Box of Ghosts

At times it seems like children are impervious to grief. Yes, they missed their father. Cassidy still cried for him sometimes with great, choking sobs. John was more stoic, but she occasionally caught the haunt of loss in his eyes. They grew into their sadness like a pair of shoes a half-size too big. Their limbs still growing, their hearts still elastic, they had the capacity to carry not only the weight of grown-up pain, but the lift of childish excitement.

It was a relief to see them this excited about Halloween. Mike had always taken them trick-or-treating. He’d get as goofily giddy as they did when it came time to get into costume. On this one sacred day, they could all ignore the disguise he wore every other day of the year — that of a loving husband and father. They could count on Halloween to be one of the good days. They got fewer of those every year, so they monitored the calendar for the approach of that last day in October, more special to them than all of other holidays combined.

She bought a house in this small town after he died. She moved here to escape the knowing looks of the neighbors who saw her bruises, who knew how many liquor bottles their recycle bin could hold. She moved here so the kids could start over with clean slates, could go to a school where the teachers didn’t know about the trouble at home, could go to a school where the principal didn’t keep a tally of John’s greenstick fractures.

She moved here to get away from the whispers, the rumors. She chose this town because no one here knew. In this town, no one could see their ghosts but them.

“John, come on!” Cassidy whined. She stood by the door in her cowgirl costume, hands on her hips, a shopping bag dangling from her wrist.

“I’m almost ready. Jeez!” He straightened his breastplate in the hallway mirror. He held his shield between his knees so he could adjust the plastic sword hanging from his belt.

Earlier that day he sat down next to her, put his hand on her arm. “Mom,” he said, “I think I should be the one to take Cassidy trick-or-treating tonight. I mean, I’m the man of the house now. I should be the one.”

She wrestled a clash of emotions: Sadness, relief, tenderness, more sadness. He was only 10, coming up on 11, but in many ways he was so much older. She flashed back to all those times he’d tried to stop the fights. All those times he’d stepped in front of her, a tiny rodeo clown trying to draw the attention of the bull and redirect its wrath. Her protector. Her knight in plastic armor.

She agreed to let him do it.

“Come on, cowgirl.” He took Cassidy’s hand. She watched them walk down the driveway, laughing at a joke she didn’t hear. She shut the door behind them and bathed in the quiet.

She was surprised to see them back within the hour, didn’t realize how cold it had gotten until she saw the bright red chill on their cheeks.

“Mom, check out all the stuff we got!” She could tell from the rev of Cassidy’s voice that she was already riding a sugar high. She dumped her bag on the table, unleashing an avalanche of colorful wrappers and the whiff of mediocre chocolate.

“John, show her the other thing!”

John set his bag on a chair, then reached in and pulled out a wooden box. She could tell it was handmade. It was highly polished, with tight-fitting joints and a domed, hinged lid. An orange and black ribbon, the word “BOO!” printed on it in a dozen different typefaces, was tied around the box.

“What’s in it?” she asked John.

“I don’t know. He said not to open it until we got home.”

“Who did?”

“That old guy at the end of the street. The one who always waves to us.”

She removed the ribbon and slowly opened the lid, half-expecting something to jump out at her. Nothing did, at first.

She removed a handful of rose petals from the box and set them on the table. Underneath them was a diorama. It was a top-down view of their house — their old house, in their old town. Its detail was stunning. There was Cassidy in her room, sitting cross-legged next to her princess bed. A little John was lying on his stomach in front of the TV in the den, a baseball mitt on the floor next to him. She was standing in the kitchen, next to the table, and next to Michael’s slumped body. In her hand, tiny and barely visible, was a yellow box with a skull and crossbones painted on it.

She snapped the box closed before they could peek in.

“No fair!” Cassidy wailed. “I want to see what’s in the box!”

John was quieter. “Mom,” he said, “you look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“There’s no such thing, John,” she snapped. “It’s late. Go get ready for bed.”

The kids Aw Mommed their way to their bedrooms. She went to the junk drawer and found a screwdriver. She did the best she could to dismantle the scene within the box, prising out the hand-carved furniture and the tiny figures of her children. She threw the bits into the trashcan under the sink and buried them in coffee grounds. The box itself she took to the trash bin out behind the garage.

In the chill of the night, with the squeals of delighted trick-or-treaters audible down the block, she stood there shivering for a minute, wondering. She realized right then that ghosts aren’t as invisible as she thought they were, and she was afraid.

This story was written for WritersWeekly’s fall 24-hour short story contest (850 words in response to a prompt). It received an honorable mention.