Chapter Text
Tommy could see ghosts.
He had been able to see them since birth. Of course, he didn’t remember the ghosts that helped to keep him entertained during his baby and toddler years but his nonna told him stories about them.
The nanny who died protecting her young charge from a wild animal that found its way onto the family’s property.
The grandmother who succumbed to cancer mere months after her grandson was born.
The young man who passed away in a car crash when his wife was 8 months pregnant with their child.
“You helped them all come to terms with what happened,” his Nonna would say in a hushed voice at the end of each recollection. “That is the gift our family has been blessed with.”
She had to say it in a hushed voice because Tommy’s parents did not consider this particular skill to be a gift.
It was quite the opposite, in Tommy’s father’s case. He considered it an abomination and, like many things, it was not something that he was willing to tolerate in his home.
Tommy found out much later on that his parents had hoped that whatever gene caused it would skip over him altogether, because it had been passed down for four generations of women through his mother’s side and he was obviously a boy. Nonna told them that it was simply a coincidence of genetics that they’d had girls for so long and, sure enough, it didn’t take long for his mother to notice that he was reacting to the ghosts around him, proving her right.
After that discovery, it didn’t take much longer for him to work out that this must be why they never had any more children.
In deference to her husband’s distaste for it, his mother steadfastly ignored her gift. Tommy had no idea how she managed it, but she got very good at making the ghosts think she couldn’t see them at all until they gave up and disappeared somewhere, probably totally confused as to why they had ended up in a strange house after dying.
She tried to teach him to do the same thing. They would go out walking in the park closest to the hospital because there were always plenty of ghosts around there who were too preoccupied to realise that they were being perceived by a mother and her young son and she would explain to him how he should never allow his gaze to linger on them, how to flicker his eyes so it would look like he had no idea they were there. And if he did accidentally let his eyes settle on them, she taught him how to immediately find something next to the ghost in order to pretend that this was what had caught his attention in the first place.
“We need to do this because if you let them, they will take over your life,” she would tell him seriously, one arm around his shoulders keeping him close. “And we do not deserve that.”
Tommy didn’t mind those lessons. He enjoyed getting to spend time with his mom and having her attention focused purely on him. It was a rare occasion, since his father demanded their attention at all times whenever they were in his vicinity.
Nonna, however, was vociferously against them. She was the one who would pick him up after school and look after him for those few hours until his parents got home from work and she would use that time to tell him about how important their gift was.
“It is our duty to help these lost souls find peace,” she would tell him with conviction and warmth. “They find us because they need help moving on and it is a great gift that we can provide them with that help.”
“But what if we can’t help?” Tommy would ask dubiously on occasion. That’s what his mother said, the only time he broached this opinion with her. If they couldn’t help, it would only make things worse for the ghost and make them feel useless to boot.
“We can always help,” she replied, softly encouraging in that way that Tommy loved. “Even when you were a tiny little bambino, you were able to help those souls that came to you.”
“I think that was more you, Nonna,” Tommy murmured, squirming in his chair. He didn’t understand why she was giving him the credit. He’d been a baby – even more useless than he was now.
“You have much more capacity to help than you think you do, my Tommy,” Nonna said softly, reaching out to brush his fringe away from his face.
It made him feel loved, and it made him feel strong.
Nonna died when he was ten.
He didn’t even realise at first.
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and Tommy was out in the garden with a basketball, practising throwing hoops when he suddenly noticed that she was standing next to the porch.
“I didn’t know you were coming over, Nonna,” he called joyfully, tucking the ball into his side so that he could run towards her.
As he got closer, it started to get colder – which didn’t make any sense, it was still perfectly sunny and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.
And then he saw that she wasn’t smiling and his insides started to feel cold too.
“Listen to me, my Tommy,” she said, soft and direct. “I do not have long but I wanted to tell you how much I love you one more time.”
“You – you don’t have to go,” Tommy said, hardly even aware of what he was saying. “You – you could stay, some –” he couldn’t bring himself to say the word and admit what was happening “ – they stay for – for a while.”
It was true – that man who died when his wife was still pregnant had popped in and out for almost two years before finally moving on.
Surely Nonna would stay.
She smiled at him, looking content, like she didn’t understand that Tommy needed her to stay. “It is not the way of things, Tommy. My time is complete now.”
“What – why does it have to be complete?”
“Mama?”
They both turned to see that Tommy’s mother was standing in the doorway. Ironically enough, she looked more like a ghost than Nonna did, her face completely stark white.
“I am glad that you can see me,” Nonna said, her voice a little more frosty than it had been when she’d been talking to Tommy.
His mom closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “Mama –”
Nonna waited for a few moments, but it was apparent that she had no idea what to say. “Look after yourself and Tommy. And please, my Bella, do not forget the gift that the two of you share.”
Mom let out a tiny hiccuping sob but she didn’t open her eyes.
Nonna shook her head slightly before returning her attention to Tommy.
“I want you to remember one thing from me, Thomas,” she said, loudly enough that he was sure his mother was also meant to hear it. “Helping others is the essence of our gift. And in helping them, we are made better in return. The worst thing you could do is have the opportunity to help and not take it.”
He didn’t even have a chance to formulate a reply before she was gone.
A year after Nonna died, Daniel appeared for the first time.
Tommy was out in the backyard again. This time he was just staring up at the sky, too reluctant to return to his parents and the incessant yelling, when a voice startled him.
“Who are you?”
He sat up, taking in the figure that was now sitting next to him. It was also a kid – he didn’t see many child ghosts and he thought this might be the first time that a ghost looked like they could be younger than him.
It was a very weird feeling.
“I’m Thomas – Tommy.” He corrected himself at the last minute, a spark of defiance flaring in his chest. His father didn’t like him going by Tommy but it felt more like him so he was going to use it whenever he could. It wasn’t like a ghost was going to tell on him.
“Have we met before?” The kid tilted his head, looking at him quizzically. “I’m sorry if we did. My memory isn’t very good right now.”
“I don’t think we’ve met before,” Tommy said, biting his lip as he considered what to say next. He’d never actually had to tell a ghost that they were dead before. Most of the ones that appeared around him already knew that. He supposed it kind of made sense that a kid might not realise it as quickly as an adult, although he wondered how he would have rationalised his family not seeing him when he appeared near them. “What’s your name?”
“Daniel.”
“How – how old are you, Daniel?”
The kid was distracted, looking around him like he was trying to work out where he was, but he still answered the question. “Nine.”
Just a couple of years younger than Tommy but his life was already snuffed out.
It didn’t feel very fair.
Tommy was trying to work out what to say next – how to gently guide the conversation towards letting Daniel know that he was dead – when Daniel himself spoke up, his voice resigned.
“I was just at the hospital. I remember – I remember being at the hospital.”
“What were you in the hospital for?”
“I have cancer,” Daniel informed him. He looked down at himself, tugged at his hair, and then looked around the backyard that would be totally unfamiliar to him. “I think – I’m dead, aren’t I? The doctors – my parents said that they were wrong, but the doctors said that it might happen no matter – no matter what we tried.”
“I’m sorry.”
The apology felt woefully inadequate, but Tommy had no idea what else he could say.
“Why am I here?” Daniel asked, focusing his attention on Tommy again. “Do you – are you like one of those angels? I saw some episodes on TV about that while I was in the hospital.”
“No – I’m definitely not an angel,” Tommy said hastily, not wanting to let that idea take hold in any way. He was far too flawed to live up to the expectation that might accompany that idea. “But – but I can help, maybe.”
“You can?”
Tommy nodded, determined to do something for this poor kid who died before his age even reached double digits. He remembered how excited he’d been for that milestone – he was sure Daniel must have been too. “Do you want to see your family?”
It was a guess, but it was a tried and tested one. Almost all the ghosts that Tommy had ever interacted with had unfinished business that related to their families. And Daniel nodded eagerly, so Tommy assumed his guess was correct in this situation as well.
“Alright. Close your eyes,” he instructed, dropping his voice low, trying to replicate his Nonna’s soothing tone. “Think about your family – your mom and Dad –”
“My brother and sister,” Daniel interjected firmly, his eyes still closed.
“Your brother and sister,” Tommy repeated, now even more sure that he’d been right about Daniel’s unfinished business being about his family. “Imagine them in your mind, and then think about how much you want to be next to them.”
Daniel disappeared from view after about half a minute.
Tommy knew that he hadn’t done as good a job as his Nonna would have, but he hoped it was enough for Daniel to find whatever peace he needed.
Daniel reappeared a week later.
This time Tommy was in the kitchen, heating up leftover spaghetti in the microwave.
(Nonna would have hated that – she always insisted that everything should be heated up over the stove. But Nonna was not here, and he was home alone, and he just wanted some food.)
“Fuck,” Tommy hissed, the heat of the bowl burning his hands as he took it out of the microwave.
“That’s a bad word,” a voice said unexpectedly behind him, making him jump a little and he swore again as he fumbled the bowl but thankfully managed to save it from plummeting to the ground.
He turned around, immediately dropping it onto the kitchen counter and shaking his hand to alleviate the burning feeling.
Daniel was sitting on the other side of the bench, head tilted as he looked at Tommy.
“Sometimes bad words are the only ones powerful enough to get across what you really want to say,” Tommy said finally. It was total bullshit but he needed to say something in the face of the scrutinising look Daniel was giving him.
To stop himself from squirming, he went digging for a fork and spoon from the drawer so that he could start eating.
Before he could actually dig in, Daniel spoke up again. “How come you can see me? Mom and Dad couldn’t. Maddie and Evan couldn’t either.”
Tommy let the utensils drop against the bowl. “It’s like a – a skill my family has, I guess.”
Daniel considered that answer. “Does that mean you can learn it? Could you teach Ma –”
“No,” Tommy interjected firmly, kicking himself for even letting Daniel get that idea. “No – it’s more like a – a gift, I guess.” And now he finally understood why his nonna always used that term; it was a simple way of getting across that it was a talent unique to them. “We’re born with it.”
“Oh,” Daniel whispered, dropping his gaze down to his arms folded over the counter.
As much as Tommy had wanted Daniel to stop looking at him, this felt even worse. He felt like he had just ripped away the tiny bit of hope that Daniel had been able to muster.
It was obvious that Daniel must be struggling to come to terms with his death – and of course he was, he was nine years old facing something that people decades older than him struggled to comprehend. But Tommy had no idea what he could do to help, and the feeling of inadequacy stung at him. Nonna would have been able to do this so much better than him.
But Nonna wasn’t here. Unfortunately for Daniel, he was stuck with Tommy.
“You, um, you managed to see your family then?” Tommy asked tentatively. He spun his spaghetti around on the fork mindlessly a few times, trying to create the illusion that this was a casual conversation to try and make Daniel feel a little more comfortable.
Daniel nodded, his eyes downcast.
“How – how were they?” He wasn’t sure if it was the right question to ask, but if he had any chance of trying to help Daniel then he needed to understand what was making him hold onto the land of the living and he was convinced that it had to have something to do with his family.
“They were really sad.”
Which. Well, yeah, Tommy should have expected that answer. He tried to think of a follow-up question he could ask to extract some more information – except then Daniel immediately went to amend that answer.
“Well, my parents and my sister were really sad.”
Tommy wondered if the removal of Daniel’s brother from his statement was the hint he needed. Did the two of them have an argument before Daniel died and now he felt guilty about it? But what sort of fight could two little kids have gotten into that would result in Daniel’s brother not being sad about him dying?
“What about your brother?” he prodded carefully.
“I don’t think he understands it,” Daniel whispered.
“Oh.” Tommy recalibrated his assumption about Daniel’s situation. “He’s younger than you?”
Daniel nodded. “He’s only a baby. He turned one a month ago.”
“Wow, he’s a lot younger than you,” Tommy said softly. He didn’t think it was normal to have such big age gaps but he knew that there was one other kid in his class whose sister had just gone off to college so it probably wasn’t super uncommon.
“Yeah.” Daniel gave him a small, wan smile, one that made alarm bells ring in Tommy’s head. “My parents thought that he could help.”
Tommy stared at him, confused. How could a baby possibly help Daniel when he was going through treatment for cancer? Did they think that it would motivate him to ‘stay strong’ or something? That seemed like a stupid idea to him, but he knew that some people got desperate when they realised that their loved one was slipping away…
“They said that I needed something – something that was like blood but comes from bones, I think,” Daniel explained. “But only specific people can give it to you and there was nobody specific enough who could give it to me, so mom and dad said that they would –”
“Make someone that could?” Tommy finished, eyes wide. He had to swallow down the horror rising in his throat – he didn’t know these people, he couldn’t judge them, and he certainly couldn’t let that judgement show to the poor kid who died anyway despite such drastic measures being taken.
“They hurt him, so that I could have his blood – or whatever it was.” Daniel sniffled, the sound sharp in the middle of his speech given he otherwise wasn’t actually breathing. “He cried so much and – and he had a really bad cut. They had to be careful with how he could lie down for months. It made me feel so guilty.”
“That’s –” Tommy had no idea what to say. He’d heard more than a few traumatising stories in his life, thanks to his ghostly abilities, but he thought this one might be right up there as one of the worst.
Where the hell could he even start with trying to help?
Daniel didn’t seem to notice his speechlessness. “It was his first birthday a month ago. I’m meant to be – I was meant to be careful about getting sick so Mom and Dad said we couldn’t have a party even when I said that I would stay in my room the whole time that people were over. Dad bought us all cupcakes and Maddie and I tried to make it fun but –”
There was only so much fun you could try and drum up when everybody was sad, Tommy’s brain supplied, though this time he didn’t say it aloud.
“I felt so guilty,” Daniel said again, his chin wobbling from the effort of keeping his emotions at bay.
Tommy’s heart was hurting for him and for his siblings but his brain also seized on the fact that this was the second time Daniel had mentioned feeling guilty.
“I don’t think you need to feel guilty,” Tommy said. He knew it was easier said than believed, so he wasn’t surprised when Daniel only responded with an unimpressed glare. “What happened to your little brother sounds really difficult and of course your sister is sad to have lost you – I’m sure your brother will be too when he’s old enough to understand – but none of that is your fault.”
“I don’t want them to be sad,” Daniel declared mulishly, crossing his arms to underscore the stubbornness behind his words. “They don’t deserve that.”
“They’ll get through it,” Tommy said softly, trying his best to emulate the empathetic gentleness his Nonna would use when she spoke to ghosts. It was a difficult balance to maintain, he remembered her telling him. You didn’t want to minimise the impact the ghost’s death would have on their family but you also didn’t want them to wallow in the idea that they would never recover.
Daniel nodded slowly. “I can’t leave them alone while they’re sad, though,” he confessed, staring down at his hands intently.
He looked up before continuing, wiggling his pinky finger at Tommy in such a deliberate way that Tommy was sure it was supposed to signify something although he had no idea what.
“We were meant to stick together – to help each other. And I can’t – I know I can’t do that properly anymore. But I can at least stay with them until they’re happier.” Daniel nodded at Tommy, looking far more resolute and serious than any little kid should.
“Sounds like a plan,” Tommy agreed, unable to bring himself to talk the kid out of his desire to stick around until his siblings were happier – it was such a harmless wish, and it also warmed Tommy’s heart when he thought about how close Daniel and his siblings must have been to make the kid so determined to make sure that they would be alright without him.
And after all – he knew better than most about how life inevitably churned on despite death and loss. As much as he was sure Daniel’s brother and sister would miss him, it surely wouldn’t take that long for them to show enough happiness to alleviate Daniel’s guilt and allow him to move on.
Daniel popped up twice more over the next few months.
Tommy was walking home from school the first time, so he couldn’t really interact with Daniel, but that didn’t stop the boy from enthusiastically regaling him about how his little brother had mastered the fine art of walking.
“It took him longer than normal because of all the surgeries he had to do for me,” Daniel explained, bouncing along next to Tommy. “But he’s finally doing it! And I know he can’t see me, but I was on one side of the room and Maddie was on the other side and he walked straight towards me, like he knew I was there cheering him on as well.”
His excitement was infectious and Tommy found himself matching the beaming smile. It was the happiest that he had ever seen the kid, and Tommy thought that was a very good sign for Daniel getting close to finding the closure he needed.
The second visit was a lot more subdued, and not just because Tommy happened to be working on his homework in the library when he appeared.
“They’re moving house,” Daniel told him. He still whispered even though nobody else could hear him. “It’s almost all packed up already. I think I overheard Dad say that they’re leaving on Friday.”
Tommy was slightly distracted by the need to get his homework finished – his dad would be here in half an hour to pick him up and he would not be happy if he thought that Tommy had slacked off – but he still made sure to glance around to confirm that there was nobody nearby before responding. “Is that upsetting?” he asked, keeping his voice hushed.
Daniel shrugged. “There’s a lake near our house – we used to go there to explore but Mom and Dad never let us take the trail that goes all the way around. We promised that we would do it together when Evan was old enough.”
An old man shuffled around the corner, glancing between a slip of paper in his hands and the signs on the shelves. Tommy waited until he had turned into one of the narrow corridors between the towering bookshelves before responding, trying his best to quieten his voice even more.
“Maybe they didn’t want to do that without you? That would probably make them sad, right?”
“But I wanted to do it with them,” Daniel whined with a pout.
“Yeah, but they won’t know that you’re with them,” Tommy pointed out reasonably, looking up from his books to look at Daniel properly.
“I guess,” Daniel grumbled moodily, slouching back in the chair he had commandeered. “I still don’t like that they’re going to a totally new place.”
They were moving on, Tommy’s inner voice supplied, but he wasn’t about to word it that way to the kid.
“What could be good about Hershey anyway?” Daniel kept going, his nose wrinkling.
“Chocolate?” Tommy offered. He wasn’t actually sure if that was true – maybe the shared name was a coincidence – but it did make Daniel crack a smile so it didn’t really matter. “They still have the memories of everything they did with you in your hometown,” he continued, turning serious again. “But maybe looking at the places all the time is just keeping them sad and it’ll be easier when they have the memories without the reminders?”
Daniel tilted his head and chewed lip like he was giving the idea serious thought.
“Excuse me?”
Tommy started, his heart racing as he turned around to see a young woman with a lanyard showing she worked at the library standing behind him.
“Are you alright?” she asked, looking wary. “A gentleman was a little worried because it looked like you were talking to yourself…”
Tommy cursed at himself internally. He should have paid more attention to where that guy ended up. “I’m fine,” he said, giving her a smile that he hoped looked sheepish. “Just, uh – I was trying to think through how to approach this essay on A Christmas Carol and, uh, I guess I accidentally started thinking out loud.” He picked up the novel and showed it to her to corroborate his story.
She studied him for a moment before softening into a much kinder look. “Well, I can probably help you with that. Reading is our bread and butter after all! What’s your essay question?”
“We can choose,” he told her, shifting the page so she could see the three questions they’d been given. He didn’t actually need help, but he couldn’t really say no now that he’d used it as an excuse. It wasn’t like the help could make his essay worse.
“Ooh, I always love writing about the ghosts,” she said immediately after skimming the page. “It’s so fascinating to think about them and the effect their visits have on Scrooge. Can you imagine what it would be like if you got to see them?”
“Yeah,” Tommy huffed, steadfastly avoiding looking at Daniel. “I was leaning more towards the question about discussing the theme of isolation.”
The librarian seemed surprised. “That’s probably the most difficult of the bunch – no wonder you got caught up in the brainstorming!”
Tommy didn’t think that Daniel was paying attention to them, but he must have been because he suddenly leaned over the table to look at the paper.
“How come you want to write about isolation?” he asked curiously.
“It’s interesting,” Tommy said, carefully wording his answer so that the librarian would think it was in response to her statement.
“Alright then.” She shrugged, grabbing the novel and flicking through it. “I think I remember a few scenes that would be useful for you if that’s the one you want to go with.”
Tommy dutifully took notes on page numbers and scenes as she chattered away. There were a few that she identified and explained that he hadn’t thought of, so at least the help would probably help him write a stronger essay even though he was probably going to have to finish it in his room after his dad had gone to sleep at this point.
He had expected that Daniel would disappear when he realised that Tommy could no longer talk but surprisingly he stayed, listening attentively to the analysis the librarian was sharing.
It wasn’t until Tommy was packing up his things that Daniel asked one more question.
“Do you think moving away from home would make them happier?”
Tommy didn’t want to risk answering aloud, so he just nodded.
Daniel’s visible sadness at the response made his heart wrench, and he decided to risk it anyway, ducking down as though he was rearranging his backpack to try and obscure the fact that he was talking.
“It probably doesn’t feel like home anymore without you there,” he murmured. “So they probably want to try somewhere new, where they won’t be reminded of how sad they are.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Daniel said, still despondent. “Do you think Maddie and Evan will go back to the lake one day?”
“There’s nothing stopping them,” Tommy answered diplomatically, not wanting to make a promise on behalf of children he had never met and probably would never meet.
“Yeah, that’s true,” Daniel said, looking a little more satisfied. “You’re right. Just because they’re moving doesn’t mean it’s not still us against the world. We can still be together in spirit.”
“Exactly,” Tommy agreed, finally zipping up his backpack and standing up. By the time he flinged it over his shoulder, Daniel was gone.
Even though that visit ended up being far more sombre than the previous one, Tommy left the library feeling pretty proud of himself. Daniel seemed to be coming to terms with the idea that his family was moving on along a journey to find happiness again, and he expected that meant the kid shouldn’t be far off from finding the closure he needed.
Daniel appeared once more, about a week later. This time he only stayed long enough to inform Tommy that apparently the town of Hershey did apparently house the company of Hershey and as a result the entire town smelt of chocolate. They both agreed that so far as trying to foster happiness went, that was pretty damn useful.
When it then hit the six month mark without another visit, Tommy figured that he must have been right about Daniel’s closure being imminent and that the kid must have moved on. He told himself off for mourning him: he had never truly known Daniel, he had no right to feel sad that he never got the chance to say goodbye to him.
And besides, he should be feeling happy; this was the first ghost that he had helped all on his own.
He found himself wishing that Nonna was here, so that he could share this achievement with her, but unfortunately he had to content himself with telling the old owner of the pizzeria near his house who still occasionally haunted the place because ‘he needed to see how long his legacy would stay standing.’
The praise didn’t feel the same as it would have if he’d heard it from Nonna (or, for that matter, from his parents but it had been a long time since he had bothered to hope for that) but it still helped engender a small spark of pride that Tommy carried with him.
Except Daniel appeared in his bedroom about two months later, his entrance heralded by a loud string of profanities that Tommy thought even the high school kids on his basketball team would be impressed by.
Tommy could only stare at Daniel, dumbfounded, as the young boy spat out swear words with increasing volume and venom. His eyes were sparkling with rage and he was swinging wildly at the clothes and books scattered around the bedroom. Tommy was sure that he would have started throwing things if he’d been capable of it.
He tried to interrupt once or twice, hoping to calm Daniel down and ascertain what had caused this spiral, but Daniel drowned him out each time. The tirade was only stopped when there was a rapid knock on the door.
His mom opened it without waiting for him to respond. “Thomas, are you alright?” she asked, clearly alarmed.
“Can she see me too?” Daniel’s question was still loud but he was obviously trying to reign in the anger of before.
His mother didn’t show any hint that she’d heard him and kept her eyes locked on Tommy’s as she prompted, “Thomas?”
“Everything is fine, Mom,” Tommy told her. “Don’t worry about it.”
She didn’t look overly pleased with that response. “Your father is in the living room,” she reminded him, raising a meaningful eyebrow which Tommy took to mean ‘don’t let him hear you having a conversation with yourself.’ She stepped back out of the room, curtly adding, “And don’t forget I need your help with dinner. 10 minutes,” before finally shutting the door.
Helping with dinner was not one of his usual chores – according to his dad, anything to do with cooking that didn’t involve grilling a steak was ‘woman’s work’ – so Tommy knew that his mom was trying to extricate him out of this ghostly situation.
“Sorry,” Daniel said flatly, his eyes lingering on the door, likely still confused over whether or not his mother came in because she could hear his diatribe.
Tommy waved away the apology. He was just thankful that the interruption seemed to have calmed Daniel down and that he hadn’t jumped straight into more swearing.
“What happened? Are you alright?”
Daniel huffed and collapsed onto Tommy’s desk chair, his ghostly outline totally unbothered by the pile of ‘not clean but not dirty yet’ shirts.
“I’m dead,” he pointed out, almost snapping. He sounded even more upset than he had done right after he died, when he first appeared to Tommy. “I don’t think you can be dead and alright.”
That was probably a fair statement, Tommy acknowledged in his head. But still – something had to have happened to have caused such a drastic outburst from a kid who’d been scandalised a few months ago when he’d overheard Tommy say the word ‘fuck’.
“Okay – so what happened recently that triggered all of this?” Tommy amended. “I thought you weren’t a big fan of bad words.” He’d hoped that the teasing tone might lighten Daniel’s mood a little but instead his frown turned thunderous again.
“You said that bad words are the only ones powerful enough to get across what you really want to say,” Daniel said, his expression mutinous. “And I needed some really fucking powerful words.”
“Okay,” Tommy said slowly. He told himself that it was irrational to feel guilty – it wasn’t like he’d taught some random 9-year-old that it was fine to swear if you thought the situation warranted it. Daniel was a ghost; there were other more important things he had to deal with then worrying about curse words. “What happened that needed such a powerful reaction then?”
The simmering anger finally left Daniel’s face – although Tommy now thought it would have been preferable, because it was replaced by an unbearable sadness.
Tommy’s imagination ran wild as the silence elongated between them.
Did Daniel witness something that made it clear that his family had well and truly moved on? Had the reality of seeing them happy without him hit harder than expected?
Or had one of them gotten angry, perhaps? Tommy knew that grief often made people lash out, blissfully unaware that their deceased loved one was hovering nearby and could hear everything they might let out in a rant.
It could also be that one of them had done something that made Daniel legitimately angry, but Tommy struggled to fathom what that might be. The only time he’d ever seen a ghost get that angry was an old grandfather who was furious at his children’s attempts to circumvent his will.
(The old man had cut his eldest child out for being gay. Apparently his children had been more accepting and wanted to share their inheritance with their brother.
Tommy chose not to dwell on why that story seemed to stick so vividly in his head.)
But nothing he could dream up – absolutely nothing – could have prepared him for what Daniel finally revealed.
“My parents are pretending like I never existed. That’s why they moved.”
“Wha –” Tommy had to pause to gather his thoughts properly. “What do you mean? Are they not putting up pictures? Because sometimes that’s just because it’s too pain –”
Daniel shook his head, stopping Tommy from continuing. “No. It’s not just the pictures. Mom and Dad got rid of all my stuff from the old house. Everything. Even the stuff I told them I wanted Maddie and Evan to have. They told everyone in their new town that they only have two kids.”
At this point, Daniel slumped over, burying his head in his hands. His voice was thick with misery when he whispered, “My sister isn’t allowed to talk about me and – and my baby brother isn’t going to have any idea that I ever existed in the first place.”
Tommy could only stare at Daniel in slack-jawed astonishment.
It took a solid minute before he could actually form words and even then it was barely coherent. “They – how – they can’t.”
Because seriously – how? Leaving aside wanting to erase someone’s existence, how could you possibly actually manage it?
“He’s too little,” Daniel shared, tears starting to gather in his eyes. “He won’t – he won’t remember me if nobody tells him stories and – and Mom and Dad think it will be better for him if he doesn’t remember. How can it be better? I’m his – I’m meant to be his big brother. Even if I – I can’t be there properly, if he knew how much I love him and Maddie and that it was always meant to be the three of us against the world…”
Daniel stared at him as he repeated, “How can it be better?” as though pleading with Tommy to give him a reasonable answer.
“I don’t know,” was the only one Tommy could offer.
His heart hurt seeing Daniel’s anguish.
It ached at the thought of a young girl and a tiny little boy who were being robbed of the memory of their loving brother.
“Thomas! Your mother is calling you! What are you doing keeping her waiting?”
Tommy flinched at his father’s bellow, which was loud enough to reverberate through the whole house.
“I – I need to…” he trailed off, feeling helpless as he stared at Daniel’s despondent form.
Daniel didn’t acknowledge him until Tommy had one hand on the door.
“What am I meant to do now?”
He was staring at Tommy beseechingly, his gaze pinning him to the door behind him, and Tommy’s skin crawled with jittering self-doubt.
“I don’t know,” he said again, desperately wishing he could have thought of anything else to say. “I’m – I’m sorry, Daniel. I really wish I could help…”
Tommy wasn’t sure if he had ever felt as useless and weak as he did leaving Daniel behind in his room.
“I don’t know what your mother wants in there,” his dad said as he walked past the living room to get to the kitchen. “But for god’s sake don’t go doing any of the girly crap.”
For the first time in his life, Tommy was struck by the urge to snap back at his father.
Here he was, preoccupied by the horror that his son might do something that wasn’t oozing with masculinity when there were people like Daniel’s family out there, grappling with a grief response that had the potential to ruin multiple lives as well as a child’s chance for a peaceful afterlife.
But the spark of righteous courage withered when his mom appeared in the kitchen doorway, calling him over with a placating, “I just need a hand with the chopping.”
“That’s alright then,” Dad grunted, apparently satisfied that using the knives didn’t count as ‘girly crap.’
His mom closed the door as soon as she ushered him into the kitchen. Despite the additional barrier, she kept her voice low. “Who was that?”
“It was a kid,” Tommy replied. He avoided her unimpressed look, going over to sink instead to wash his hands.
“Yes, I noticed that. Has he visited you before?”
Tommy nodded reluctantly, already anticipating what she would say.
Sure enough: “You shouldn’t have engaged with him.”
“It’s a kid, Mom. What was I supposed to do?” Tommy snapped exasperatedly. He turned the water off and looked up to stare at her.
“I understand the desire to help, Thomas,” she said evenly, pointing him towards the chopping board. “I truly do. But there is only so much help we can actually provide, and you will get burned when you realise that you cannot do the impossible.”
She came over to run her hand through his hair and then tugged at his chin to get him to look her in the eyes. “I do not want to see you get burned,” she said emphatically, staring at him until he dropped his gaze back to the potatoes.
He wanted to disagree with her.
But he couldn’t bring himself to, not when even thinking about Daniel’s situation sent pure helplessness coursing through his body.
Daniel didn’t share any anecdotes about his siblings the next few times he showed up.
Tommy assumed that Daniel was probably using him to distract himself from everything that was happening with his family and he was fine to oblige, even though it meant that Daniel was now asking Tommy questions about his life instead.
Some of them were totally harmless and innocent, like his questions about Tommy’s school and the various sports he played, or curious prodding about what it was like to live in California. A couple made him uncomfortable, like the one about Tommy’s friends or when he’d asked if Tommy had ever had a girlfriend.
(He hadn’t had one before. He had no idea how to answer the follow-up question of ‘why’ and said something about ‘not finding that connection yet’ – an excuse that he knew his father would have scoffed at derisively but thankfully Daniel accepted with only a thoughtful hum.)
The last time Daniel had visited, they’d spoken about some of the previous ghosts that Tommy had dealt with, which had naturally led to Tommy telling him a little bit about Nonna.
“I feel like it would have been better for you if she was still here,” Tommy had shared in a rare moment of open vulnerability. “I think she would have been able to help you better than I have.”
Given that conversation, Tommy probably should have expected the question he got this time around.
“Why do you think I ended up coming to you?”
Daniel was speaking in a whisper; it was a habit he had fallen into whenever they were in Tommy’s room, although this time it also seemed to fit with the mesmerizingly quiet darkness that enveloped the house.
“I don’t really know how it works,” Tommy answered softly. He shifted in his bed, squinting to try and see Daniel but the moon wasn’t providing enough light to allow him to discern the ghostly form. “I think it’s usually because ghosts stay close to where they died –”
Daniel made a dissenting noise. “That can’t be it, California is super far from us.”
“Or it’s a place that they have a connection to,” Tommy suggested, but that also earned disagreement.
“The furthest I got to travel was when Mom and Dad wanted to try a specialist in Washington. Even when we talked about what vacations we could take after I got better, it wasn’t California.”
“Where was it?” Tommy asked curiously.
“New York. I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty,” Daniel said, sounding wistful.
“Didn’t dream of seeing the Hollywood sign?” Tommy said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood.
“What’s that?” Daniel asked blankly.
Tommy’s jaw dropped and he had to sit up so that he could properly express his disbelief. “You don’t know about the Hollywood sign? The universal symbol of movies and stardom?”
“Oh,” Daniel said, still without an ounce of recognition. “Mom didn’t like us watching movies, that’s probably why I haven’t heard of it.”
“Yeah, but –” Tommy spluttered in disbelief, unable to fathom the idea that a kid living in the same country as him didn’t know what the Hollywood sign was. He shook his head before dropping back into his bed properly. “One day, I will take you to the Hollywood sign, kid. It might not be quite as cool as the Statue of Liberty, but it’s still iconic.”
“That sounds cool,” Daniel said, a hint of brightness entering his voice.
Tommy thought that was the end of the conversation but, just as his eyes started to droop closed, Daniel spoke up again. “But I don’t think I ended up coming to you because you would show me some movie sign.”
“Probably not, no.”
“So why do you think I ended up here, appearing to you?” Daniel asked again.
Tommy honestly had no idea what to tell him.
It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t also occurred to him: why had he, specifically, been the one that Daniel had been drawn to way back when his spirit first slipped away from his body?
He had some scant knowledge about how ghostly visits worked. As he’d told Daniel, proximity was usually a major factor but he had already guessed that this wasn’t the case with Daniel. For one thing, ghosts who were drawn to a specific place tended to stay around that area but Daniel would appear wherever Tommy happened to be when he decided he wanted to visit.
If anyone in his family had any additional insights about what might drive certain ghosts to come to them, then they had never shared it with him.
Well, that wasn’t quite true: he did have a vague recollection of his nonna saying something about ‘the universe providing what is needed’. But even back then he hadn’t really understood what she meant, and it didn’t seem to make any sense in the context of Daniel either.
What could Daniel possibly need from him that some other person who shared this talent couldn’t provide?
He had wondered if it was as simple as the fact that he and Daniel were relatively close in age, but he was sure that at least some of the other people out there who could also see ghosts would have to be kids.
They would have undoubtedly done a much better job than him, too, so he truly had no idea why poor Daniel got stuck with him.
“I don’t know, kid,” Tommy finally answered, staring up at his ceiling. “Maybe there’s no real rhyme or reason to it at all.”
It was silent for a long moment and then –
“No,” Daniel said strongly. “There’s a reason. I don’t know what it is, but I can tell you that there’s a reason.”
He sounded so decisive, so sure of himself, that Tommy couldn’t bring himself to voice his disagreement.
After all, what did it really hurt to let Daniel believe that?