A soft whispering coaxes me awake. It starts in my ear like a subtle tickle but it grows into a persistent humming I can't ignore. In my forehead, I feel a brick-like tension. My face is pressed into the back of the couch, and I push harder against the cushions to drown out the voices.

I groan and toss myself onto my back. "Emma, please," I heave a sigh. Through my closed eyes, I see hints of light from the kitchen. "I'm trying to sleep."

The talking continues. There's no point, is there? I push myself to sit, and turn to face the kitchen. "Emma —"

My throat tenses and whatever I was going to say is far out of my mind. The corners of my vision blur as I try to process the scene in my kitchen.

Sitting at one of the bar stools is the young girl I saw in Emma's room — me. Her back is to me, but I recognize her immediately. She has a paper in front of her she is writing on. My eyes flicker to the man standing on the other side of the counter. Dad.

I swallow hard and rub at my eyes, but they're still there. This is really happening, isn't it? It's not in my head. It's more real than I want to believe. All because of that stupid haunt.

My hands grasp the back of the couch so tightly, I'm close to tearing off a chunk. But I can't look away, especially not from Dad.

Dad. It's been so long since I've seen his face, and this is the closest I've been. I want to get up and run over there and throw my arms around him, but I fear I'd just go through him. Even so, I doubt I could get my legs to move enough to get off the couch.

"As much as I love chatting with you, it's late, chickadee," he says to Little Claire, and it causes the hairs on my arms to stand on end. "Shouldn't you be off to bed?"

She shakes her head. "Can't sleep."

He chuckles, and a tear escapes from the well in my eyes. "Oh yeah? Well, in that case!"

Little Claire puts down her pencil and looks up at him. "Nana's machine keeps me up."

Dad's face softens. "I know, sweetie. I know."

She sighs. "Mom won't tell me anything! I'm not stupid!"

"Ask me then," Dad says with a serious face. "Ask me anything you want to know."

My mouth parts because I know exactly what she's going to say. I remember this conversation. It's one of my most precious memories of him.

"What's wrong with her?" I whisper at the same time as Little Claire asks out loud.

Dad puts his elbows on the counter in front of her and leans toward her. "It's call metastatic lung cancer — her cancer has spread beyond the lungs."

Little Claire nods as if she gets it, but she doesn't. I remember searching that word at school the next day and finding a lot of complicated information I didn't fully understand. But it was more than my mother would tell me. "Why does she have cancer?" She asks.

He sighs and thinks for a moment. "Well, honey, there's not really an exact answer, but the doctors believe that her smoking was a major factor. She smoked for a long time."

Again, she nods, but she started writing absentmindedly. "Cora said when her grandma got sick, they sent her away. Why is Nana still here? Will she stay here forever? Will she have to go back to the hospital?"

"So many questions!" Dad laughs softly, and I feel another pang in my chest. It hurts a little too much to hear him laugh again. "Your Nana can be here for now as long as Nurse Steph says she's doing okay. So no, no more hospitals."

"Good," Little Claire, the relief she feels is mirrored inside of me as if I'm the one sitting in front of him at the counter. "I don't like the hospital."

Dad smiles. I have to look away. "Any more question?" He asks.

She's quiet for a moment. And then she says it. "Is she hurting?" Dad is taken aback. "Momma says she isn't, but I hear the sounds she makes when she breathes."

He leans forward and takes her hand into his, and I swear I can feel it. I look down at my hands but there's nothing there. Just the ghost of his hand. "I can't give you an answer, sweetie. She doesn't talk much. We don't really know. But your mom, Nurse Steph, and I are doing what we can to make sure she is as comfortable as she can be. That's why she's here."

I don't know if Little Claire believes him, but I don't. Doubt trickles in, some from bits of memory and some from an unknown source. I feel like a bit of my brain has been carved out by a melon ball scooper, and I'm trying to search for the memory, but it's gone.

"When will Momma come home?" Little Claire asks after a moment of silence passes. I look up and read Dad's face, which is pained and saddened. "I miss her."

He smiles sadly. "Me too, sweetie." He doesn't answer the last part even though I'm begging him to. To restore her hope — my hope. But I know he won't. "Soon." Another lie, even if a little gray. I know he really doesn't know when, so telling her "soon" is just cruel to fill her with false hope.

"I don't think she wants to be here," she says suddenly, which surprises both me and Dad. I don't remember saying that. But the flaring red shock I feel around me comes from the fact that I was literally thinking that just now.

Dad wanders around the counter and stands beside her. "Why would you say that?" He asks her. When she shrugs, he gently makes her turn to face him. "Claire, why would you say that?"

Tears fill her eyes and color spreads to her cheeks. "I could hear you and her fighting."

He sighs. "I'm sorry you had to hear that, sweetie."

"And I heard her on the phone." She looks down at her little knees. "She said she wants to leave. She wants to be with Evan —"

"Stop." He doesn't raise his voice but his tone causes her to flinch. She looks up at him in surprise. My chest is stiff as I watch them breathlessly. "It doesn't matter what she said. Everything is going to be okay." He takes her hands. "I promise."

She nods, believing the lie. I don't because I know what happens. I know exactly how this story ends, and it isn't pretty.

"As soon as Nana dies, Mom leaves," I say out loud. Neither of them looks at me because they aren't real. They're just ghosts, a re-imagining of the past. I'm only reliving it. "She packs her things and gets the hell out, never looking back. She moves in with Evan, the guy from the bar, and they start their whirlwind romance." I don't know how that ends because she never told me.

"Dad did his best to fill in the pieces, but the puzzle was too broken. He worked too hard to keep us afloat financially as well as raise two daughters who needed their mother. When he got the phone call that Mom died, he broke a little more. I think he hoped she would come back. That carried with him until his death. He died a few weeks after Emma's eighteenth birthday. He never got to see her start her first day of college or med school. And because I was a slacker, he didn't get to see me get my P.I. license. He didn't get to see me try my best to be like him and fill his shoes."

Or maybe the truth is that I only took the exam after he died because I felt guilty. I missed him so fucking bad I wanted to revive a bit of him by doing the job he did.

"Would you be proud of me, Dad?" I ask, but he doesn't respond. He doesn't even look at me because of course not. He isn't really here. "I got my license, worked for a shitty investigator, and quit when my best friend strong-armed me into joining her fake ghost hunting channel. A channel that is now ruined because we fucked up! Aren't you proud?" I grip the back of the couch and feel tears crash onto my cheeks. "Aren't you proud!? Dad!?"

Little Claire shifts in her seat, and my eyes flicker over to her. To my absolute shock, she turns her head and looks at me — right at me. Her eyes are mine, the face shape and color is all me. And it's staring at me, seeing me, judging me. My throat is jamming as I stare back, unsure of what to do.

When she opens her mouth, a flurry of moths escapes from her throat and takes flight into the room. She lets out an echoing scream that leaps through me, sending me to the floor. The back of my head hits the ground, and for a moment, everything goes dark.

Current word count: 20,622