I've seen them, a few times. Two or three times. Jimmy and Tommy. I've seen them outside my window, though they weren't there to visit me but were just running through the trees, probably playing some game they'd invented. I saw them too, once, in the woods, when Alex and I and a couple other guys from class went to find a good place for a tree fort. They've never noticed me, and I've caught only glimpses of them, but I know who they are. Sometimes I wonder why they're still there, why I still see them, because nobody else does, and then I feel strange, like they're a remnant of all that happened, and I think that maybe once I move on entirely, they'll leave me forever. Or maybe there will always be a part of Grandpa and Jay inside of my heart.
Penny and I will never be alone. Great Grandma does her best, and though she's old, she's tough. She says she'll live to one-hundred-and-ten, for sure, although whatever happens, we're becoming part of this place, now, and it's a part of us, too.
The months are passing, and daily life keeps all of us busy, but we aren't hiding, any of us, not hiding behind anything, and letting nothing hide behind us—we're in the open, re-blooming into who we were meant to be, just as the peach trees have re-blossomed every spring since.
THE END
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Hidebehind
General FictionAfter the death of his parents, Robert is forced to move in with a dinosaur-of-a-great-grandma and his ailing grandpa. Refusal to accept his fate embitters him to this new life, and only a spate of mysteries keep him distracted. What are the strange...
