20: Mama Dee

Af­ter mak­ing sure Sea­mus was as com­fort­able as he could be, Brig­it strode down the hall to John’s of­fice. She not­ed as she walked that she was the on­ly one with­out a des­ig­nat­ed of­fice. Most of the time, she was on­ly in the firm’s head­quar­ters long enough to re­ceive in­struc­tion from John Black­wick or to re­fresh her load of files. Dur­ing that time, she was usu­al­ly in John’s of­fice.

Con­sid­er­ing the trou­ble I’m go­ing to be in, I might not ask for one just yet, she thought as she re­trieved some wait­ing as­sign­ments from the box she and John had been work­ing from for the last week. Stuff­ing this pile in­to her coat pock­et, she turned and ex­it­ed the room and strode back to­ward the main en­try to the firm’s head­quar­ters. She paused long enough to look in on Sea­mus one more time be­fore leav­ing. She had one more stop to make be­fore be­gin­ning her work.

Ma­ma Dee was ly­ing on her so­fa with her eyes closed. By the pained look on the old­er wom­an’s face, Brig­it could tell that her old friend was suf­fer­ing one of her mi­graines. Ma­ma had suf­fered them off and on dur­ing the years that she had lived across from Brig­it and Mag­gie; but Brig­it had no­ticed that their fre­quen­cy of vis­its to the old wom­an had in­creased since the ac­ci­dent. Brig­it had heard Mag­gie sug­gest on more than one oc­ca­sion that Ma­ma Dee go to see the doc­tor about them, but Ma­ma Dee had waved away the no­tion as if she were wav­ing away a fly.

Brig­it stood over her friend, watch­ing in con­cern. She want­ed to reach out and touch the wom­an’s face – wish­ing she could ease her friend’s pain if on­ly for a few min­utes.

"I know you’re stand­ing there, child…”

Brig­it start­ed at the sound of Ma­ma’s voice as it car­ried through the si­lence to her ears. The old wom­an’s eyes had not opened, but her mouth had moved. Brig­it could feel a smile com­ing to her own face as a pre­vi­ous no­tion came to mind yet again. It was true af­ter all. Ma­ma Dee could sense her.

“It’s Brig­it, Ma­ma,” Brig­it said gen­tly.

“I know that, child,” Ma­ma Dee re­tort­ed. “What are you do­ing here?”

“I’m just check­ing in on you,” Brig­it replied. “Were you sleep­ing?”

“No, I just like to keep my eyes closed these days,” the old wom­an quipped. “I’m awake. I just have an­oth­er one of my pains. It hurts to open my eyes.”

“When are you go­ing to the doc­tor?” Brig­it asked.

“You startin’ to sound like Mag­gie. It’s just a headache. It’ll be gone soon enough,” Ma­ma sighed deeply. “Why are you still around, child?”

“I promised Mag­gie I would be,” Brig­it an­swered. “I like to keep my promis­es. Does she know I’m still around?”

“I think so,” Ma­ma Dee replied. “She’s pret­ty up­set about what hap­pened with that Rubens girl. Was that you that caused the ruckus?”

“Yes, Ma­ma,” Brig­it replied hon­est­ly. “She wasn’t right for Mag­gie.”

“That makes two of us that think that. I’m glad you’re still here. I miss you and I know Mag­gie miss­es you too, even though she says she feels like you’re with her ev­ery night.”

“I am with her ev­ery night, for the most part. I tried to be fair about the Rubens girl, but I guess my jeal­ousy got the bet­ter of me,” Brig­it laughed light­ly. “Are you sure you’re go­ing to be all right?”

“I’m fine, child. Do you want me to tell Mag­gie any­thing?”

“Just tell her that I’m go­ing to be busy with work for a bit, but that I’ll be back with her as soon as I can. I’ve run in­to some snags at the of­fice and I have to take care of them be­fore I can rest some.”

“What are you talkin’ about? Work? The of­fice? Child, what are you doin’ now that you’re dead?” Ma­ma Dee asked, her face wrin­kling in the con­fu­sion of it all. Brig­it no­ticed, how­ev­er, that the wom­an still didn’t open her eyes.

“I’m a Grim Reaper, Ma­ma Dee,” Brig­it re­vealed. “I pass over souls that are wait­ing.”

“Oh, good lord! Is it my time?” the old wom­an asked sud­den­ly. The fear of the thought ex­pressed it­self clear­ly on her face, but Ma­ma Dee still didn’t open her eyes. Brig­it on­ly laughed.

“No, Ma­ma. I’m not here for you. You’re still very much alive.”

“Thank you, Je­sus! You scared me for a minute,” Ma­ma Dee chuck­led, pat­ting her heart as if to calm it down. “I don’t sup­pose you’d want me to tell Mag­gie all that?”

“No, I don’t think she’d un­der­stand any of it right now. Be­sides, Ma­ma, when your time comes, it won’t be me that will come for you. You’re a part of my fam­ily and it’s against the rules for us to reap our own.”

“Since when does the Grim Reaper have rules?” Ma­ma Dee asked. Brig­it laughed out loud this time.

“Don’t be­lieve ev­ery­thing you read or hear, Ma­ma. Trust me on that one. Just tell Mag­gie that I love her, will you?” She re­quest­ed.

“I will, Brig­it,” Ma­ma Dee sighed.

“And go see a doc­tor.”

“Go on with your­self,” Ma­ma Dee shooed with a wave of her hand in Brig­it’s di­rec­tion. “Vis­it again, child. I sure do miss you.”

“I miss you too, Ma­ma.” Brig­it said as she opened the door to Ma­ma Dee’s apart­ment and let her­self out. She had been hop­ing there would be some way she could com­mu­ni­cate with her old friend. Af­ter that day in the kitchen when Ma­ma Dee had strong­ly urged her to keep an eye on Mag­gie, Brig­it had held firm to the hope that she would have an­oth­er chance to con­verse with her friend. That day had fi­nal­ly hap­pened and Brig­it felt her­self smil­ing joy­ful­ly as she pulled the first file out of her pock­et. For the mo­ment, her prob­lem back at the of­fice was the fur­thest thing from her mind.

Ma­ma Dee opened her eyes and ex­haled slow­ly. She had known that Brig­it had been around all along. She had been hop­ing the girl’s spir­it would even­tu­al­ly reach out to make con­tact. It was a gift she had borne for years, but kept hid­den due to the stig­ma that sur­round­ed it. In her day, ad­mit­ting that one could see or hear the dead on a reg­ular ba­sis would on­ly lead to trou­ble. Es­pe­cial­ly if your dad­dy was a dea­con of the church… As a re­sult, Ma­ma Dee had nev­er men­tioned to any­one that she could talk to the dead. She had just been bid­ing her time un­til Brig­it fig­ured it out and made con­tact on her own.

As the old wom­an sat up, she thought about Brig­it’s rev­ela­tion of her new oc­cu­pa­tion. The idea of the Grim Reaper un­set­tled Ma­ma Dee. It had long been a su­per­sti­tion she had kept a deep rev­er­ence for, sure that when her own time came that it would be the Grim Reaper that would take her. There were rules, Brig­it had said. Ma­ma Dee slow­ly shook her head with the thought. It was too bad. Ma­ma Dee had the thought that it would be nice to see a fa­mil­iar and lov­ing face to help her through the mo­ment that she knew was com­ing up­on her soon…