Ghosts

I've been thinking about Derek a lot lately. What else is new? I've been thinking a lot about all of the writing that I have done--our stories together--and how I don't know how I'm going to continue to pull it all together. The funny thing is...the stories haven't stopped.

Even though I can't write about him beyond these tidbits of longing, I also can't share what I've already written. I can't let anyone see-- it's like opening a book where the spine is in danger of cracking if you let the pages fall apart. But I read them to the ghost who resides at the home where I spent this summer.

I don't believe in ghosts. I used to try to-- I'd search photographs for orbs and watch television shows where the professional ghost hunters sense spirits. I never really felt it. The theory just never meshed with my perception of life and after-life. This ghost was undeniable. He would flash in my peripheral, like how Annie Dillard describes the headlights of a car rushing light through her window in An American Childhood. That's what I saw--those flashes, like someone had walked in front of a lamp. The lamps were lit, and there were no cars.

When I first realized that this really was a ghost, my initial instinct was to be afraid. I had spent several nights alone in the house, pre-awareness of the ghost, and each night, I was more afraid than the next. Of what? I couldn't pinpoint it--how dark it got when I switched the last lamp before scampering upstairs; my reflection flashed in the glass door, as if someone stood on the porch just waiting for me to be out of sight; the creak of each step and how my feet couldn't pass each other fast enough, causing my footsteps to sound like echoes as if someone were following me. So when the reality of a ghost settled in, my first thought was justification of my previous fear, but then I felt so calm.

Calm is a rarity in the chaos of everyday. This calm felt good. I felt happy. Soon enough, I learned the relief of having some company-- I no longer needed to fear these silly nothings because, even if something had come of the noises and reflections, the ghost was in my favor.

I wish that I knew his name. He never spoke, and I just didn't feel right to give him a new name. Despite his silence, we got along well. He really liked the sunroom. Most nights, he would just stand there and watch me. Many of those nights, I would be sniffling and trying to keep my eye puddles from dripping onto a couch that wasn't mine. I could feel him more than I could feel God in those moments.

One night, I went upstairs to get ready for bed. From the bathroom, I looked straight across to the main bedroom. The closet door was open just a little. It hadn't been before, I swear. Maybe it had, and I never noticed. Regardless, I could feel him. Why was he hiding that night? I walked into the room and opened the cupboard door--only clothes, folded, sleeves hanging still on over-stuffed shelves. I shut the door until it clicked.

My mind tries to justify all of this by saying that we think odd things when we are lonely, that we will do anything to comfort ourselves and not feel alone. Maybe it's true. Maybe he was just a part of my imagination. Kim does think that the ghost is a female, and she's certainly lived there longer than me. Maybe it wasn't a ghost from years long gone, someone caught between death and whatever follows. Maybe it was a friend, be it of my imagination or not. Maybe it was God, staring me in the face with the life I have been denying. Maybe it was just what I needed at the time, whatever that was.

My last night there, I was feeling particularly sad. I would be leaving Waynesburg for good. So many changes so quickly. It also meant that I would be going home--a place where Derek was not. I read all of my stories to the ghost. All of them. Every line of every poem and every page that I had compiled. I sat in the living room with my back to the sunroom--I couldn't face him when I was at my most vulnerable. I sat with no one but my own reflection in the large, dark window. Reflections didn't scare me anymore, but I could still see the flash of him pass in front of the light.

But I couldn't feel him anymore.