I could see through the big front window that Mama sat at the dining-room table. She touched her cheek and I thought she was wiping a tear out from under her eye. Her mouth was moving like she was telling somebody something.
Whatever it was she was saying made her sad. And here I’d held out hope for her to have a good day.
One of her hands was resting beside a coffee cup on the table, her fingers spreading and curling as she talked. I watched as her crying got stronger and she shook her head.
A hand covered hers, wrapped fingers around it. That hand belonged to a man. I wondered how Daddy’d made it home before me.
I opened the front door and walked in.
The chairs in the dining room pushed back fast, making a scrambling sound on the wood floor. Mr. Campbell turned and looked right at me, putting his hands in his pants pockets.
Mama held her hand to her chest, the hand he’d touched.
“Did you have fun?” she asked, using her other hand to wipe under her eyes.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
I forgot about asking for a cookie. It was just as well. I felt like I might be sick.
After supper the men went out back to play catch. Uncle Gus even brought an old wood bat and enough mitts for anybody who wanted one.
Mama gave me a look out the corner of her eye when I put one of those leather gloves on my hand. I made no show of taking it off and putting it back in the pile. What I really wanted to do was throw a fit. But I didn’t want to ruin the day, so I held it in.
Aunt Carrie sat beside me on the back porch and together we watched the ball go back and forth, hearing it slap against the men’s leather gloves. Every once in a while a stray ball rolled to my feet and I tossed it back to Daddy.
He always pretended like I’d whipped it so hard his hand stung under the mitt.
“It’s nice and cool out here, don’t you think?” Aunt Carrie asked, stretching her legs out in front of her. “Just right.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, straightening my legs like she had and feeling the chill of early evening breeze brush over my skin.
“What was your favorite part of the day?” Aunt Carrie asked. “Almost all of it,” I answered, turning to look at her. “Especially the parade.”
“What did you like most about the parade?”
“Seeing Daddy.” I turned to her. “What was your favorite?”
“I liked seeing Uncle Gus in his uniform,” she answered. “He looked handsome.”
“Aunt Carrie,” I said. “What war was Uncle Gus in?”
“The Great War, dear.” She let her feet swing just above the ground. “He was in France. Same as my brother.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“Well, I did.” She sighed. “I suppose I don’t talk about him much anymore.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died,” she said. “He never came home from the war.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
“I am, too.”
“My sister died, too,” I whispered. “It hurts real bad, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, it does.”
“Does it ever get better?”
“I don’t know about better.” She shifted, sitting up straighter, the palms of her hands pressed flat against the porch. “But the sadness changes.”
I waited, not saying anything, hoping she’d explain what she meant. “When my father was a boy he had an accident and he lost his arm,” she said, shaking her head. “That happened a lot back in those days. Anyway, he said at first the pain was sharp, thudding, all through his body. Then, after he healed a bit, he still felt pain once in a while. As if the arm was still there, being torn off all over again. Other times it didn’t hurt at all.”
I felt of my own arm. The skin was smooth and whole. I tried imagining what it might be like to have it missing. Seemed it would’ve been hard to do about anything at all without it.
“Over time the pain of missing my brother became more and more dull. And then, after my folks died it hurt all over again,” she went on. “But it’s still there, pushing at me. Days like today I miss him a lot.”
“Why today?” I asked.
“He would have loved to walk in the parade.”
I thought of Beanie. She wouldn’t have liked the marching band. It would have been too loud for her and she might have held her hands over her ears to dampen the sound. The animals might have caught her attention, leading her to want to ask a hundred questions even if she wouldn’t even think of touching any of the critters. It sure would’ve bothered her to see them on leads like they were.
She would have liked seeing Daddy, though. That would have made her proud. She would have followed him out the corner of her eyes with her shy and quiet smile.
It would have tickled her to have him wave right at her.
Beanie’d sure loved Daddy.
And, boy, had he ever loved her.
I woke with a start, blinking away the last bits of a bad dream, and worked to free myself from the tangled up bedclothes. Sitting, I pushed my already-open window wider, letting in a nice breath of air. I was grateful for the breeze, lazy as it might be.
I rested my head on the window frame and closed my eyes. Just as I drifted back to sleep I jolted again, feeling like I’d fallen from a great height.
Eyes wide open, I knew I’d never get back to sleep. Even if I did, the terrifying dream might come back and I didn’t want to even think of that.
The woods out on the other side of our back yard were quiet just then. I wondered if there were coons and possums wandering around, searching between fallen branches and under blankets of leaves for a little something to snack on. There’d be birds hunkered down in their nests, keeping chicks warm through the night.
I knew very well there weren’t any ghosts out in those woods. Still, I could have sworn I heard the groaning of the runaway slave ghost and saw the shimmer of her floating just above the tree branches and hovering among the leaves.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I got an antsy, light-headed feeling. My heart beat so fast it made me afraid of it giving out. It was a lot like spinning out of control. I held on tighter reminding myself to feel the sheets on my legs, the mattress underneath me, the wall pressed against my shoulder, my face. I was there, in a house that was solid, unmoving.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” I whispered over and over, trying to convince myself it was true and not believing it one bit.
I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I was spiraling away from all I knew and into some strange darkness. The fear pulled on me, tugged at me, hoped to push me under so I wouldn’t be able to breathe anymore.
When I kept my eyes open I thought for sure I saw the shadow of something wicked moving about in the yard. When I closed them I imagined ghosts with hollowed-out faces and demon-red eyes.
Spinning, spinning, spinning. I felt I was being lured away from the only place I’d ever wanted to be.
Home.