For Caitlin and Nicole O'Connor two sisters from Massachusetts, the divorce of their parents and the death of their best friend was only the beginning of their problems. It now seems that there is a ghost in their house and a mystery to be solved as well. With the help of their grandmother, a dog named Dog, their next door neighbor Craig and a bizarre gypsy, the girls set out to form "The Soul Patrol" and try to uncover the reason why their friend Kelsey can't cross over and be at peace. With only a short amount of time on their hands, the girls must somehow deal with frozen windows, a talking doll, a wake, a singing alarm clock and a dark, shocking secret all the while learning that death is a part of life. "The Soul Patrol" will make you laugh, cry and reflect on how precious life is. But most of all, like the girls, you will learn that while family and friends may not be perfect, love given freely and without condition can solve any crisis and perhaps even bring a broken family, back together.
The Soul Patrol
By B. GrigolettiAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2009 B. Grigoletti
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4490-1581-7Chapter One
A Terrible day ...
My name is Caitlin O'Conner and I live outside of Boston, Massachusetts in a town called Braintree with my mother and little sister Nicole. My dad, who I get my Irish last name from, has been living in the city since the divorce and is a struggling author. I love my dad very much. He visits us often and is the only man I think my mother will ever truly love, even though he drives her crazy. I have a very cute black wire-haired dachshund who we named "Dog". He got that name because when my dad was still living with us, my parents could not stop barking at one another long enough to actually agree on any of the other names that we came up with. Dog follows my sister and me around the house like we have kibble in our pockets. Wherever we go, Dog is there.
My neighborhood is nice and quiet. There are about thirty families with kids living on our street and even though we are not all in the same age group, almost everyone tends to get along.
I also have a best friend named Kelsey Adams who grew up right next door to me. We've been playmates since both our moms brought us home from the hospital twelve years ago. Our birthdays are only five days apart and we have shared everything we've ever owned since we knew how to share. Until recently, I could not have imagined a life without her, but two weeks ago, both she and her mother Suzanne were killed in a car crash on the highway that runs alongside our town. Since then, I have cried, thrown up and felt like a part of me has somehow been lost. I've also seen my Mother collapse twice from the grief of losing her best friend. She and Mrs. Adams had known each other since they were little kids. I swear to you that I am as struck with grief as I possibly could be. I just sometimes wish Kelsey would move on and stop haunting us.
Let me back up a bit and explain what has been going on over the last twelve days. We got news of the tragedy from my dad. It seems that the police found his number in Mrs. Adams' purse on her emergency contact list. They called my dad to notify him that there had been a terrible accident. As usual, Matthew, her husband was away on business. He travels a lot for a company that makes special drugs for very sick people.
Nothing in this world could describe the joy I felt when I saw my father's crappy old black Jeep pull into our driveway on a day that he wasn't scheduled for a visit. I burst out from the front door with Nicole and Dog right behind me and ran up to give him a great big hug but the second I saw his face, I knew that something bad had happened. He dropped down on one knee calling us over to him. I froze solid. I couldn't move. My feet felt like they had sunk into the earth.
I thought to myself, Here it comes, he is marrying someone else. He is going to finally move away to get on with his life. Or maybe he is here to tell us that he is dying from some rare form of cancer. I was in a panic. My heart was beating so fast, I felt faint.
He called to me again. "Caitlin, come here sweetie."
"No."
My sister was already in his arms and he was holding her close. I always hated when Nicole snuggled up to our dad; it's not as if she didn't get enough attention as the baby of the family already.
"Caitlin sweetie, I need to talk to you."
"I am not going to listen to you. It's bad news. The last time you knelt down like this, you and mom got a divorce!"
My dad began to tremble. He held my sister tighter and whispered, "Come here Cait, please."
I swallowed a huge lump in my throat and walked the last three steps towards him. He pulled me in. It seemed like this simple act of holding me brought all of his grief rushing to the surface. Tears I had not seen since the day he drove away in that terrible little rental truck carrying everything he owned, came gushing from his eyes. I started to cry as well. There I was in my front yard, arms locked around my daddy's neck, wedged in along with my sister, crying hysterically and I wasn't even sure why.
My mom came to the door. Seeing the display taking place, she immediately went into her "this is obviously your father's fault" mode and said in a voice far colder than even she probably intended, "What the hell is going on out here, Ian?"
My dad's eyes shot open. Slowly, he un-snaked our arms from around his neck and stood up. He took our hands and walked towards my Mother.
It's very weird how time slows down when your world is coming undone. Since that day, I have stood in the same place where we were huddled together and counted how long it takes to walk the eleven paces from that point to the front porch. It's less than four seconds. Yet on that day, still not knowing what the news was, the walk felt like a mile and the time it took to complete it felt like an eternity. I can tell those of you who have not yet been through this kind of situation, that you notice things, things that normally would simply be too small or unimportant to grab your attention. For instance, I noticed that my dad was still wearing his wedding ring, something I never noticed before. If he was about to get remarried, he wouldn't be wearing the gold band that Mommy had given him, right? That thought seemed to calm me momentarily but then as we took each step towards my mom, I saw her expression change from anger, to uncertain, to nervous, to frantic and finally to fear.
"Chrissy, it's Suzanne and ..."
"Oh God, what happened Ian?"
I never heard what he said after that. Perhaps it was God's way of softening the blow, who knows? Although it's hard, I can now admit as I write the account of that day, that I am a terrible person. More terrible than any of the villains or antagonists that my dad writes about in his stories, more terrible than any kid born on this planet from the beginning of time until now. I stood there as my mom fell into my dad's arms crying. I watched as she hit him with a small punch to his chest, a reaction that I'll never understand but one that seemed to make him want to hold her all the closer, and what was I doing? What was the most terrible girl on the planet thinking, as she stood there? I was thinking about how happy I was that my daddy was not sick and dying or how lucky I was that he was not getting a new wife.
Then my stomach lurched. Wait a minute, what could make my mom and dad cry like this? What could have happened, that was making two adults who had spent most of the last three years in a constant state of war, cry like this?
Then, came the impact to my system that made me stagger and fall flat down on my butt. "Suzanne." The name rang in my head over and over again. "Oh no, Mrs. Adams is dead."
I jumped back up. I screamed at the top of my lungs, grabbing the black jacket that he was wearing, "Where's Kelsey? Daddy, where's Kelsey?"
I have read in my dad's stories, that there are moments when words cannot capture the expression on a person's face. Instances, when sentences and paragraphs are unable to clearly describe another's body language to the reader. The news of a death is most certainly one of those times. Since I am a writer's daughter, I will at least paint for you as best I can, the look that settled on my dad's face as I spiraled into the realization that my BFF was now gone.
His eyes were tear-soaked and red from crying so hard. His nose was running slightly, he kept sniffing, trying to keep from having to wipe it. His cheeks were flushed with sorrow and from not having the heart to tell me what he knew he must find the courage to say. He stood there and three times was almost able to begin his sentence, almost able to utter the news to me. Each time he sighed and drew a deeper breath, it caused him such awful distress that I thought he might simply burst apart right there on our front lawn.
My hysteria was now in full bloom. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Daddy please, where is she? Where is my friend? Dad, come on, DADDY. WHERE IS KEL ...?"
Let me take a quick moment to say that I am proud to be a female. I know that sounds like a silly thing to say at this point but let me try to explain. Boys seem to get very confused when emotions are running so high. They are supposed to be strong, confident and not make a scene in public. We females, thanks to what my mom calls "a positive example of reverse discrimination," are allowed to do whatever's necessary to vent and release our pain. That is why at that very moment I was so proud of being a girl, because it was my mom who knew exactly what needed to be done. My mom stepped up and grabbed me in her arms and let me cry and scream and kick and struggle; all the while, trying to pass what little self control she had left to me through her embrace. In that moment, when my world was falling apart, it was my mom who jumped in and saved the day. In the past, I had blamed her many times for what happened to our family, for driving my daddy away. But that day, the day Kelsey died, I was never happier to have her in my life.
Finally, my father herded us inside the house, away from prying eyes. Eyes that could not be seen, but you know are finger-peeking through their window blinds, watching the drama unfold on our front lawn. He shut the door and brought Nicole and I over to the couch. My mom took her place kneeling beside us, stroking my hair and whispering over and over again that, "everything was going to be alright."
I remember thinking How can she possibly know that? How can my mother who is sitting here alive and breathing, know that everything was going to be alright?
I began shaking and nearly leapt out of my own skin when Dog decided that I looked like I needed a thirteen-pound bearded wiener dog's attention and proceeded to jump into my lap. I pushed him away with more force than I meant to. Feeling unwanted, he scurried off to the love seat across from us, jumped up onto it and sat there glaring at me.
My dad sat with us on the couch, placing himself between me and Nicole. He pulled us closer to him again and rocked us gently back and forth.
"Caitlin, Nicole, I know right now none of this makes any sense, but listen to me, Kelsey and her mom, well they're in a better place."
"Was the accident bad daddy?" Nicole's question was asked in between sniffles and sighs.
"Ummm, well sweetie, let me just say that they did not suffer. The impact I was told, was sudden and ummm, they just went to sleep, okay?"
"Sleep? You mean died."
"Yes, Cait, I mean ..." tremors racked his chest. Now I could finally see the news bearing down on my mom's soft round face. She sat there looking straight ahead for a while, then leaned forward, so that we could not see the tears, but her hair began to sway like wheat grass in a soft summer breeze as agony and sorrow crept into her heart and settled there.
I looked at my father who was watching mom cry and wished that he would let us go for a moment and go hold her, but I guess that there comes a time when bridges can't be repaired, when affection feels awkward and uncertain. He comforted us while she sat on the floor feeling alone. More alone than I ever could have imagined she could have felt at the time.
I don't remember exactly how long we stayed like that, the three of us in a group hug and mom, who was now lying on her side on the Persian carpet. Over a period of time, she slowly slipped down and curled up into a small, fragile ball. Dad closed his eyes, but I could hear the heartbeat in his chest and it was thumping away much faster than it usually did when we used to snuggle on the couch at night.
I stretched out my legs and laid my feet on the coffee table. As if on a silent cue from some hidden stage director who was helping us rehearse for this surreal and tortuous play, he said, "Honey, don't put your feet on the table, please."
I don't know about the rest of you, but rules can't be rules all the time, there must be exceptions. For instance, when a friend dies in a horrible car accident and you're wondering about God, faith, death, if dogs go to heaven and how much you don't want to see your best friend in a black box; shouldn't the "no feet on the furniture" rule be waived? Well, I believe it should and much to my father's shock and dismay, I felt this was the appropriate time to tell him just that. I leapt off the large beige couch and spun back around to face him.
"My feet? Jesus, do you honestly think that my sneakers being on the table has anything to do with the fact that my best friend just died? I mean, God Dad, give me a break, you don't even live here anymore. Who are you to tell me where to put my feet in our house? You ran off remember? You left us! Is it so important to you, that you felt the need to rip me about it today, of all days? I mean okay, it's not a nice habit, I get it, but Kelsey is dead. Newsflash Dad, shoes on the O'Conner coffee table is not tonight's top story!"
I turned and stormed off up the stairs towards my room. Nicole, I later found out, kissed our dad's cheek before standing and following me to my bedroom. I could hear her coming down the hall behind me, so I left my door open so she could come in.
"God Nicole, dad is such a pain in the butt sometimes. Was it really so important to remind me about my shoes, was it?"
"Probably not, but he said it out of habit, I think."
Nicole has a certain logic that at times creeps me out. I am not certain if it's because she has the un-blurred vision of a child or the mind of a great thinker. Let me give you an example of my sister's level of clarity. One day last spring, it had just rained and we were coming out the mall after shopping for Easter dresses at J.C. Penny's. There were giant puddles of water everywhere that had collected in the wavy tarmac parking lot. I, being a normal and healthy eleven year old at the time, rushed forward and did a standing cannon ball into the puddle, slamming both my feet down at the exact same instant. My mom yelled for me to stop, just as the water doused her and the new shopping bag, while drenching me and turning my socks into a cotton swamp inside my sneakers. And where was my sister Nicole? Standing about four yards further back, where incidentally I had started my approach towards the puddle, unmoved and showing no signs of following my lead. When I urged her to join me, she promptly and definitively told me no. I was aghast, shocked and even outraged, almost as much as my mother was at me for what I had just done. When I pressed her as to why she would not partake of the wet and wonderful experience of puddle jumping, she said and I quote, "I'll get wet." My dear reader, what kind of six year old thinks like that? When I saw the puddle, all rational thought sprang from my mind. All I could think was, "RUN, JUMP." Well, now I suppose, you understand what I have to contend with every single day. I am sure I have your sympathies.
Nicole climbed up on my bed beside me and sat there hugging her legs, which was her favorite pose when she needed to ask me a question. I walked over to my stereo and clicked the play button on. I quickly lowered the volume as the sounds of Aly and AJ began to trickle through the speakers. I think those first few moments, when I was just sitting there beside my sister in my room, will stay with me forever. My best friend in the whole world was dead. I would never see her again.
"Sissy?" Nicole asked.
I turned and looked at her. She was average size for her age, which fortunately meant, that when they line up for a fire drill by height at school, she has a fifty-fifty chance of getting out alive before the building burns down. Her hair is reddish blonde like mine, but when the light hits hers it always seems a bit more blonde than mine does.
(Reason #47 why I had to usually pick on her at least four times a day) Her locks fall to her shoulders and are combed parted off to the right side.
"Yes?"
"What are you going to do for a best friend now?" She looked at me with soft eyes. I have to admit, my heart felt a bit squishy because I knew what she was trying to say.
"I don't know Nicole, I haven't really had time to review my list of who's who, ya' know? I mean Kelsey just passed away a few hours ago, I need some time to think."
"Oh, okay Sissy."
Now, I was really a rotten person. I knew what she wanted to hear and I purposefully snatched it away from her. It's not that I like being cruel, but sometimes I forget how to be nice, how to let down my guard and trust and be loved. I think it's because I have spent so many years watching the two people I look up to needle and pick and fire shot after shot at each other, rather than smile and hug. I guess it just feels more natural to take somebody out at the knees, then lift them up off the floor.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Soul Patrolby B. Grigoletti Copyright © 2009 by B. Grigoletti. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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