ghosts

by Patty Paine

The trailers at High Point Mobile Home Park lined the dusty road like corrugated shoeboxes; their metal siding faded under the sun. With sagging awnings, concrete blocks where wheels used to be, and drooping clotheslines, they looked anything but mobile to Parrish. It didn’t seem like they had moved in years or would ever move.

Parrish scanned the numbers on the trailers and compared them to what was written in blue ballpoint on the inside of her wrist, sweat blurred, spreading like veins. She had gotten the address from a Christmas card she discovered in the trash, smeared with coffee grounds and tucked beneath orange peels and crushed Camel unfiltered cigarettes. The card featured a picture of a cheerful terrier wearing a Santa hat. Across the front, in shimmering gold foil, were the words "Yappy Holidays!" Inside, Lore's name was written in an elegant flourish of cursive, accompanied by a neatly printed address.

The corners of the black number stickers were curled, but Parrish could still match them to the address on her wrist. She paused on a patio, the heat pressing down like a hand on the back of her neck. The patio was just a sun-bleached slab of cracked concrete, its surface webbed with hairline fractures and dark stains. A plastic chair sat off to one side, warped by the sun; a cigarette burn scarred the seat.

From inside the trailer, a canned laugh track rose and fell. Parrish climbed the steps, hesitated at the door, then knocked—three sharp, deliberate raps.

The door swung open hard, and Lore filled the frame. One hand braced against the door, the other lifted to shield her eyes from the sun.

"What are you doing here?"

Parrish tried to smile, but her face felt strange and stiff. "I wanted to see you," she said.

Lore exhaled and rubbed her temple, the movement slow, weary. She was thinner than Parrish remembered, all angles and shadows, with her collarbones jutting like wings beneath the thin straps of her tank top. Her long, black hair cascaded in loose, tangled waves down her back. A can of Pabst dangled loosely from her fingers. Even under the harsh light, even haggard and haunted, Lore was beautiful.

“OK,” she said. “You’ve seen me. Now you should go.”

This was not the scene Parrish had envisioned. She believed her sister would be happy, that they would laugh, hug, and make plans for the future. Parrish waited for Lore to say something, but her mouth was pinched so tightly shut that Parrish thought only the faintest words could squeeze through. Delicate words, like ashes, that would be swept away the moment they slipped from those clenched lips.

Lore dropped her cigarette into the can, and it hissed out. “You should go home now,” she said.

“I ran away,” Parrish replied.

“You did what?”

“I ran away. Just like you.”

“Great, Parrish. That’s just fucking great.”

Two years earlier, when Parrish was ten, and Lore was fourteen, Parrish had been digging for rocks in the yard. Lore was lying on a chaise in the sun, holding a square of aluminum foil under her chin. As Parrish dug, she could hear the chair back being clicked into different positions. She pretended not to notice when Lore got up and walked over. Lore stood watching Parrish dig, and she could smell her coconut tanning oil. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her glistening ankles the color of roasted almonds. “What are you doing?” Lore asked.

“Just digging for stuff.” Parrish answered.

 She was wary of Lore’s sudden interest, having grown used to being ignored by her older sister. Lore picked up some quartz Parrish had unearthed, and jiggled them in her palm.

“These are kind of cool,” she said.

“Quartz. There’s a shit load of it around here.”

“Shit load” had become Parrish’s new favorite phrase. She glanced up to see if Lore was impressed, but Lore just rolled her eyes. Parrish returned to digging, working the tip of the garden shovel under an exposed edge of what she hoped was rose quartz. “Look,” Lore said, dropping the stone and brushing her palm against her leg.

“I’m leaving soon. Don’t tell anyone.”

Parrish stopped digging. She looked up and started to speak, but Lore was already walking away. Parrish’s "Wait, don’t go" hung in the air.

About three weeks later, while their mother and stepfather were out, Parrish was jolted awake by a sound thumping down the hallway and the front door opening and closing. She got out of bed and pressed her face against her bedroom window. She saw her sister sprinting down the sidewalk, her long, gleaming hair flowing behind her like a black ribbon. She tossed a suitcase into the back of a green Nova, then climbed into the passenger seat. The car kicked up gravel as it sped away.

Lore sat on the plastic chair, balancing the can on her knee. She took a drag, the tip of her Marlboro flaring with every inhale. "You can't stay here."

"Why not?"

"Because you can't."

Parrish watched the cigarette ash drift down between Lore's bare feet. "You left."

Lore sighed, shaking her head. "It's different."

"How?"

"It just is."

Lore wouldn't meet her eyes. Instead, she looked past her toward the horizon, where the sky was slipping into something darker. This was the in-between time, the time when things could shift. Parrish felt something tighten in her throat, a small panic pressing against her ribs.

"Mom ever talk about me?" Lore asked, voice flat.

Parrish stared at the cracks in the concrete. "No."

“How is she?”

Parrish told Lore that about six months after she had run away, Parrish, their mother, and stepfather went to Wheeling, West Virginia, for a family reunion. The trip had been uneventful until their mother ran out of Demerol. After every pharmacist in Wheeling refused to fill the prescription, their mother decided to walk home to New Jersey.

Parrish and her stepfather found her about two miles from the reunion. He pulled the station wagon alongside, and they began pleading for her to get in the car. Eventually, they stopped pleading, and the only sounds were the slow drone of the engine and the click of their mother’s heels on the hot summer asphalt. After she had walked another mile or so, she finally relented, climbed into the car, and slumped sobbing in the seat.

Parrish didn’t understand what was wrong with their mother, but she knew her mother wanted to die. Sometimes, she wished for a quick end, like when Parrish came home from school and found her dropping lit matches into the thick carpet or when she threw herself down the sun deck stairs. Other times, her mother seemed to want a slower death, like in West Virginia, where death loomed like a horizon she could walk toward, slowly, step by step.

Lore nodded, and they sat silently as the sky thickened into a bruised orange, the sun dragging long shadows across the patio.

Somewhere down the road, an engine growled, a low, rattling hum that grew louder. A red pickup truck crunched over gravel and rolled to a stop in front of the trailer.

The man who climbed out moved with the loose gait of someone unhurried. He was all bone and grime, with lanky limbs and damp, stringy blonde hair clinging to his temples. His jeans sagged low on his hips, and the outline of a dip can was etched into the denim of his back pocket. With each step, a wallet chain slapped against his thigh, and his boots left shallow prints in the dust as he approached, slow and deliberate.

As he passed, he bumped Lore's shoulder with a casual roughness that made Parrish's stomach twist. Then he turned his pale gaze to her, eyes a washed-out blue like denim left too long in the sun, hands shoved in his back pockets.

"Who's your friend, Fos?"

"My little sister," Lore muttered, flicking ash into the can.

"Sweet," the man said, a grin crawling across his face like something alive.

Lore stood abruptly and grabbed Parrish's wrist; her grip urgent, she pulled her behind the trailer.

Half in shadow, a large mutt was chained to a rusty truck engine. The ground around the engine was worn to a ring of raw dirt, carved by relentless pacing. The dog was massive with broad shoulders, thick neck, and mottled fur caked with dirt. Its coat had once been dark, perhaps black or brown, but now appeared sun-bleached and ashy.

A cracked plastic bowl lay on its side, bone-dry. As Parrish stepped forward, the dog tensed, lips twitching just enough to reveal its teeth.

"Don’t." Lore said. "He’s wild."

“Why did that guy call you Fos?” Parrish asked.

“Fos. For foster. You know, foster kid. That’s what I am now.” Lore answered.

Parrish wanted to speak, but her throat had closed up. Her hands were shaking. Lore lit another cigarette and exhaled slowly, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

"I just don't know what you want from me," she said.

Parrish didn't have an answer. Or maybe she did. Maybe she wanted what they used to have—Lore showing up at the bus stop, yanking a girl's hair so hard she fell to her knees, holding her down until she promised not to touch Parrish again.

Or that night in the snow.

Their stepfather had thrown a huge ceramic elephant through the picture window. He and their mother had been fighting all night. Lore and Parrish had huddled in the closet while the shouting raged on. The house shuddered with its force, the breaking glass, the dull thud of fists against walls. Lore had pulled Parrish into her lap, her arms wrapped tightly, so tightly, a heartbeat pounding against her ear. They waited until the only sound was the wind pouring in through the broken window, then Lore grabbed her hand and whispered, "Run.” They slipped out the back door, boots crunching in the fresh snow, running until their lungs ached. They ran into the dark stretch of woods behind their house. The snow swallowed every sound and turned the world quiet, unreal. Lore bent down and took Parrish's frozen hands in hers, her breath warm against her fingers. "We're ghosts now," she whispered. "They can't hurt us if they can't find us."

Lore ran a hand through her hair, exhaling. "Look," she said finally. "Just stay here. I'm gonna call a friend to take you back. You want a Coke or something?"

Parrish didn't answer. Lore went inside and let the screen door slap behind her. The trailer was dim and stuffy, the air stale with smoke and old carpet. Lore made several calls until she found someone willing to drive Parrish back. She opened the fridge and grabbed a can of Coke, a bag of off-brand sour cream and onion chips from the counter before going back out.

Lore didn’t call out. Maybe she already knew.

The backyard was empty. The dog’s chain lay slack in the dirt.

Parrish was gone.

In the distance, an engine sputtered to life, followed by the crunch of tires over gravel, then nothing but the hush of late summer.

Lore stood there, the Coke sweating in her hand. She walked slowly to the yard's edge, eyes scanning the road.

Maybe she’d make it farther than Lore did.

She closed her eyes. Soft and weightless snow fell again in the dark behind her eyelids, erasing every footprint before it could be followed.

"Jesus," she whispered. "Good luck, kid."

Photo of Patty Paine

BIO: Patty Paine is the author of Grief & Other Animals, The Sounding Machine, and three chapbooks. Her poems, reviews, and visual works have appeared in Blackbird, Adroit, Gulf Stream, The Denver Quarterly, Hayden's Ferry Review, The South Dakota Review, and other publications. She is the founding editor of Diode Poetry Journal and Diode Editions and Director of Liberal Arts & Sciences at VCUarts Qatar.