3 Ghosts of Our Fathers by Michael Richan Read Free Book Online

house and a large lawn,
and he and Garth would be sent outside by their mother when she couldn’t stand
them in the house anymore. In the yard they would drag an old red wagon around
and try to play badminton with an old set of rackets that were missing most of
the strings.
    Sometimes they would venture into
the old stand-alone garage in the far corner of the backyard, but only to grab
a rake or ball or the badminton set. They were both afraid of the garage. The
open door entrance allowed the afternoon light to shine into part of it, and
they limited themselves to the areas where the light fell. They had ventured
deeper into the garage once, towards the back of it where the heavy doors had
once swung open to allow a car to drive inside. There were dirty windows in
those doors, and they didn’t let in much light. The doors hadn’t been opened in
a long time, and the garage was now full of cast-off junk from the house, their
mother and stepfather preferring to park the family truck on the street. The
one time they tried exploring back there they had both become frightened.  It
was now an unspoken agreement to limit their garage boundaries to the area
immediately inside the door with the light.
    There were other areas in the
house that were frightening, too. They slept together in a basement bedroom,
and the basement itself was dark and unsettling. Every night when forced to
bed, they’d descend the wooden steps from the kitchen, and make a quick sharp
turn into their bedroom at the base of the stairs, shutting the door quickly
behind them. The rest of the basement was largely unexplored, a collection of
unfinished sections. In a far corner was a large pile of coal, used to feed a
furnace. They never played downstairs outside of their bedroom.
    Inside the bedroom things were
less scary, but being a basement bedroom with a tiny window near the ceiling it
didn’t have a lot of light. There was a dim overhead fixture which helped some,
but not much. Even in the middle of the day with the light turned on it felt
dark.
    They shared a double bed pushed
into a corner of the room. Laying in the bed at night, Sean and Garth would
point out the things in the room that calmed them, like the baseball pennants
they’d arranged on the walls and a bobblehead doll that sat on a dresser. They
were both afraid of a hole in the ceiling by the open closet, which was tucked
into the space under the wooden stairs that led down from the kitchen. The hole
was about a foot across. Neither boy knew how the hole got there. They avoided
looking at it, especially at night, because whatever might emerge from it was
too horrible to consider.
    Their mother would listen to their
fears and try to console them. She was who they ran to when anything needed
solving. But after their mother died, things changed. Their stepfather Frank
became unfriendly to everyone, especially Sean and Garth.  With their mother
not there to stop him, he would drink and become mean. After a while Frank
stopped any pretense of being a loving father and settled into a daily pattern
of work followed by a few hours of liquor-induced stupor. Sean and Garth had
learned to make themselves scarce during the hours between, when he was at his
meanest.
    Several months ago Frank had begun
taking Sean and his brother into the onion fields to work every day. The boys
were expected to help irrigate and weed the rows. It was tough work for young
children. Sean had learned early on that playing with Garth while they worked
was not a good idea. The sun beat down on them relentlessly, and having a drink
of water every now and again was essential to staying conscious. When Frank
found them playing instead of working, he’d punish them by eliminating their
breaks, which meant they couldn’t stop for water. It only took once or twice
having to go thirsty for hours while on his knees pulling weeds for Sean to
know it was better to leave Garth alone and stick to the chores.
    This evening Frank had