Ghosts in Every Corner

The shrill ringing made her drunken slumber impossible to maintain. Eyes closed against the threat of sunshine, her hand reached out knocking over a glass still half full of vodka as she picked up the phone. She grunted into the phone and fell back against her limp pillow.

“Yes, Cooper Howell calling, from Clayton and Howell law firm. Is this Juniper Matthewson?”

A consenting grunt.

“Miss Matthewson, the trial is starting in three days. We wanted to keep you informed in case you wanted to attend. We are also wondering if you are still planning to provide us with a survivor’s statement. It would help the case tremendously. If you need, we can write it for you if you could just meet with us.”

“I know how to write,” she rasped, her words tasted as sour as they sounded: cheap vodka edged with cigarettes and flat mixers.

“Of course I only meant that it can be very emotional to write such a statement. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who writes it for you.”

She regretted answering the phone three weeks ago when she was nostalgic-drunk, feeling fiercely protective of her father. Now she was apathy-drunk and only days of sleep or many stiff drinks would cure. She also knew a conviction meant nothing for her or for her father, plus she had tried to write the survivor’s statement about a hundred times and couldn’t make it past the first hundred words. It wasn’t happening.

“I’ll have it this weekend. I can drop it off.”

“You can also, email or-”

June hung up before he could say that someone would stop by. She didn’t want anyone to stop by except the Argonaut Liquors delivery guy.

Without looking she knew there were two fingers of the McCormick’s handle remaining. That’s how much her father always left, especially on Saturday nights when the liquor stores aren’t open in the morning and you need those few shots to even get up and out of the house and to a bar before melting. These days liquor stores are always open and all she had to do was get out her laptop and place an order.

With that chore out of the way, Juniper finished the last gulp before making her way to the bathroom. Shivering through the harsh taste of warm bottom shelf liquor she felt the vodka waking up the remnants in her bloodstream. Instinctively she ran her hand under the medicine cabinet as she entered.

The night she found the writing under the medicine cabinet had been thrilling. She laughed and cried and laughed more. She spent the evening blissful-drunk, singing along to her father’s CDs and talking to his ghost.

She found it after one week of living in her father’s childhood home. She was hoping to find pieces of her father, memories and his presence, a way to heal and move on. A way to write a survivor’s statement that would mean something. In the first week she found nothing. One night she ate at one of the restaurants they used to go to. It was all different. Nothing felt like him. She ate and drank too much and when she got back to the three story Park Hill mansion, she threw up until there was nothing left inside her.

Lying on the cold tile floor she gazed up. The writing under the medicine cabinet said, “What the hell are you looking under here for?” It took her a moment to realize that it was her father’s writing from when he was a child. Just a silly little kid thing to do. One of those things only you know about. She hugged herself on the cold tile floor. Grateful for a glimpse of him.

Since then, there have been daily sightings. Small pictures carved into wooden window frames. In places you had to be looking for. For two weeks now, maybe three, she kept finding them. A cross and a teardrop in the corner of the closet, “help” chipped into the paint under the kitchen sink, a barn owl's heart shaped face painted under the built-in, a devil face drawn above the ancient radiator dial looking morose. Once she saw them, she couldn't not see them, they were ghosts of her father; ghosts in every corner.

June couldn’t believe the trial was starting in three days. There would be so much pain and hurt and outrage. Maybe for some there would be forgiveness and peace. Not for her father who found his “peace” through a needle in his arm every evening. One night the needle gave him permanent “peace”.

When she got the call from the coroner’s office it was noon in Seattle, her home for a little over a year. She numbly texted her boss and said she needed to go home for a while. She texted her boyfriend and told him not to worry.

Now, a month later she disconnected her Seattle cell phone and took up residency in the old apartment her father lived in; the one that was made from the mansion of his childhood. His drinking was so bad after his parents died, that he let a contractor put in apartments as a way to make money. He kept one to live in and rented out the others. One of the tenets took care of the business side for free rent. They rented out every space available, except the attic. There were barn owls in the attic and her father insisted they be left alone. He loved the birds though no one else had ever seen or even heard them. The other two apartments plus the garden level brought in enough money for him to drink and eat occasionally.

Until the accident.

After the accident, he had one choice: prison or rehab. He chose rehab. Sober he was a new person. He still smoked too much and would stare off into space at odd times, but he was also warm and funny. Just a man trying to find his peace. His therapist said he needed closure. That what happened to him wasn’t ok. It wasn’t ok to rape children. It wasn’t his fault even if that person claimed to be close to God. He gathered the others. It was time to hold their rapists accountable. They would sue the Archdiocese of Denver.

He called Juniper in Seattle to tell her he told her the whole truth. Why he was so angry and mean to her when she was younger. That hurt people hurt people. She told him she was so proud of him and asked how she could help.

He told her he didn’t think he could get through it by himself. The trial, the lawyers, the interviews, all made him want to drink. She was the smartest person he knew. Did she think, maybe she could come back home for a while and be like an assistant and emotional support?

Juniper wilted inside. He took up her entire life. With his needs and his violence and his helplessness when he drank. That’s why she moved to Seattle where she had a boyfriend with tattoos and a job where she smoked American Spirits with bands. She had her own life.

She said no. He said he understood. Every time after that when they talked, she would listen for signs that he wasn’t ok. She convinced herself she didn’t hear them.

She killed her father just as much as that priest had. But she was supposed to write a “survivor’s statement” so the jury will feel bad for what that priest did to her father. How it destroyed his goodness and made him hurt people he loved. How it made him drink and turn her into an alcoholic orphan. The jury would be sad and they would make the church give them money. There was no justice. There was no peace. Never for her father.

The delivery guy rang. Barefoot, Juniper went to the hall and down the creaking stairs carefully keeping her balance with little faith the century old banister would hold her if needed.

At the bottom of the stairs she flashed her ID to the driver and he dropped the bags. The thud of vodka hitting the porch gave her a feeling of safety. She braced against the chilly November flurries and opened the door. Another delivery person was on the porch and tried to hand her a bag.

“That’s not mine,” she said, refusing to reach out.

“It goes to Robert Jones, attic. Can you bring it up? My knees are old.” He was older looking, but hardly old.

“Noone lives in the attic, there are barn owls in the attic.” The driver had already turned around hustling back to the warmth of his car.

Sighing, Juniper picked up the bag. Fine. She would take it up, knock, and then leave it there. She knocked on a small door leading to the attic. To her surprise, a “come in,” was issued from the other side.

Climbing up the small flight of stairs and into a glowing amber warmth she was enveloped into the smell of myrrh, leather, and tobacco. This was not how she pictured the attic. She always pictured drafty windows and dusty cloth covered relics covered in mice and owl droppings. This room was warm and inviting. Cozy like a little nest. Row upon row of books stacked along the entire back wall.

“Leave it on the table,” said an old man looking above her head. “Right there, please so I can find it.” It took June a moment to recognize that the man was blind. Dark eyes floated aimlessly as his pale heart shaped face moved between her and the table.

“I didn’t think anyone lived up here,” she said, her tone suspicious. Though if anyone would have let a blind vagrant live in the attic, it was her father.

“I do. Me and the owls, anyway,” he said, winking comically. “I take care of the owls and the books. Make sure the owls eat the mice and the mice don’t eat the books,” he hooted with laughter.

“These are your books?” Once again, Juniper struggled to not sound suspicious.

“Yep, read ‘em to the birds every night!” The old man laughed so hard it sounded like hissing as he caught his breath. “The truth is,” he said with an exaggerated whisper, “the man who grew up here, kept them up here. Said they were important, said they held his truths. So I kept after them.”

Juniper ran her hand along the spines of the books. She pulled The Prophet off the shelf. Her father’s messy cursive lined the margins next to underlined passages. Every book was like that. Every book held a piece of her father as he was when he was reading these books. A few journals dotted the shelves. Juniper was dizzy at the enormity of her finding. This wasn’t little messages under a hallway banister, this was the key to unlocking the truth.

“Can I borrow some of these?”

“I reckon they are yours anyway. You are his daughter, right?”

“How did you know?”

“Ya smell just like him,” the old man laughed until he cried.

Suddenly self conscious of her state of drunkenness, she grabbed four books.

“Thank you. I will bring them back.”

That night Juniper found her father in places of wonder. She drank less and felt more. Her conversation with her father was easier when she could hear him and not just be haunted by his ghosts.

The next day June went upstairs to get more of her father’s words. She stood outside the small door knocking. The landlady across the hall looked up at her from the stairs.

“What are you doing?”

“Just knocking so Mr. Jones knows I am coming in.”

“June, you know there is no one living there. There are barn owls in the attic.”