Excerpt of Mother, Murder, and Me by Sandra Gardner

My mother had only been dead a week when she appeared on my sofa. She shoved me off onto the floor, as a matter of fact. I had just settled down for a quick nap between my crazy–making job and a late–evening rendezvous with my shrink.

"A lady doesn't sit on the floor, Marabella," my mother scolded. She pursed lips that still had traces of her favorite Revlon shade, Rose–of–Sharon. She peered at me from under her shaggy mud–brown hair. Her hair really needed cutting, shaping too, come to think of it.

"What are you doing here?" I tried to muster as much dignity as someone in my position could manage, plopped on the floor as I was. And being berated by ... my mother, who was dead! Wasn't she? "Aren't you...?" My tongue tripped on the words. "Didn't you...?" Of all the crazy stunts my mother had ever pulled, this one took the cake. But I shouldn't be all that surprised, since she'd always been capable of just about anything. So why not this?

"Yes, and no." She leaned back against the sofa pillows, smoothing down the bottom of her dress, the white satin–and–lace number she'd been buried in. "You think it's that easy? Has anything in my life...?"

Oh, no, I thought. I have to keep listening to this stuff even after she's dead.

She clapped a hand over her mouth. "No, nope, I'm not going to do it, I promised." She glared at the ceiling. "And I couldn't help it about the sofa, either. I haven't sat down in a week."

"Why are you here?" I got up off the floor, dusting off my behind.

"Why am I here? Very shortly, you're going to need me, sweetheart," she said, with a self–satisfied smile.