The Ghosts of My Past, Part Two

It didn't matter what they told me. I, myself never saw the figure so I tried to ignore their stories. Besides, scary movies were commonplace in our house. Every Friday night, we'd have Domino's Pizza, Pepsi and a movie—most of the times a scary one. My mom loved Night of the Living Dead, a classic black and white horror movie. But, there were endless other options like Poltergeist, Salem's Lot, Amityville Horror, Pet Sematary. Warm summer nights with the lights turned down and a breeze from the rotating fan lent themselves particularly well to a good scare. We'd lay on the floor with our pillows and barely notice Dad slipping outside to the open window, waiting quietly for the scariest part of the movie...then yell while we screamed in hysterics.

Those nights became a double-edged sword. On one hand, everything could be easily explained away—all chalked up to an overly active imagination— hypersensitivity induced by an entire genre of movies. On the other hand, it seemed to have opened up the possibility that maybe, just maybe, those stories had some seed of truth. Maybe.

The voices I explained away years ago. They were long forgotten until I called my sister to ask about that house. That's when the memories returned.

I'm not sure how either of us figured it out. Or who. I don't remember the first time we heard it. But there were voices. They were mere whispers, but you could tell there were words attached to them. We just couldn't hear what they were saying. And the clinks of silver on china, cups meeting saucers, dishes being stacked on dishes. "It was almost like listening to a tea party." my sister retold the story to me. But we could only hear it in the closet.

I immediately thought I knew better. That made no sense at all to me. It had to be my mom doing dishes. It had to be.

I remember sitting on the floor of the long closet with her, my hand still gripping the crystal doorknob—the one that would come apart on a regular basis. The memory was vague.

We did sit on the floor. We did hear something... not all of the time but, yes, I was remembering.

"It was just mom doing the dishes." I explained that part of our ghost story away.

"Emily, mom was there with us. She heard it too." (to be continued...)