I Have A Ghost Mom

Ever since my little brother died of a sudden high fever and Mom started spending all her time with Matthew Hunt, I started cutting her out of our family photos. One day, Dad got a call from my teacher. She overheard me saying I lost my mom, and I wanted to borrow my classmate's mom instead. Dad paused for a moment, then didn't correct me. "Yeah," he said quietly. "She passed away early." At the school's parent-child sports day, Dad saw me slip a cleaner ten dollars and ask her to be my mom for the day. He didn't stop me. Instead, he handed her another 200 bucks and asked if she could attend the parent meeting, too. After that, whenever something called for a mom, Dad let me go out and "hire" one. It wasn't until much later that Mom realized she hadn't heard from us in a long time. She canceled her meetings and came to pick me up from school herself. But at the gate, the teacher frowned and stopped her. Confused, she went home. The moment she stepped inside, she heard me talking to the property manager. "My mom's dead," I said. "Do you wanna be my new mom?"

I'd been home for half a month, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that Mom wasn't quite herself anymore. She looked and sounded like she always had, but something felt different. Then, one day, I got a message from her that sent a chill down my spine. "Lily, hide! There's a ghost in the house!" At first, I thought she was pulling a prank on me—or maybe her account got hacked. Then, there was a knock on my bedroom door. Mom, who had just finished cooking, called out to tell me the meal was ready. I was still hesitating when another message popped up. It was a voice message. "Trust me, Lily. I'm your real mom! The one out there is a ghost! Run!" It sounded just like Mom's voice from outside. My mind was racing in panic. Not hearing me respond, Mom giggled from the other side of the door and said, "I'm coming in."

The phone had fallen and disassembled and the call, disconnected. "Who, who, who are you?" She became a heavy stutterer in an instant. The man who stood at the door to the kitchen walked forward and the light illuminated his features. He was lean and tall, very tall. Dressed in a white long sleeved shirt and dark suit pants, the few exposed parts of his body were ashen, lifeless and cold, like a bleak winter day. "Marry me." These were the two words that came from the deathly pale lips of his emotionless face... ********** Moving away from her overprotective parents, Geneva thought that she could finally lead a stress-free life. This was ruined when a ghost demands intimacy with her, his soulmate, to recover his lost memories and body.

I was crushed into a pulp by a speeding semi-truck while my mother was at a baking class with my cousin. When I called her, desperate, she only snapped at me. "What's all the racket? Kyle burned his hand because your call distracted him. Did you do that on purpose?" The next day, in her capacity as one of the city's most celebrated morticians, she was assigned to restore the face of a body mangled beyond recognition. She worked on it for a full day and night and still couldn't bring back the dead woman's face. Mom, can you really not recognize her? That's the face of the daughter you hated most.

After my mom, Margaret Hale, dies of a heart attack, she starts appearing in my sister Claire Dawson's dreams. In a dream, Mom tells Claire to climb Mount Mistwood before sunrise and burn the entrance ticket for her, or the other ghosts will bully her. Claire doesn't tell me anything. She packs a bag in the middle of the night and forces herself to the summit. While she's gasping her way up that mountain, I'm asleep at home when I suddenly go into cardiac arrest. I wake up in the emergency room with doctors shouting over me. I barely survive before Mom appears in Claire's dreams again. This time, she says skydiving is her last wish. If Claire doesn't do it for her, she won't rest in peace. Claire signs up right away, ignoring everything I say. But then, her parachute refuses to open, and she plummets toward the ground. Luckily, she gets snagged in a tree and walks away without a scratch. Meanwhile, I miss a step going downstairs, tumble to the bottom, end up covered in bruises, and break five ribs. While I'm recovering in the hospital, Mom shows up in Claire's dreams again. Now, she wants Claire to go to the South Pole for her, saying she can finally move on and be reincarnated once Claire completes the trip. Claire doesn't hesitate and books a tour on the spot. While she's taking pictures with penguins, I freeze to death back home during a 104-degree heatwave. Only after I die does it finally hit me that Mom's missions for Claire always end with me on death's doorstep. What I don't understand is how Mom keeps shifting the danger meant for Claire onto me instead. The next time I open my eyes, I'm back on the morning after Mom first appeared in Claire's dream.

On April Fool’s Day, my CEO husband cut out my heart to save his childhood sweetheart's son. After the surgery, he tossed me into a cold rental apartment, where I died in agony. Three days after my death, my five-year-old daughter played in the room as usual. Walking by the sofa, she wrinkled her little nose and mumbled, "Mommy, there's a weird smell in here." She touched my face and murmured, "Mommy, are you pretending to be Snow White? Why are you so pale?" She shook my arm harder and raised her voice, "Mommy, it's my birthday today—get up and blow out the candles!" Confused, she picked up the phone and called her father. “Daddy, did I make Mommy mad? I lit the candles, but no matter how much I call her, she won’t wake up.” On the other end of the call, Patrick Hart’s voice was cold and impatient. “What could possibly be wrong with her? She’s just pretending to be asleep for sympathy. It’s Johnny’s birthday, I’m busy. Don’t bother me! Tell your melodramatic mother to stop playing her little tricks. I don't have time to humor her." My daughter removed the candle from her bun, pinched off a piece of the bun, and fed it to me. "Mommy, I made a secret wish… I really wish you could hold me again, just like before."