One day last year my best friend invited me over to his house to watch a ball game. There were a few other people over as well when I arrived; the woman who opened the door and invited me in startled me. A ghost I thought, how could this be I murdered this woman. My best friend introduced the ghost woman to me as his girlfriend. Usually rock solid in a crisis, I faltered for a moment before re-gaining my composure. This woman had to be a sister of the woman I had killed, I am sure I would find out the details if my friend dated her for very long.
The rest of the day was rather awkward; it seemed that every place I went in my friend’s house this woman was there. She knew that I was the best friend of her boyfriend and it was just casual conversation she was seeking. She wanted to know the usual new girlfriend stuff. I answered all of her questions to the best of my knowledge. I kept telling myself that she was giving me every opportunity to dig into her past, but paranoia set in at our introduction and I played it conservatively.
That evening when I got home my wife was still away at her charity function so I went into the study to do some research. I did not know my victims real name, but I did know where she lived so I started there. Less than twenty minutes later I was reading an obituary and there was the ghost woman’s name, she was listed as a sibling survivor. So she was not a ghost after all I thought.
I could always hope that my friend and the sister of one of my victims would break up soon and that I could put this behind me. That however, did not quite work out to my advantage either; the two of them are still together to this day. I attended their wedding last weekend. Naturally I was the best man and I was able to meet the rest of her family at the wedding rehearsal. There were four daughters in all, the bride, the victim and two older sisters whom were both medical doctors. The parents were both retired professionals and a very friendly sort of people.
I suffered through the rehearsal and the subsequent wedding; weddings are really not my thing. I did share one thing in common with my victim’s father though; both of us had a daughter that we would never be walking down the aisle. Neither the bride’s family or us (my Wife and I) made a mention of the family members who were absent either. It did seem as if it was noticeable in my Wife if you knew what signs to look for but she survived the ordeal and so did I. My friend’s new in-laws all seemed to be a merry looking clan and the only tears that were shed were tears of joy for the newlyweds.
The world is really much smaller than we sometimes believe it to be. I could never have imagined a scenario like this would happen. My friend’s new extended family were such a jolly sort it made me wonder what had driven their other daughter to suicide? The only solace I had from the entire situation was that I would get to become close to a person that had a family member who had been murdered. Then I would be able to determine once and for all if my hobby actually served a purpose or not.