A Ghost Story

One of my all time favorite books is The Time Travelers Wife. You may have seen the previews for the movie that was released a few months back...but trust me the book is better. I haven't actually seen the movie yet, but I just can't imagine that anyone can capture the essence of the story in less than two hours.

I was surprised to discover that this was Audrey Niffenegger's first novel. Her much anticipated second novel was released on October 1. Her Fearful Symmetry is a story about love, family dynamics and the afterlife. It is an understatement to call it a ghost story...yet that is the world you enter as you open it's pages.

Her Fearful Symmetry is the story of two sets of twins...Edie and Elspeth who have not seen each other for twenty years, and Edie's twins, Julia and Valentina, who inherit their Aunt Elspeth's London flat. The younger twins, who have never even met their aunt, move from their parent's Chicago area home to London for a year in order to receive their full inheritance. There is one odd condition of the will: their parents may not enter the flat during that time. It seems there are secrets that are just as haunting as the ghost of their aunt who is growing stronger and making herself known to those who frequent the flat.

I will not spoil the story for you, but I highly recommend the book. It was a good read, and yet I found myself taking it slow so as to savor the story...even if it is unbelievable on more than one level.

I finished the book last Monday evening.

Fast forward to Monday night. It is 11:01 pm and a steady rain is falling outside. Jim and I are in bed when his cell phone rings. Nothing strange there as he is the first call for one of our clients. Every time it rains or the winds blow, one of their facilities lose power and the alarm company calls to let us know that we need to get someone out to reset the fire pump.

Jim picks up his phone and looks at the display, he begins reading the number to me. The number is familiar, but it is late and I can't think clearly. Just then, my cell phone begins ringing. Since I have contacts set up in my phone (he just remembers every phone number he has ever called) my display reads: HOME.

As you know, we still have a few kids at home...but what you probably don't know is that we do not use our home phone because we all have cells. We only have a land line for emergency situations (and hurricanes - when cells are always overloaded). Not only that, but the only land line phone in our house is in our office...which you can only access by going through our bedroom.

We look at each other and deem it all 'weird'.

At 11:25 pm, it happens again...both phones. His first and then mine. I am a little freaked out at this so I burst into the office to see what is going on. The telephone is sitting on the desk and when I pick it up it is full of static and playing the recording, "If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again." What the heck?

I call AT&T and make a repair request. Over an hour later there is another phone call to Jim's cell...and another the next day.

Maybe it is the ghost story that is fresh on my mind...but the phone calls freak me out for a little while!

A few days later it is determined that there is a short in the line and that short is somehow causing the telephone to call the first two programmed numbers. Either that, or we have a ghost!