My grandmother can’t keep a secret, specifically my mother’s secrets. When I was 12, she spoiled the surprise trip to Disney World that my parents had planned to take my sister and me on. When I was 21, she broke the news that our two family dogs (may they rest in peace) ate our pet bird (may he rest in peace) when I was in kindergarten. Admittedly, even as a 5-year-old, I suspected that Doc had died under hushed circumstances, and now, at least, I know that my suspicions were right. Guess you could say that I have a sixth sense (more on that in the next paragraph).
But perhaps the biggest secret that has slipped through my grandma’s well-lipsticked lips was one that drastically shaped my identity: I had a ghost friend when I was 3, back when my family was renting a house that happened to be directly across the street from a cemetery in New Orleans. Reader, this meant that six years, two-thirds of my life at the time — I knew my fractions — had gone by without mention of the fact that I had my very own Casper. I had no memory of this, of course, but the betrayal I had felt in that moment at 9 years old, from the very woman who touts “no secrets in this family,” was like none I’ve felt since.
Once those beans were spilled at that fateful lunch, my mom looked like — well, she looked like she had just seen a ghost. Unlike the killer-dog secret which garnered nervous laughter upon revelation, this secret made my mom give Gammy the look I had thought was only reserved for when my sister and I were in deep, deep trouble, the kind of trouble where we went to our room without having to be told. This secret was unspeakable, and she said as much: “I’m not talking about it.”
To this day, I cannot get this woman to tell me all the dirty, ghostly details, and I try. Trust me, I try. In between begging for answers and “Jesus Christ, Abigail, ask me again and see what happens,” I’ve gathered a few tidbits. My mom would see me talking to nothing, though I claimed to be talking with my friend. I called her Dorea. She was around my age. She had a brother. She came to New Orleans on a ship. I told my mom Dorea wore “pantaloons” under her dress — a word far outside my 3-year-old vocabulary. I said she looked “strange” — the only word in my vocabulary that I could muster to describe whoever, or whatever, I was seeing.
Regardless, it was enough to freak my mom out. She won’t drive past that house anymore. The family that lived there after us died in a plane crash. I’m sure there’s no relation; she’s not so sure.
Despite my mother’s clear aversion to the topic, after I found out about Dorea, I felt like a badass. I was (am) a shy kid, but apparently my shyness didn’t stop me from speaking with the dead. Dare I say, I felt like the Virgin Mary, the ultimate lady in my Catholic schoolgirl frame of reference — hand-selected for something greater than what the skeptics in this world could handle. I longed to find a way to wedge Dorea into my story, to make her more than just a one-line anecdote that my grandmother casually mentions in a conversation at a random Tuesday lunch.
I’d try to force a memory of that time, to picture what Dorea looked like, what our conversations could’ve been, but all I can remember from that house was the green carpeted staircase that I took a tumble down in front of the young handyman (the embarrassment!) and the PBS Kids logo that floated on the TV screen when my mom told me that our dog Hobbes (who we had before the bird-killing ones) had gone off to heaven, and that no, the vet didn’t kill him, no matter how convinced I was. (I guess my sixth sense wasn’t fully formed then … or maybe it was. Now, that’s a haunting thought.) Oh, if only I could remember Dorea instead.
But I don’t.
So now Dorea really is simply an anecdote with just enough embellishment to fill this short space in the Flyer, but not enough to write the next Nancy Drew-esque book that 9-year-old me had planned to get out of the whole “Dorea thing.” (Dorea would’ve been the perfect Bess to my Nancy, I was convinced.) Every now and then, I’ll hop onto Google and go down hours-long rabbit holes of census records, looking for some kind of answer, but I’m as clueless as ever.
There’s a part of me that thinks I should just let the idea of her go and be grateful that I had a friend when Hobbes died or when my mom was dealing with my grouchy, recently born little sister. I was never alone or lonely in that house. I wonder, though, if Dorea is.
I’m going back to New Orleans for the weekend, which just so happens to be Halloween, when the veil between this world and the next is thinnest. Maybe I’ll drive by that house. In theory, I’m old enough to go by myself, but my mom has volunteered Gammy to go with me. Maybe I’ll see Dorea, or maybe I’ll just get another secret out of my grandma. Either way, I’ll be in good company.
