“What about you, Scarlett? Has your grandson been born yet?”
“Not yet,” Scarlett said as she tied off the last stitch on the sampler she was working on. “Should be any day now, though.”
“Oh, isn’t that darling?” her mom said as she looked over her shoulder at the sampler. “Do you think you’ll be able to get it to them in time?”
“I should be able to,” Scarlett said as she considered. Time worked differently up here, and she was still getting used to it. It made keeping track of her loved ones back on Earth harder.
“I just have to remember to get the timing right.” Sending things between realms was also tricky, but she was getting the hang of it. They wouldn’t know the sampler had come from her when they got it, but she would know.
A few days later, Scarlett felt a tug in that space between her chest and stomach, and she knew it was time.
She raced to her son’s side and arrived just as he realized what was happening. She followed them to the hospital and got to see her grandson being born. After all, if the doctors couldn’t see her, they couldn’t kick her out of the delivery room. Being dead had its perks.
Scarlett felt a rush of warmth and love as she watched her son become a father. She tried to send him those feelings, but she couldn’t be sure they got through to him.
Traveling between realms was difficult and took a lot out of her, so she could never stick around for long. She had to satisfy herself with checking in on them from time to time, but even with limited visits she noticed something was off.
Where was Susan?
She had always wanted to be an aunt. So, why hadn’t she come to meet her nephew?
Scarlett made a separate trip to visit her daughter. She found her talking with her friend, Amanda, about, of all things, her new nephew.
“Congrats, auntie,” said Amanda.
Susan snorted. “Like it makes a difference. They’ll never let me meet him.”
Scarlett was shocked. How could Susan not meet her own nephew?
Wait.
Was Susan not talking to her brother? Even at such a momentous time as this?
Oh, no. Oh, this would not do.
“Mom, do you remember that time you told Jack you were huffy with him?” Scarlett said as soon as she was back in her own realm.
“I do. I remember he spent days trying to figure out what he had done to upset me.”
“Yeah, what was it you were so upset about?”
“I can’t remember.”
Scarlett rolled her eyes. “I’ll be more specific. I need to get a message across to Susan, and to do that, I need to know how you communicated with Jack from this side of the Veil.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, but apparently she and Owen aren’t speaking to each other.”
Her mother gasped. “At a time like this?”
“I know. She hasn’t even met her nephew. I always told them I’d come back to haunt them if they ever stopped speaking to each other after I was gone. I never really believed it would happen, but now I have to make good on my threat. So, how do I haunt my children?”
To be continued…