This story is he long version that was featured in my book, Ghost Stories for the Chicken At Heart- extended version. I have added to what happened during the story including the conversations and more of the tale.
To give this story a little bit of context to how I began working at this Sears store that we saw this ghost in. A few weeks before the traumatic birth of my son, my ex-husband started to grumble about wanting to quit his job and how he felt he needed and deserved a change. I had tried to gently reminded him that I was already taking care of the kids, home and working on my home business which did not make a lot of money. We had argued because he said I was lazy and did not do that much while he suffered all day working a strenuous job. He never helped around the house or cared for the kids and I told him if I was to find a job after my son was older he would be responsible for caring for the kids which meant he would have to get up early, get the kids ready and to school, care for a newborn, clean the house and cook all the meals. Not including all the other things that were added into daily and weekly tasks. While I was preparing the day before going to the hospital he mentioned it again and I reminded him that I could not handle everything else and care for a new born and work. I reminded him how expensive day care is. He complained to me as I tried to get everything ready for the birth of my son. He kept mentioning it while I was laboring in the hospital and then after I had my emergency C-section due to complications.
While I was recovering I finally snapped and said, "I literally died on the table and they had to bring me back and you cannot stop harassing me about quitting your job, our only guaranteed source of income for our family. You heard the Doctor, its going to take months for me to heal after everything my body has been through and you cannot stop. If you cannot stop asking leave and do not come back."
He called me some awful names and told me I was selfish because I did not want him to me happy. I am thankful there was no staff in the room at the time because he would have been kicked out. I found out that his mother who was supposed to have my kids dropped them off to him and he pawned them off on a friend of mind for two nights. What he did was beyond me because when I was finally being released after major surgery I could not reach him and had to call his mother who had my kids. So she had to drop the kids off to him and my son and I could not leave until she came and got me
When I got home I was greeted by my girls and my father-in-law. My ex-husband was sitting at his computer gaming and he did not say anything to me. My father-in-law told me he had pizza being delivered for dinner and I sat down in my recliner with my son. When the pizza arrived my mother-in-law thankfully helped me get the kids fed as she had them shower while they waited for dinner. When the kids were in bed and the in-laws left I was finally able to sit down and my ex said, "You are going to have to go to work."
Looking at him I said, "The Doctor said I need at least six months to heal after having the baby. What is wrong with you I died on the table and you want me to hurt myself more?"
He looked at me and told me, "Not my problem."
I went into the laundry room and started a load of laundry from the pile that came up to my hip that was piled in there. Something told me this was just the beginning and to be ready when he pulled what he was planning.
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Three weeks later my ex-husband was sitting at his desk gaming and he suddenly slams his head against the desk then to the window. Looking over at him I ask loudly what was that. He shrugs and calls his Mom telling her he needed to go to the emergency room and did not feel comfortable driving himself. When his mother arrived I offered to take him if she watched the kids and she made it clear its my place to stay home and take care of the kids and the house.
So after they left I settled the kids and cleaned up putting away my paperwork from the hospital. Looking at the date on the paperwork I noticed it was exactly three weeks from the day I had my son. I made the girls dinner and nursed my son, settling them in bed after. Around midnight that night my ex-husband arrived back home with his parents. I asked him what happened and as he went to go back to video game he said, "I was diagnosed with Belspalsy and you are going back to work."
I had to return to work only three weeks after giving birth to my son. My son's delivery was full of complications that ended in emergency surgery. I had not even received my doctor's medical approval to return to work after delivering my son. However, my ex-husband and his mother told me that if I did not return to work, things would get complicated for me at home. So with that, I was forced to leave my newborn son with his dad and return to work at a job outside the home. Mind you, being told that this job had to be worked around my children's school schedule because my ex-husband could not even care for his children, and I was to handle child care and the home. I hated leaving my son to work in the general public, especially since I had been working from home for over five years. But I was fortunate enough to find a job at my local Sears.
After explaining to my ex-husband that there were no nine-to-five jobs available in our area, either I worked on my business from home, and he returned to work, or I could work outside the house, and he would have to help with the kids. Luck shined upon me as I started at Sears, as I became an associate in the signing and pricing crew. We would start our shift at five or six in the morning and would be home before three in the afternoon. Or if we had to work at night, we would work from four to ten. Our team consisted of eight people, and we would only have about two to three people scheduled daily except on Sundays when the whole team was setting up the new ad for the week. One rule for our department was you could only work during your scheduled hours unless you were a manager or asked to come in for last-minute tasks and assignments. Since most of the team worked outside of Sears or were in college classes, this worked out in our favor. I was working around 30-35 hours a week. This schedule was also good because I could be home for the kids when they went to school or got home.
The day this story took place, there were only two people on our team working and only one other associate in the store as we had to arrive at 4 am due to changing prices in our dress and accessory department. Before we left the day before, my co-worker and I set up our pricing carts with everything we would need. When we arrived, the loss prevention associate helped us push all the bins and racks we needed out to the floor, and he went back to work in the main office. Since we had six hours till the store opened, we decided to pull all the clothing racks off the area we were working and would reset the floor as we moved and retagged items. As many of our handbags were marked clearance, we moved big bins and started with all the purses hanging on the walls. As we continued working, we heard the bell for the woman's changing rooms ring. We thought the loss prevention associate was getting security tags out of the room attached and testing the security system, so we continued working.
We continued to work, and the doorbell to the fitting room rang again. We started laughing, speculating that the loss prevention worker must be bored. So we called over the PA system to our loss prevention worker to stop setting off the fitting room bell, as the sound was getting annoying. He replied to us almost immediately that he's been in the office reading the newspaper for the last 30 minutes and we must be imagining things. We looked at each other, and my co-worker said he was busted, and we got back to work again. As we had cleared many of the racks, we went to roll some of the carts to the room that stored them. As we moved the bins to the storage room, the bell went off again, and we looked at the door. My co-worker grabbed my arm in shock as a woman was standing there. She exited the fitting room and walked towards the men's department. I turned back to my co-worker, and she grabbed my hand and pulled me along with her. When we got to a spot where we should have caught up to her, she had disappeared.
After about another 20 minutes, we heard the doorbell ring again, and this time both of us were facing the door, and our heads snapped up to look at the fitting room doorway, and seconds after the bell rang, the woman materialized again. We notice she's wearing a long white sleeve blouse and a long black skirt. However, what got me was her hair in a simple bun at the back of her head. She reminded me what a teacher from the late 1800s or early 1900s. We watched her walk through the store from the fitting room, along with what seemed like a path that ended in a wall. We didn't follow her, but as an afterthought, I said we should have seen if she went through the wall and continued.
When we saw her disappear, we decided to take a break and went to the office. We told the loss prevention associate what we had seen, and although he was skeptical, he bought us into the camera room and pulled up the video footage from that time frame. He saw us moving the empty bins, and we stopped and reacted. The camera feed was static when we would have seen the woman on the video. It came back on when we got to where we went to intercept her. He fast went to the time we would have seen her the second time. Again he sees us react, and then the camera goes to static and comes back on when we head back to take our break. We did not see this lady again after that day, but for a while, we would hear the doorbell go off now and then when no one was around. Later, because people complained about the doorbell so often, the store Manager thought it was defective and tried to repair it, but it could not be fixed and removed.
Although I wish I could have discovered who the woman was and where we were, findings never are revealed to the public. As a side note, a year later, when they were building the plaza next to where our store was, they not only discovered three coffins when they first broke ground. But during the clearing of the land, they found a small Indian burial ground. We only knew about the graves because someone had ridden one of the electric carts to that area, and when an associate went to get it, there were officials there discussing what would happen with the findings. People who work at Michael's have told me that weird and unexplained things have happened there. Could one of the graves belong to the woman we saw? We may never know, but I hope whoever she was, she is at peace now.
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