Scared shitless was one of my father\u2019s favorite statements.\u00a0 He had every right to be frightened on more than one occasion as he was a Chicago fire fighter.\u00a0 He was a small man, but unlike short men he didn\u2019t have a mean streak.\u00a0 Dad was easygoing, kind to strangers, and though he wasn\u2019t over the top enthusiastic about me, he never shouted and rarely hit me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was small too and with mouse brown hair and a less than stellar complexion; I wasn\u2019t the crowd favorite.\u00a0\u00a0 The crowd favorite was Mercy McGowen.\u00a0 Mercy was George McGowen\u2019s third child.\u00a0 All of his daughters (three girls, five boys, all good Catholics unlike me) were beautiful, but there was something about Mercy.\u00a0 I dreamed that she would one day become a nun and leave the rest of us plain girls alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Dad was a widower.\u00a0 I never knew my mother as she died in childbirth; my birth. I regret not knowing her, but from the picture I have she seemed a nervous, bony type of woman who may have died of nervous prostration.\u00a0 Married to a firefighter, pregnant, living in Chicago, none of it seemed conducive to the wide-eyed and stiff portrait I have of her as a young girl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shall I say God spared her?\u00a0 No, God and I have an agreement, I don\u2019t blame Him for things such as my mother’s death; He shows me some compassion when I have no patience with those around me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was one of those nights when the firefighters were all about my Dad\u2019s table and the talk was loud, so loud I couldn\u2019t really make out what they were saying and my head ached.\u00a0 There was no point in trying to pick up around the men of Station 45, I just went upstairs, closed the door to my garret bedroom and tried to sleep.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s when Mercy tapped on my window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did I mention that I had the garret bedroom? That would be the third floor. That fact did not escape me as I peered out my dormer window and saw the beautiful face of Mercy McGowen tapping at my window. We weren\u2019t even friends. Perhaps that is why she chose my window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat up in bed and watched her. Her gigantic violet eyes were looking into the room, but I can\u2019t think she was seeing anything. She tapped. Tapped again and then smiled in on me. It was then I heard my father\u2019s far away voice downstairs and with the roaring laughter of the men around his table. \u201cScared me shitless, I thought I was a goner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there was a loud pounding at our front door.\u00a0 The shouting downstairs dropped to a rumble, then a mumble, and then a shuffling silence.\u00a0 The face at my garret window looked frightfully pale. She seemed to glance around, stuck her tongue out at me and was gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was transfixed in my cot.\u00a0 Where did she go? More importantly how did she stand outside my window?\u00a0 A quick thudding up the stairs interrupted my frozen state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBeatrice?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBeatrice! Child, where are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHere\u201d\u00a0 I tried to stay calm because Dad had a turn for the melodramatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChild, the neighbor just stated you were standing outside your window!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo, I\u2019ve been in bed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThen what the hell? It was Miss Crenshaw, the old Calvinist, so I know she wasn\u2019t drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPerhaps her age is catching up.\u201d I\u2019ve heard women say that in Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Dad looked puzzled and then walked to my window.\u00a0 He tugged at the sash, but I latched it before going to bed.\u00a0 He peered outside and shrugged.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy wasn\u2019t Mr. McGowen here this evening?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEh?\u00a0 What?\u00a0 McGowen?\u00a0 Ah, that girl of his Mercy; she\u2019s poorly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ll regret my next words for as long as I live. I finally discovered why my father kept me at arm’s length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I expect she is dead,” I said<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNonsense Beatrice, stop that!\u00a0 That\u2019s why you have no friends, child. \u00a0Women shouldn\u2019t talk like that.\u201d\u00a0 He returned to his friends, and the laughter resumed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mercy McGowen\u2019s funeral was a solemn occasion, and my life commenced. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scared shitless was one of my father\u2019s favorite statements.\u00a0 He had every right to be frightened on more than one occasion as he was a Chicago fire fighter.\u00a0 He was a small man, but unlike short men he didn\u2019t have a mean streak.\u00a0 Dad was easygoing, kind to strangers, and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8,19],"tags":[11,32,17],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-story","category-novella-excerpt","category-writing","tag-amwriting","tag-chicago","tag-ghoststory"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1166,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions\/1166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}