Nothing But Ghosts

You can’t be as alive as Mom was, and then be dead. You can’t be singing so that your voice fills every room in a hand-me-down house, and then not be heard at all. The math doesn’t work; I try it upside down and backwards. I went kind of crazy with the wrongness of it for awhile, and then Dad and I talked and he said he knew no cure, the only thing he knew was the power of staying busy. I took on more school projects. I joined more clubs. I stopped hanging out so much with my two best friends, Jessica and Ellen, because I didn’t feel like explaining, I didn’t want to answer their questions or feel their pity. I got a job at wacko Miss Martine’s estate the day we finished finals.

From NOTHING BUT GHOSTS, a work in progress