Posted: Oct 26, 08 5:31pm

“Who invited him?” said the withered old woman.

I was frozen in my chair, the fork suspended in mid-air. I was eight. I waited for reality to change.

“Grandma?” my new friend said. Silenia didn’t even look up from her plate, “Henry; Henry, Grandma.” She made the introductions with her knife, a piece of meatloaf skewered on the fork in her other hand.

“I asked ‘who invited him?’” the old woman repeated.

“Well, Grandma,” Silenia replied, “he’s my age and I just introduced him.” Her voice was bored. “Is there something about that scenario that gives you a clue?”

“Don’t you get smart with me, young lady,” the woman spat at Silenia, “I don’t like him being here.”

“I swore him to secrecy, Grandma,” said my friend. “he ain’t gonna tell nobody.”

“He isn’t going to tell anyone,” Grandma corrected.

“Good!” cried the girl, “then you agree it’s okay for him to be here.” Silenia winked at me and smiled; then put her hand on her chin and motioned for me to close my mouth.

But she was right. She made me swear, double-dog swear, that I would tell no one as long as we both shall live. I swore.

I was very shy in school and didn’t have any friends. Even though I usually got a horrible stomach ache when talking to people, I decided to take a chance with Silenia.

I wasn’t too sure it was a good idea now. You see, Grandma was a ghost. You know, she was a see-through, floating, hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck ghost. And she was looking straight at me and she wasn't happy.

"I am NOT happy, Silenia June," said the ghost. Then she folded her arms and turned away. I noticed it started to get cold in the room. Very cold.

"Grandma, you cut that out!" Silenia yelled at the woman. "I'll put the cat on the piano keys again."

"Don't you dare!" The woman whipped around to face the girl sitting at the table. "That is a 1946 Steinway model D. You must never do that again!"

I watched as my new friend calmly ate her dinner.

If I thought this was going to cure me of my shyness, I was crazy. When you think about it, the last place you want to try to cure anything is at a haunted house on Halloween. But I was here now and couldn’t leave. I didn’t want Silenia to think I was afraid, especially since she wasn’t the least bit scared. And on top of that I was getting used to the old woman. I looked at her, she ignored me. In fact, she started doing something very unghost like; picking her fingernails.

“I think I need a manicure, Silenia,” she muttered.

“I’m sure you do, Grandma,” Silenia replied. She grinned at me again. Silenia had a smile that made you into a fellow conspirator.

I found my appetite again. I even started to get on good terms with Grandma, even though she would occasionally try to scare me. By the end of the meal, I was laughing at the old spook movie ghost moves: making her face change shapes and screaming horribly. I caught Grandma smiling just a little.

When it was time for me to leave she said, “It was nice dining with you, Henry.” Then she really did smile as she added, “Happy Halloween.”

“Same to you, Grandma,” I said and waved.

Silenia and I became best friends. Every Halloween I would go to her house for dinner and spend Grandma’s one night of freedom with her. I even played a few tricks on her. The one I remember most clearly was getting some old piano keys from my mother’s piano tuner and hiding them under the keyboard cover. After we were done our dinner I said that I wanted to try the piano. Silenia said, "Sure go ahead." Grandma wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but didn’t object.

When I opened the keyboard cover I pushed the extra keys on the floor and said, “Oops.” You should have heard Grandma scream. Silenia laughed so hard milk came out of her nose. Grandma was only mad for a few minutes.

Silenia and I went off to university and lost touch. I went through two marriages and divorces, she notched one of each. Then she called one day and we got together for lunch. That’s when our friendship really started. We would exchange notes about our lives. She had become a writer. Not just any writer, a great writer. She became famous even, publishing five incredible books. Well, great in this accountant's eyes, anyway.

But more often than not, she was depressed. She couldn’t find her ‘soul mate.’ She knew he was out there but was upset about not being able to find him. Then one day: bingo! We had lunch and she told me all about Richard. The meal was a full hour of effusive descriptions and glowing adjectives.

But that was our last lunch; our last meal of any kind, come to think of it. That was the year that Grandma came to my house on Halloween.

“Well, I couldn’t very well stay there, could I?” she responded to my question. I gestured with my fork that she should go on. “HE’S there. He controls her totally, says who she can see, what she can eat.” Grandma look disgusted. “And she goes along with it.”

“She’s a grown woman, Grandma,” I said.

“She’s a crazy woman,” Grandma replied. “You have to do something. You two are friends. She talked about you all the time.”

“It isn’t any of my business,” I said.

“Of course it’s your business, Henry” Grandma retorted. “You have to get her to leave him.”

I tried, of course. But my calls went unanswered, my letters returned unopened, and I listened to an empty house after each ring of the doorbell.

It was a Tuesday evening in October and I was watching TV. Suddenly the screen went blank and Grandma’s face appeared.

“Henry, Silenia’s on her way to St. Mary’s in an ambulance.” Grandma looked really scared. “He said he had to teach her a lesson.”

I arrived at the hospital just in time to see the doctor come out shaking his head. Silenia had ‘fallen down the stairs.’ I knew better, but couldn’t prove anything. What would I say? A ghost witnessed the whole thing and told me about it? I’m certain the judge would see that as solid evidence.

It was a rainy October 31st, perfect funeral weather. It was exactly 25 years after my first dinner with Silenia and Grandma. I stayed by a tree away from the grave. My feelings were confused: sad, grieving, guilty. I watched Richard as he threw the shovel of dirt on the coffin.

“Who invited him?” I heard Grandma’s bitter voice from the rain-drenched branches above me.

I stared at the rectangular hole in the earth and waited for reality to change.