"She slammed herself in the bathroom. Tom made sure the children were sleeping; it was night when he went out for a walk down the highway. It was pitch black, stars bristling or falling overhead, and coyotes shrieking from the canyons across the marsh. He believed he was in another country, the air was so sweet and clear, and he understood why every building here was like a temporary birdhouse and why lives were disposable as tissue. It had to do with the space and the sea, with the norder and beyond. Here he could be a hobo in his own home, a tourist on his neighborhood street, a transient at work, and a derelict in his heart. His father was telling him- this something- was at his side talking and walking, bag in hand, and shoulders bent. " At night people are upside down," said the ghost, "By day upright. But in space htere is no direction."

And this time Tom took notes from careful observation, to pass on to his brother Dan. "Daddy's ghost was shapped like a flagon," he wrote,"but it was the size of a cumulus cloud and the same consistency. Fluff from far off, a gray fog as I entered it. It rose up and up on any given edge, then vanished. Because of the appearance of this spirit, I can't help but think I've inherited Mum's insanity, and sp please pray for the ghost to depart forever. I do, but I pray without faith, and so poor Daddy is stuck near earth with cloudloads of other ghosts whose children are eqaully faithless. The irony is this: if I were able to forgive him- which is what I think he wants me to do, in order to break loose from here- the I would have to forgive him, first, for failing to give me faith. And in order to forgive him for failure, I would have to have faith!"
_ Saving History_, Fanny Howe