit at her window for an hour or two. The laudanum the doctor prescribed helped her rest but the coughing wasn't getting any better. He told her when there was blood on her handkerchief then her time was getting near. Sylvia was worn down from living this difficult life. She wanted to calmly let go and be at rest. But would the good Lord ignore her suffering and send her to hell for hiding Pa's coin box? Ma would say so, and the truth would be difficult for her brothers and sisters to accept. Sylvia knew they'd misunderstand, believing that the woman they thought she was could never do something so selfish or awful.

It wasn't that simple, though, and nothing stays the same, especially people. Sylvia had learned that sometimes there just aren't rational explanations for the things anger can make us do. Losing her husband and child and then having no choice but to go back to who she was in the years before? It wasn't possible. She'd started a life of her own and then suffered a deeper loss than Ma and Pa ever had after the fire. She couldn't leave, and staying was slowly making her disappear, turning her into a ghost, as if her body was just floating around, going through the motions of living.

Sylvia knew she didn't have the strength to either retrieve the coin box or tell her family that she'd hidden it, but she needed somehow to make reparations for her intent to punish Pa for his selfishness. If he was wrong, that was a matter between him and his God. For her own peace of mind, she had to balance her thievery with some sort of right that would allow her to be free of him and his petty ways and be reassured of spending the afterlife with her husband and son.