Ghost From A Wishing Well

GHOST FROM A WISHING WELL

By

Hiram Baer

Copyright © 2017 Hiram Baer

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Table of Contents

Prologue: Ghost From A Wishingwell

Chapter One: Amok

Chapter Two: Moogie

Chapter Three: The Last Crusade

Chapter Four: Pursuing An Untamed Ornithoid

Chapter Five: : Heavens To Murgatroyd

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven: Non-Identifying Information

Chapter Eight: Moogies’ 60th Birthday

Chapter Nine: Maybe

Chapter Ten: The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

Chapter Eleven: Denouement

Postscript

Epilogue: Facebook

Reflection: Moogie

About the Story

About the Author

Prologue

Ghost From A Wishing Well

Marie Janette (last name to be decided) was born December 27th, 1965. Her pregnant soon to be mother was staying with an Aunt in Lorain. Lorain is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on Lake Erie, at the mouth of the Black River, about 30 miles west of Cleveland. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 64,097, making it Ohio's tenth largest city. Incorporated in 1874.

The Aunt used alcohol to go to sleep at night after her husband had died. She had moved to Lorain because it was far enough away yet close enough to family to offer a new start for her and her photography business. It was Marie Janette’s mother-to-be who had the idea to wait out her pregnancy there. For the same reasons. And the Aunt was alone and welcomed the company. Yet in spite of the comforting presence of her Aunt and the regular visits of a male friend (not the father of the fetus inside her womb), most of the time this pregnant out of wedlock young women was alone. And in those long hours of detachment she felt abandoned. Wounds from prior associations that left her feeling raw, unsafe or not nurtured.

And then her water had broken on Christmas night after the rest of her family had left for their home.

As the Aunt was a wittle bit wobbly Marie Janette’s soon-to-be-mother called her own parents at midnight knowing she had to go to the hospital. Up until this point, this young lady had made all the arrangements herself including Catholic Social Services and the doctor. In those days, there was no such thing as a tour of the hospital or any orientation at all.

You might ask where the male friend was at this time. Home with his parents celebrating Christmas. He was with the mother-to-be and the Aunt that Christmas eve as he had been every weekend throughout the pregnancy (graduating college usually requires attendance during the week). He was more than just a male friend. He was in love with the lady-in-waiting to give birth. He was the love of her life. At the hospital, our mother-to-be was having contractions without any discernable pattern that would herald imminent birth. There were no epidurals offered, only laughing gas that would put her to sleep. After forty-five hours of this off again on again pattern in spite of induction medicine, a caesarian section was done at almost midnight December 27th.

In spite of the Catholic Social Services prohibition, a concerned nurse took it upon herself to bring the female child to her birth-mother one time during her week-long recuperation. This allowed the birth-mother to name her. Marie Jeanette. The hospital didn’t get that right either. The child went to Catholic Services as Marie Janette.

It’s hard to believe that anyone else had anything to do with this child as she looks exactly like you! The nurse commented as she took the infant away forever.

The birth mother didn’t want to let her go. Had she not, the impact on the future would have been monumental. Things would have changed completely. The time line would have been altered. This was a ripple which impacted her life as more than mere ripple. More like a flood surge. It was the ghost from the wishing well.

GHOST FROM A WISHINGWELL

If you could read my mind, love,

What a tale my thoughts could tell.

Just like an old-time movie,

'Bout a ghost from a wishing well.

In a castle dark or a fortress strong,

With chains upon my feet.

You know that ghost is me.

And I will never be set free

As long as I'm a ghost that you can't see.

Ghost from a Wishing Well (If You Could Read My Mind is a 1969 Gordon Lightfoot song. It is one of his most personal songs and is about the breakup of his first marriage).

(http://eerieelegance.blogspot.com/2013/07/ghosts-for-sale.html)

The birth mother began to squash her emotions. A daily occurrence for fifty plus years.

Chapter One

Amok

TIME LINE October 2, 2016 with steps back in time

It is mid-afternoon on an early fall day. To be precise as a Vulcan Scientist it is actually two pm (1400 hours) on Sunday the second of October 2016. We are traveling in a silver Infinity SUV. You could pick out the vehicle from its Arizona license plate Moogie, a story in and of itself that we will address at its proper time. For now, it is important to know that we are on I-15 heading to Las Vegas. We being some important protagonists in this story. In fact, Moogie herself is riding in the back seat. It is because of her that we have left Newport Coast California after a week of respite on the long last anticipated leg of a story that actually began some fifty plus years earlier in the Midwest. More on that later at the appropriate time.

Driving is Moogies’ daughter Lisa Ann. If you look to her right, you will see the storyteller. That would be me. I am what would be called the Patriarch of this family now called by a different name than my father’s and readily admit to being an old dinosaur. In fact, it is a title worn with pride. The lesson here though, is that I am a Raptor not a brontosaurus. That’s my story and I am sticking to it. Sorry, we digress.

The last week was spent at the Marriott Resort in Newport Coast. Usually we vacation in Hawaii-Kauai or Maui specifically. But Moogie became very ill during the last vacation on the Garden Isle, prompting the choice of a stateside vacation. However, there was another more urgent reason behind this years’ choice. An opportunity to close some loops with long-time friends and relatives before addressing the issue at hand. Through long-time interpersonal relationships, they deserved the right to know about the intense drama which was about to play out.

There was also the need to connect with Moogies’ grandchildren and children alike. Although the six grandsons age 18-months through 15 years wouldn’t really understand the nuances or potential ramifications of what was to come, it is important that they be included in the family unit.

The seventh grandson is 28 years of age and is not involved directly. Moogies last contact with him was in Hawaii two years earlier when we hosted him and his significant other. A ring had been purchased and the beautiful setting of a Hawaiian beach at sunset would become the perfect setting for a proposal. He lives in Texas. But even for him, the dynamics of the family were about to change radically and the best way to survive such cataclysm is to weave the bond of love and reassure the grandchildren that their place in the family circle is secure.

The adult children, however, were a different kettle of fish how- ever. For almost fifty years there was an established pecking order in the family. The familiar and accepted was going to be challenged in the days to come. So, the brief interlude of relative quiet before the storm that was Newport Coast offered an opportunity to understand where each of the adult children were intellectually/emotionally and what they expected from the coming culmination of events first given birth to over fifty years earlier before any of them were even born. Their discussion will follow in due course.

For now, let us cast our attention to long-time friends and relatives.

The first visitors to Newport Coast were Uncle Sonny and his significant other Marlena Eagle. Sonny (Italian name with an ‘i’ at the end) is my father’s youngest brother and fifteen years my senior. In truth, he is more than an uncle-more like an all-knowing big brother. My role model. After the Army Sonny chose the field of insurance because he felt that an Italian boy from Brooklyn could be successful in that space. And successful he was. After starting as an underwriter, he hooked his star to the correct senior leadership and that along with his own strength of loyalty, found himself running large segments of the predecessors to what is now Cigna’s insurance empire. At one time, he lived in Japan and headed the Far East International Insurance arm. Later he would be in San Francisco and be at the helm of the West Coast domestic block of business.

Joining Sonny throughout his career and into early retirement at age 55 was his wife Abelie. Abelie is the Italian form of the Latin Abelia, the name of a genus of honeysuckle. Abelie was a reserved and elegant woman but had the quiet strength that let Sonny know that she always had his back. After 40 plus years of marriage Abelie began to develop unusual and puzzling neurological symptoms. For the last two years of their marriage, she spiraled downward at a rapid and relentless pace. Yet Abelie continued to hang on. She had Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. ALS. According to the ALS Society, ALS or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Toward the end as Sonny spent 24/7 attending to his terminally ill wife, thoughts of anger reared their ugly head. Sonny chastised himself for these thoughts. But the last two years were not pleasant.

Moogie and I had spent time with Sonny and Abelie often as we moved through California to our various military assignments around the world and the country. Sonny and Moogie had developed a silent bond over time. When Abelie died, I visited Uncle Sonny just after her funeral. We were driving somewhere and talking about my losing my Dad and being unable to stop the process. I was describing a Rod Serling Night Gallery episode called The Messiah on Mott Street (one of Rod Serling’s finest original scripts, a warm, uplifting story that manages to combine both the Jewish and Christian late-year holidays).

Rodman Edward Rod Serling was an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science-fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone.

The Messiah on Mott Street as I remember it.

It’s Christmas Eve in a rather shabby New York neighborhood where seventy-seven-year-old (the same age as my father when he died) Abraham Goldman lies deathly ill in the cold water flat (apartment is too grand a word) he shares with his orphaned nine-year old grandson, Mikey. His doctor paying house calls back in those days is Morris Levine Son of his father the doctor who previously took care of Mr. Goldman. This current Dr. Levine wants Goldman to go to a hospital. But Abraham is concerned about the welfare of Mikey, his grandson, should he leave the apartment and not return. He very clearly loves the boy.

Later that night,