Ghost Stories

My family didn't move much. The home my parents raised me in was next door to the house where my father and his siblings lived when they were young. It was the very house where my poppa passed away when I was a child.

My seven-year-old brain was swimming with grief and confusion when Poppa called me into his bedroom. I only knew him through my father's eyes: he was a bad father growing up, and since my birth he'd been elusive. Now I knew he'd been sick, and as I walked into his room, I was shaking. I could smell death lurking in the corners.

"Victoria," he said hoarsely, and for the first time I heard tenderness in his words. "Victoria, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you all...I've always loved all of you." He motioned me over to the bedside, and I hesitantly approached him and took his cold hand in both of my small ones. "Tell them I love them. Tell them for me."

He fell silent, and after a few minutes I tiptoed out of the room. That night, my mother came to tell me that Poppa had passed. I heard his cane clicking down the hall as I tried to drift off to sleep, the memory of his cold skin still fresh in my mind.

That weekend, my dad stepped away from his normal weekend routine and locked my grandfather's house down. He nailed all the windows shut, too, and when I asked him why he said, "Someone was sneaking around in there. I don't like it."

Still, at night, the lights would come on, and so my father yanked away the boards and went in and took out all the bulbs. They made an odd clinking sound as he marched out of the house, his face set in stone and the bag slung over his shoulder. That night, I peeked through the blinds of my room; the lights were still on. Strangely, I wasn't scared -- just curious. But not enough to leave the safety of my warm bed. It was enough to know that Poppa was still home, where he'd always belonged.

I finally moved away for college and met my husband, with whom I had my son Mikey. On Mikey's third birthday, we took him as promised to see my parents, stopping along the way to buy the requested Happy Meal. After getting kisses from my mother at the doorway, I managed to squirm away and give Mikey his food on the bar. "Stay on the stool," I told him.

Of course, as soon as I turned my back, he disappeared down the hall into the back bedroom. My parents said nothing, so I decided to let him do his exploring. A few moments later, our conversation stalled, and Mikey toddled back into the room to collect his little cup of Sprite.

Before returning to the back bedroom, he came and tugged on my father's sleeve. "Granpa! I'm sharing drink wif da man in da room."

"Okay, kiddo, you do that." My dad patted Mikey on the head and returned to the conversation.

A few minutes later, here he came again, this time to snag his burger from the bar. "I'm sharing hammer wif da man in da room!" he proudly announced to all of us. Now I was paying attention. Giving my husband a warning poke on the arm, I strained to peer down the hallway.

There were two voices, not just Mikey's -- the other was low and soothing and somehow familiar. I exchanged a glance with my husband, who raised his voice and called, "Mikey? Hey, bud, can you come out here for a sec?"

When Mikey scampered into the room, looking pleased with himself, I took his face in both hands. "What does the man look like, sweetie?"

"He has...he has a...a funny hat," Mikey said breathlessly, squirming to get out of my grasp. "An' he's big. An' he has big stick for walking!"

I couldn't see anyone down the hall in the bedroom, but the cold sensation on my skin told me enough. I'd always described Poppa's hat as funny, and he was a big man who had always carried a cane since his accident around the time of my father's birth. "Can you go ask him his name?" I asked.

Mikey ran off on his errand. We all sat quietly; I stared at my hands. Mikey returned a moment later.

"He din't say his name," he said.

My shoulders slumped. "What did he say?"

"You were talking with him a while," my father pointed out.

"He said...he said he is sorry," Mikey said. "An' he loves you. He loves you, Poppa," he added, clinging to my father's leg.

We were all speechless. I swallowed my tears and pointed toward the bedroom. "Go see if he's still there."

It was at once both comforting and terrifying to look up and see tears in my father's eyes for the first time in memory. He quickly dashed them away when he saw me looking. "Where's Mikey?" he said hoarsely.

As if on cue, my son returned, his eyes sad. "He's gone, Mommy."

We sat in stunned silence for a while longer, before my mother drifted off to the kitchen and Mikey tired of playing with his new birthday presents and fell asleep in front of the fireplace. As we gathered up our things and thanked my parents for the afternoon, I found myself glancing down the hallway at the bedroom.

"Poppa," I whispered, when no one was listening, "You're forgiven."