Josephine
"You're running into walls again," She tells me cheerfully, "Let me tell you when to back up!"
Josephine. She stands there at my side table, hold her perfectly elegant fan an inch beneath my nose as if it were the cutlass that hung at her thigh. I've seen that, too; the cutlass, not the thigh.
I'm odd. Would anyone else take the advice of a hundred year old ghost? But I listen to her words carefully as I dress; she turns her head and adress the window.
"You're not ennunciating enough," She says, fingering the fan, "And your gesturing is to florid. For the love of the blessed Mother Mary, would you please approach that nice Lisa girl?!" She turns around, knowing by instinct that I'm dressed. "Otherwise, you're the apple of perfection. There. Shall we break fast downstairs?"
***
Josephine chose me when I was twelve, on an exceptionally warm Halloween night. I had decided to climb to the top of the playground jungle gym, just to test how far I could fall and still get up, like Rickey Steamboat or Jimmy Snuka. The last time I tried it out, the world went black, and I artfully earned my first concussion. The first voice that woke me from my stupor wasn't that of my friends; nor was it their touch that roused me to wakefullness, but the pat of a gloved hand on my cheek that stirred me.
Naturally, I was frightened by the spiritual apparition of a twenty-year old woman, clothed like an early Daugerotype and bearing some sort of concearn for me. I learned not to talk about her; as time streched on, she proved to be a harmful influence on my person. I walked straighter, smiled longer, managed to appear to have some sort of confidence in myself. Without having a mom to confide in, and my dad being gone, she helped round my life out with a female touch.
When no one else cared, she did.
She was the only thing in my life pulling for me to get away from the throes of a two-year old drug addiction that almost cost me my job. Without her influence I would have certainly died. Without her influence, I would still be in the Bingo Hall.
If she were a real woman, I would set her up for life. She would never have to worry for anything in her life. But, if she were a flesh-bound woman, she would resist my efforts to make her safe. Though she sought to help me attain comfort, she sook none for herself.
I asked her why she picked me, out of anyone in the universe. She looked to her own knees, unable to answer me. "My life was futile, in many ways. You needed me, Mon Petite, in some ways."
I couldn't resist that truth.
I wondered if she stood to hold my heart romantically. But she insisted not. Sometimes, she seemed more a part of my blood, and thoughts of romance seemed incestuous.
***
As luck would hold it, Lisa sat downstairs, nibbling absorbedly on a crossaint.
"Oh, there's your bird," Josephine noted, a tiny smile on her lips.
"The bird I can't call to my shoulder," I thought.
"You haven't presented the seed," She noted.
"Not for lack of your trying!" I flushed, remembering different incidents she had facilitated; a stopped elevator, a broken-down bus, and an overnight stop for the entire group in a "romantic" farm house.
She lifted her nose, a miniature Mary Poppins, "At the very least, I have been trying. Though cutting off your hair and begging Vince to put her in your little group was an ingenious plan."
I swallowed hard. Lisa, as if divining my thoughts, glanced up from the newspaper sprawled over her empty table. Josephine gave me a sharp push to the middle of my back, "Go on and get her!"
I lept forward, rattling Lisa's table. The other diners glanced up from their meals to wonder and snicker and I, flushed, pointed appologetically to a snag in the rug (Artfully created with the heel of Josephine's boot.). "Uh, hi Lisa!" I squeaked dorkily.
She smiled, perky and spunky as always, "Hi." She retorted. I stared at the crown of her head as she bent back to reading.
"Ask her outside!" Josephine hissed to me.
"Would you like to come outside, Lisa?"
She gazed up and out of the window, "It's snowy outside," She noticed. "And my boots are..." She glanced down at her feet in shock, "On my feet?" She thought for a long moment, then shook her head, "Let's walk outside."
There was a prominade at the back of the hotel, where high school students roamed at their senior proms. We ventured over the snow-covered bridges together over the frozen man-made stream, our breath before us in grey clouds, their heavy twins over our heads. It was a gloomy, downcast atmosphere. She leaned down, staring at her reflection in the frozen stream.
"Lisa..I know things have been weird over the month..but I was wondering....Isn't it very hot?" I blurted out. Suddenly, the weather seemed too warm to bear my wearing a winter coat. I heard Lisa gasp beside me. I followed her train of sight, and felt astonishment grasp me as well.
The snow..melting..in huge floods. The stream ran. And, vividly around us, orchids bloomed in the bushes.
Lisa spun around on her heels, stunned by the beauty that surrounded us.
"I don't understand it.." She whispered, "Do you see..all of this?!"
"I do," I assured her.
At that moment, another, smaller miracle occurred. Her hand slipped into my own.
From the bushes, a pair of blue eyes glittered, and Josephine's laugh echoed on the warm October breeze.
****
As Lisa and I began to date heavily, and our commitmement to one another grew stronger, Josephine came around me less frequently. Lisa and I moved in together, and she became my wife. Within a year of our first anniversary, Lisa became pregnant with our first child. I wondered what Josephine thought of my Lisa now.
On Halloween of this year, Lisa went into labor. My heart lept at the sight of our little girl, Josephine Manna.
On Jo's first night home from the hospital, I held her in my her little Jack O Lantern jumper and rocked in the nursery. A warm breeze tickled my nose, and a fan whapped me on the tip of my nose.
"Josephine?!" I laughed softly, surprised to see her after all of this time.
Her upturned nose rose heavenward, "No one else." She said with mock-haughtiness.
"Where have you been? Why did you come back now?" I babbled. "You have to meet Lisa."
She silenced me with the fan once again, "In time." She smiled, "Tommorrow. But here I am, because you need me."
"And why, madame is that?"
"Because, you and Lisa know nothing about the care of infants," She smiled affectionately, "Especially exceedingly beautiful ones such as this." She stroked my daughter's forehead with a gloved finger.
Lisa padded excitedly into the nursery, "Michael," She smiled, "Your mother just came with these. It's a family Bible."
I gently traded my daughter to Lisa, in order to examine the Bible. The much-worn cover fell open, exposing worn pages to the light. From the creases, a worn photograph tumbled into my hand. A daugerotupe of a woman tumbled free. A woman who was unmistakably Josephine.
I turned over the worn photgraph, noting the date.
"Who is this?" I asked, awestricken. Lisa leaned over my shoulder, squinting at the print on the family tree etched on the opposite page.
"Josephine Edwina Manna." She said, "Your Great Grandmother."