Clouds rolled by, quickened by the pace of the dull, aqua minivan, and the early sun pattered down on wild green grass occasionally flattened by the heavy grey stones. It was a day meant for skidding along chalk white lines and feeling his arm shatter from the impact of a whirling baseball – not visiting relatives dead before he was even born. At least, that was what Colby fumed to himself.
His parents, on the other hand, were of a different opinion which explained the sudden trip to the countryside. Randy Jackson was a successful lawyer who never went anywhere without his Blackberry and his trustworthy cigarettes that had been the death of his father, grandfather, and pretty much every male relative in his family. Emily Jackson, surprisingly, belonged to a very different stock of human beings. She was a health nut who measured the calories for every meal, she ate five, and her weight at the local fitness gym. Her motto was to never feel stress, a lesson she had learned from her yoga teacher. Although she would have liked to interfere in the lives of her husband and son, just the thought of doing so would, of course, give her stress, so she preferred a laissez faire method.
On this particular day, the whole family happened to be in the midst of brooding. Colby, the star player of his Mini League baseball team, had to give over his prized position of first pitcher to his competitor, Dean, on what was to be the best match of all Mini League history (at least in his mind). And so he decided to make the trip most miserable for his coercive parents by occasionally emitting long, angry sighs and yanking his mother’s seat belt from behind.
Of course, Colby’s actions remained completely unnecessary as both Randy and Emily found enough dissatisfaction on their own. Randy discovered within the first hour, to his amazement, that his trusty Blackberry failed to provide a signal. This reconfirmed his suspicion that he overpaid his phone bills. Emily remembered on two accounts why she hated long road trips. Every time her husband lit a cigarette she recalled the percentages of deaths from second hand smoking. And then after calculating the number of years that was being deducted from her life, she began to feel a disturbed state of mind that she acutely realized to be stress.
“Can we at least turn on some stupid music please?” Colby scowled from the back.
“No dear. Daddy has to pay attention to the road.”
“You mean the grass?” His sarcasm aside, Colby’s observation was quite right. On both sides of the dirt road lay nothing but grass, flowers, and some more grass. And the occasional tree.
After 8 years of raising him, Randy and Emily had realized that the best way to deal with their kid was to not deal with him at all. Which is what they did.
“Why do we have to visit dead people? It’s not like they even know,” Colby said again, determined to be not ignored.
“It’s my father, Colby, not dead people. That makes him your grandfather, so you better show some respect kid,” Randy growled. He was the busy person, and yet he was making time. Nobody appreciated his sacrifices. Now Randy could understand just a little bit how his father had probably felt – just a little bit too late.
“You know, Honey, that’s a little ironic. I mean, you hardly showed respect to your father when he was alive. You can’t just expect Colby to respect someone even you didn’t.” Emily’s usual pacifying temper was burning with injustice at having to face stress.
“I’ve always respected my dad, he worked hard for most of his pitiful life just to raise me and my siblings. Since you grew up pampered underneath that fat slob, you wouldn’t understand what hard work even means!” Colby sighed to himself. This was an argument he had heard before.
It was at that precise moment when he saw her. He noticed her pale skin first, so out of place in the hot sun and shade less graveyard. Her black hair fell down to her elbows and her white dress constantly swirled around her legs and bare feet. At first, she had been sitting down on the grass when their car passed.
Colby scrambled to the back of the van to stare through the window. The girl angled her head up to stare at Colby. It was then that he comprehended why he had felt so uneasy. The eyes were blank, white orbs framed with dark eyelashes. And they weren’t getting any smaller.
The girl, who should have disappeared from view already, was following the minivan. Or floating after it at least. Her skirt rippled from the speed of her body and her arms were stretched out towards him. Colby could hear his heart pound madly as he slowly backed away.
She got close enough to place her hands on the window. The nails that tapered from her bony hands were filthy and sharp. Her bloodless lips pursed in curiosity and her blank eyes scared the wits out of him.
She turned her head first from the left, then to the right. And then, as though she could sense his fear, her pale face slowly settled into a sad grin. She detached herself from the car and stood in the middle of the road. Her white dress swirled calmly as she watched Colby from afar. The distance increased, but he could still see her smile. It was beautiful in its own terribly morose way, and Colby’s young eight year old heart understood this somehow.
And in the intuition that young children often have, which unfortunately goes largely ignored by adults, he decided even dead people needed friends. He raised his hand to wave good-bye. Now she was hardly visible, her black hair whipping against the stainless white of her dress. But right before she disappeared from view, Colby saw the slight, uncertain hand movement. And then she was gone.
“Colby Jackson, get your butt strapped to the seat this instant,” Emily warned, just having discerned her son’s absence.
He climbed back in, a small smile on his face.
“What?” Emily asked suspiciously, and Randy looked up at the review mirror with interest.
“Nothing. Just, I guess visiting dead people isn’t such a bad thing,” Colby replied mysteriously.
Colby’s enthusiasm spread around, with Randy reaching behind to ruffle Colby’s hair fondly and Emily thinking yoga wasn’t the only stress reliever.
