We are given each...

We are given each a piece of white construction paper and a box of crayons to share. You draw a field of flowers, a purple lion with a red mane and bright blue tail. But the brittle crayons snap in my clumsy child fingers. “Ghosts,” I say, when you ask about my picture, and point out the mother and father ghost. The ghost little sister. “You can’t see them, but they’re everywhere. They’ve even read the diary hidden in the hatbox under your bed”. Bawling, you run out of the room. Any minute mother will storm in and paddle my bottom with that wooden spoon of hers. But now I too am a ghost. Receding into the background of a childhood lit by the eerie glow of the television. Eating a cup of vanilla ice cream.