Read The Christmas Pearl for Free Online Page B

fine…”
    “Good. Then that’s settled. I’ll holler if I need anything.”
    “Oh! Yes, of course! By all means! I’ll be in and out all day, even in this fog …last minute errands, you know…I have to…Christmas Eve?”
    “Yes’m.”
    Barbara hurried toward me, passing me on the stairs, and whispered, “Whew! She’s something, isn’t she?”
    “Uh-huh,” I said, trembling all over. Something like a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood ghost .
    Pearl swung a glance to her right at the Christmastree and harrumphed loudly. Finally, she looked up at me standing on the landing as if to say, Well, well! Who’s this little old lady? Is this my Theodora? I must admit that I was still in a frightful state of shock to see her, and I hung on to the rail with both hands so my wobbling legs wouldn’t give out from under me. I wondered, was I seeing things? Did she recognize me? Then she smiled from ear to ear.
    When she grinned at me, I knew that she did. Undeterred by the fact that a dead person was standing right there as plain as day was day, I grinned right back at her. Mine was an unstable nervous grin, to be sure.
    She picked up her suitcase and headed for the kitchen. I took another deep breath to steady myself, then another, and slowly, slowly, I followed her. Gracious! For all I had learned in my years, I was very unfamiliar with dealing with the living dead. What in the world would I do?
    By the time I got to the kitchen, as my pace was not as brisk as hers, she was coming out of the spare room with a small bathroom that had historically been reserved for emergency sleepover help or storage. Well, we certainly had reached the point of a spiritual emergency, so I assumed that she would be staying there—if dead people showered or slept, that is.
    She was tying a crisp white cotton apron around her neck and waist as though she had never left.
    Was she really Pearl? I was almost one hundred percent certain that she was. Still, I had to ask. Knowing that Pearl had never been one to pussyfoot around, I decided there and then to just speak my mind. If I was wrong, she would just think I was a half-witted old lady, I’d go live in the attic, and we would be done with it. I prayed I would be wrong, but knew the outcome before I said a word.
    “I know who you are,” I said, with a profound warble in my voice.
    “I know who you are, too! Good to lay eyes on you again, but Lawsamercy! How old are you? Time’s flying, ain’t it?”
    Without missing a beat, I said, “Hmmph!” We always hmmphed each other, even when I was a young child. “Well! If your clock hadn’t stopped ticking, I think you’d be right around one hundred and thirty-three years old. So who’s calling who old ? Hmm?”
    Pearl threw back her head and laughed. Her laugh was so hearty that the sound of its music made me laugh, too. I had missed her mightily and wanted to throw my arms around her. Suspicion held me in my place. After all, this still might have been a hallucination! Old people my age had all sorts of dementia and this could have been some sort of psychological episode.
    She began opening cabinets, the refrigerator and the freezer, taking inventory.
    “Well, I see you can still do your math in your head.”
    I found myself talking to her despite my strong suspicions. “Useless skill these days…with computers, calculators, and all that…” Then I wanted so badly to believe that help had arrived in the form of the finest—albeit dead—woman I had ever known that my heart gave in to the impossibility of it all. I accepted that it was indeed her. “Oh, goodness ! It’s so grand to see you, Pearl.”
    “What? You think I wasn’t coming? What’s going on around ’eah?”
    When she looked back at me her eyebrows were drawn together in disappointment, or perhaps bewilderment. I wasn’t quite sure why.
    “Well, who knew if you could ? Anyway, I can hardly believe my eyes!” I took a handkerchief from my pocket, removed my