Ch. 5: Something is Missing

I don't know anymore, who the real ghosts are.

This is chapter 5 of 8, that I’m publishing one chapter at a time every Friday. I wrote this first draft of my novel in 2022, and I’m sharing it here along with new artwork exploring what it could be like if I turned it into a graphic novel.

PREVIOUSLY: June carries a weight no one else can see, a hike up the mountain shows Imogen's memory lapses are more than just stress, and June must take steps to make sure no one else finds out--about either of them.

You can also listen to me read this chapter—just hit play above.

CW: brief mentions of domestic abuse, difficult conversations around allowing an unsafe person into your life, blood imagery

Colleen can tell I’m worried. 

Can’t the whole world? I feel like I’m screaming it silently, from my bones, from my pores, every moment of every day now.

Don’t see Grandma’s memory lapses.

Don’t see Mom’s body.

Don’t see her blood on me.

Don’t see me don’t see me don’t see me.

But I keep it on lockdown as much as I can–I don’t have a choice. 

“How do you feel about your father getting… …out, soon?” Colleen’s been much more direct lately–I think she’s gotten more pressure from Mrs. Standford, too–but even with that she can’t bring herself to say the word.

Jail, Colleen, I say in my head.  He’s getting out of jail soon.

I’ve gotten a lot more direct lately, too, but mostly to myself.

Her blunt questions keep me on my toes, but at least this is a good excuse for how anxious I know I look.

“I’m anxious.” My app announces for me, short and simple. I’ve been doing a lot of answering like this lately–enough to make them feel like you’re talking, and being honest, but not enough to give anything away.

The truth is, I haven’t thought about it very much–I haven’t had much time. I’ve been keeping tabs on Grandma almost every second of every day, and biting my nails until they bleed whenever I’m away from her at school. It’s become a new way of being–tough, on guard, structured. I can’t afford to fall apart now, and it’s no longer about hiding to avoid emotional burnout for me–it’s about survival. I’m not slipping between the cracks these days, I’m forcing my way in–and bringing Grandma there with me, praying every moment no one else sees what’s happening.

Colleen studies me. I can’t help myself, and glance at the clock.

In the interrogation room that is this (and every other) therapy session these days, that is a Bad Move.

Colleen sighs and takes her glasses off.

“June, can you tell me more?” She’s in a fluffy pink sweater today, but her eyes aren’t messing around. Still, she catches herself and looks back down at her notes–the guidelines for talking to someone with selective mutism¹ help me hide a bit more, but the stakes were already high. Eye contact and pressure could already crush me in everyday conversation. Now things often feel like I’m in the middle of an intense spy movie, and someone’s trying to get me to tell them the codes.

I’m exhausted.

“I…feel like it’s all too much.” At least I can be honest sometimes.

Colleen nods sympathetically. She thinks for a moment. 

“This might seem silly, but you might benefit from having a hobby.”

A hobby?

“You mean like… puzzles?” The app’s monotone voice doesn’t capture the bewildered tone in my head.

Colleen laughs. “Sure. Or knitting. Making something. Writing. But puzzle solving can be a hobby, sure.”

I can’t help the confusion in my eyebrows. 

“You need a hobby, June. A distraction.” Colleen explains,  “Something you can hang on to, that exists outside everything else you’re worried about.”

Back home, after the session, I can’t imagine anything that exists outside what I’m worried about.

Grandma hasn’t done anything else scary, not since the hike, and a lot of the things she did up until then were small, really. Forgetting names, saying the wrong word. But I don’t know when something else like that will happen. I’ve been trying to keep her as calm as I can, with as few stressors as possible–I read somewhere that that might help the really bad… episodes? …from happening as much.

At home, things are much the same as ever–I’m just more careful to keep an eye on her. We watch movies, we bake things, we play games together.

Right now, Grandma is testing out a gingerbread recipe for the holidays.

“Can you refill the powdered sugar, please, love?” Grandma nods toward the empty powdered sugar tin on the counter. She has her home apron on–the one with mismatched ruffly pockets that probably weren’t meant for holding anything originally,  but are all saggy and stretched out from the many times she’s used them for utensils and measuring spoons, and there’s some powdered sugar already on her cheek from mixing up the frosting. 

She’s beautiful.

And herself.

I smile and nod. I’ve been so scared, sometimes, that something else will happen, that I’ve been missing these little moments–focusing so much on protecting her that I forget to just love her. How has this dynamic changed so much, so suddenly? I remember how I used to rely on her for everything, and I wonder if she’s noticed the change, too, despite how well I’m trying to hide it. How suddenly I feel like I’m the big one, and she’s the little one–or at least waiting to have to be at any moment.

Maybe I do need that hobby.

I take the green, banged-up tin that Grandma’s mom (and maybe even her mom) used to keep powdered sugar in with me to the pantry.

But I freeze once I open the door, before I turn on the light.

Back in the depths of the pantry, where it’s darkest (usually), there’s a soft, flickering light, in a rectangle shape.

The little door.

I turn the light on–and see nothing unusual.

Off again–and there it is: the dim outline of the crack around the little door, up above the top shelf, in a warm, shifting light, as if there’s a candle behind it. Or lots of candles. 

Lots of candles where there is supposed to be a brick wall.

I think back to the party, and how utterly convinced I was there was a ghost in there–how I thought I might scare Grandma with how crazy I was acting, and how different things are now. That feels like a lifetime ago, and I haven’t been listening for the tapping lately, but now this… 

I wonder if it’s true. 

If there is a ghost… or something… there.

And if there is… …maybe that ghost is like me, using different ways to communicate with people. The tapping hasn’t been working lately, so… 

I watch that flickering sliver of light outlining the door for a moment.

That’s what I would have done–switch communication methods to try to get through.

It’s a little too creepy, here with the lights off and a strange glow coming from somewhere it definitely shouldn’t be, but I turn the light back on and approach the door.

I hesitate, a finger poised an inch from its scratched surface. 

Yes. Yes, I might be crazy. But seriously, at this point, what is there to lose?

I tap, twice, and listen.

Tap, tap, tap, 

comes the answer.

That’s it.

This may be crazy, but it’s not any crazier than anything else that’s been happening lately.

I laugh to myself a bit, too–

Colleen did say I needed a hobby.

A few days later, and I still haven't figured out the puzzle. 

There’s still tapping, often, and I try to tap back, but I can’t figure out how to get behind the door, or understand what the ghost is saying–if they’re saying anything at all. 

And if there’s even a ghost.

But it honestly doesn’t matter much whether there is or not–it's something to hold on to, to keep me from thinking too hard about other things. Like Colleen said, a hobby.  And like most hobbies, I’d guess, this one is starting to get a bit frustrating once I hit a wall and have to work hard to move forward. 

I’ve tried using my app (quietly) to talk to the door directly.

Nothing.

I’ve tried tracing letters on the door–sometimes the taps sound like little scratches, and I wondered if I had the method all wrong in the first place. 

But still nothing. 

Nothing different, anyway.

I try not to spend too long in here or Grandma will notice, so I only get a few minutes at a time to try things out. I also realized since I obviously can’t tell Colleen about this hobby, I’d probably need to take up knitting, too–so I started bringing my knitting in here, and have literally two rows to show for all the knitting I haven’t done while I’ve been tapping back to the ghost. The lack of progress (with the ghost) is a little deflating, but I guess Colleen was right–it is distracting.

And somehow it feels like this strange little door is the most consistent thing in my life right now–except maybe how awkward it is to try to talk to Gemma. I still haven’t been able to really manage that. 

But the door is always here, and there’s (almost) always tapping. 

In my little world right now, I see Grandma fraying at the edges, and I’m doing my best to wrap myself around that so no one will see, and at school, my Team is on high alert with the date of my dad’s release approaching, and I’m keeping Mom safe through extra dentists-office-therapy-sessions and bad-cop-Colleen questions, and I have to have everything, everything–all my fears and worries and emotions–on lockdown through all of it, never knowing when it’s all going to just come crashing down around me.

But the door is just here.

Always.

She is here.

Is it weird I feel like it’s a she?

Maybe it’s weirder that I feel like she cares, somehow. That she’s reassuring me, through all of it. 

I have no idea who she is, and what she’s saying–if anything–or even if she is a she. Or, really, if there’s even anything there at all. 

But at least it’s something.

And she’s keeping me together, somehow, this being behind this strange little door.

Another few days of pantry puzzling and Grandma-watching and not knitting later, and I’m called to the school office again for another Team Meeting. I know what this is about, and I’ve been dreading it. 

As I gather my things, I catch Gemma’s eye–she’s in English with me–and look away quickly. I feel awful about how strained things have been since I told her to leave me alone, and I don’t know how to fix it. Or if I even should. 

Having friends feels even less safe now.

I feel so confused and topsy -turvy these days, if I ever try to pin down what I’m feeling. Mostly I’m trying not to feel anything. To keep it together. To keep us safe. But if I stop for just a second–if I let it in for a moment, I still can’t put my finger on it. It feels like I’m falling, constantly, endlessly, into a void that will go on forever, and I’ll just keep falling, spinning head over heels, faster and faster so I can’t tell which way is up, and I’ll also never actually arrive. Never actually crash.  Like I’m just stuck in this absolute chaos, falling into nothing.

I don’t know what I feel about anything. I’m not sure I can afford to.

But I see Gemma hiding behind her bangs, and I’m over here hiding behind… everything, really,  and I think about past June, and how she would have acted totally differently toward Gemma. How we might have been good friends, with none of this awkward protectiveness–or at least not all of it.

But she’s scribbling notes in her binder.

And I’m still falling.

And I speed past her, spinning, as I go, following Miss Singh to the conference room.

On the way, I work to stop the falling into chaos–or at least ignore how it feels like the hallway is revolving and folding up and over me, over and over. How the world is going much too fast, while I compose myself and check that my safeguards are all in place:

Grandma doesn’t have problems remembering anything.

I’m not worried about living in foster care, or Grandma going to a home.

I’m not hiding anything about Mom. 

And then there’s Dad.

My heart sinks, it’s so heavy, and it feels like at least that should anchor me as I spin, but if anything it makes it worse. 

I’ve been ignoring so much for so long, trying to pretend it’s not real–I honestly didn’t know how else to live after what happened.

How can you continue, when everything is so broken and bleeding? How do you pick up and move on, when there’s nothing to move on to? When the only thing solidly in front of you is the truth you can’t even bear to look at, but that you can’t get away from no matter how hard you try?

In the conference room, I try to stay focused as they throw words around above the long table, these adults who don’t have to live any of this every moment. Who can go home and leave this behind. Who only have to endure this for the length of one bad cup of coffee every few weeks.

Who could break everything at any moment, here under the buzzing lights.

“The question we really need to discuss, June, is how much your father should be involved in your life.” Mrs. Stanford recites it all matter-of-factly, as I’m sure she has to. How many meetings like this does she have to preside over? 

“As you know, he cannot be appointed your guardian because of his convictions, but there are other ways he can be a part of your life, depending on what you want, and what we decide here today.” Mrs. Stanford continues, “We’ll be discussing this later, once you’re back in class, and we’ll need to make some decisions. But before we get to that, we want to know what you think. How do you feel about your father being involved in your life?”

Mrs. Stanford directs the question into the space between me and Grandma, where there’s one of those motivational posters hanging on the wall behind me:

THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU DO TODAY

They have no idea.

I knew this was coming, but I’m still at a loss. I’ve never been able to pin this one down, and somehow didn’t fully let myself realize until this moment that I absolutely have to. It feels like one of those dreams people talk about having where they’re in school, and all of a sudden, there’s a big, important test they didn’t study for at all, and they might not even have any clothes on. 

This morning, Grandma gave me an extra long hug–the lovely, firm kind that only the people closest to you can give–and tried, again, to talk to me about this meeting. 

“I know it’s hard, love, and there’s no real, good, answer.”

Of course, she’s right. But reassurance from Grandma feels different, now, when I know the next moment she could be talking nonsense–nothing has been as bad as that day in the woods, but I’ve caught her a few times worrying about the baby out loud, or talking about something in a cave. I know that doesn’t mean everything she says isn’t true–of course not–but things can’t ever be quite the same, can they?

Can they?

And with my dad…

I’m not sure things can ever be the same there, either.

And I don’t want them to be–at least not just like they were Before. 

Before Mom died. 

Maybe there was a before the Before, that I would have wanted to have back again. Maybe before me, things were better for Mom and Dad, and they had happier lives that felt more like life here, at the diner, with Grandma. Safe and loved.

Maybe. 

But if it ever really existed, it was before I could remember.

If it ever existed, I wouldn’t have had to pretend it did.

I wouldn’t have had to long for it so much that I made myself believe it was real. That he could make it real.

Or that he would.

I don’t know how to love him when loving him is what got us here, the three of us—a silent child and an invisible, bleeding corpse and a forgetting old woman whose magic isn’t the kind that can save her.

What do I think about my father being involved in my life?

My fingers hover over the buttons, and my heart feels eaten alive by the guilt of it. By what I know I have to say.

“What if we try to break it down a bit,” Phoebe suggests from years away at the end of the table. “How about if he could visit you sometimes, June. Supervised. How would that feel?”

I remember a moment at bedtime, years ago, in my pajamas, and he throws me in the air and catches me, grinning, and tucks me in. We’re laughing, and he smells like cedarwood, and I love him with everything I am.

In the conference room, I start to nod.

But I remember.

I remember the glass on the kitchen floor the first time he threw something at her.

And that day at the park, with the picnic, and he pushed me for what felt like glorious hours on the swings. And he brought Mom’s favorite cookies. Chocolate chip, with a kiss on the cheek.

I feel him looking at me, from the photograph in the tin Mom gave me–the old one that used to hold candy, decades ago, that now holds the lock of Grandma’s hair, and Mom’s hair, too. The one that was her last gift to me. In the photo, we’re in the backyard, by the garden, and he was smiling then, too, and you couldn’t see any bruises on her–just ink on her fingers from writing, like there always was. But I remember the way I ran to him, when he came home that morning, and how she stayed on the porch, in the shadows.

I’m betraying someone, either way. 

I don’t know anymore, what is right.

I don’t know anymore, who the real ghosts are.

What do I think about my father being involved in my life? Do I want him to be able to visit me?

Finally, I remember. I remember that kitchen floor, covered in blood. Her blood. Blood I can’t wash away.

Blood no one knows I was there to see.

The truth of it, of what really happened, stares me down. I see it in his face, in my mind. I see it in his hands that held us and hit her and carried me and tucked her hair behind her ears, and I feel it in the smell of cedarwood that still clings to that photograph in the tin I should never have gone back for.

I will never not see it.

“No. I don’t want to see him.”

There’s a great pause in the room as my verdict echoes.

It hangs in the air, buzzing with the lights for a moment, and I fight to stay upright.

My stomach is tangled into my throat somehow, and I think I might be sick. 

I try to hide it. Try to be brave. Try to stand by my own words, that now land in the middle of the table, and fall sideways awkwardly, uncertainly, stared at by half a dozen teachers and counselors like some kind of strange, dead animal to be studied.

Grandma nods, and grabs my hand while I wrestle with my insides. 

Colleen, surprisingly, breaks the silence. She never used to speak up much here unless someone asked her a direct question.

“I know this is complicated, June,” She’s giving me her Understanding Voice, and ironically, it puts me on edge, “and you can feel however you feel about it. But he is your father, and we know he–”

“But!?” Grandma interrupts sharply, and everyone turns to look at her, “There’s no ‘But,’ Colleen.” 

The whole room is electric. 

“June has said no.” Grandma continues, staring right into Colleen’s eyes. I’ve never seen her this forceful.  “That means no.”

Things have been strange with Grandma, lately, but not this kind of strange. In the bad moments, they’ve been blank-eyes and confusion scary. Lost-in-the-woods scary. But not fire-in-her-eyes scary. Not fierce-lioness scary. 

The room erupts in opinions and questions, all flung around above me.

“Don’t we think he deserves a chance–”

“There’s no excuse–”

“Shouldn’t this wait until–”

But I focus on Grandma. On her eyes.

I see my fear and anger and protectiveness for her mirrored in her own gaze as she takes on Colleen for me. I can barely contain the love I feel for her in this moment, and the desire to always, always have her look this alive and present. But she’s fierce in ways she doesn’t need to be, and it tips into something stranger, and more volatile than I’ve ever seen in her before. Something raw and unpredictable and charged with something I can’t put my finger on.

“You’ve seen the evidence. You know what he’s capable of. Don’t tell me you don’t believe it!” Grandma grips the edge of the table, her knuckles white, and I hear the fear under the knife of anger in her voice.

“He was acquitted of …the most serious charge, Imogen.” Colleen is taken aback, on the ropes, and doesn't want to say the word.

Murder.

I hear Louis at the dance, and the echoes in my own head. The ache of carrying Mom around with me. All the fingers pointed at my father.

Nothing feels fair to any of us. There are no answers.

I want to scream, to let the truth out. To give it all up. To let it all be over.

For a moment, I try. I open my mouth and will the words to come out, but they don’t. 

But it doesn’t matter–no one would have heard, even if they had: Grandma’s on a rampage, at least for a woman known for the way she brings you extra ice cream with your pie.

“Acquitted? Acquitted, Colleen?? It doesn't matter! We don’t know for sure what happened. We can’t just assume that because the legal system can’t prove–” Grandma stands, bumping the table, and all the coffee cups on it almost spill–people have to scramble to catch them, and Mr. Choi misses. His half-caf dribbles down the table leg, and everyone’s eyes are on Grandma, gawping. Grandma catches herself and takes a breath. She turns to me, and softens, and all at once I feel like the little one again, in the care of the big one, and I’m grateful.  “June, love, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She throws another “I’m sorry” up at the adults around the table, but she’s focusing on me.

She reaches down to touch my hair, and there are tears in her eyes as she searches my face. I think she’s worried I’m afraid of her.

I grab her hand and squeeze it. I’m not. 

She smiles back through the tears and covers them with a bustle of activity as she gathers her things and mine. “We better head home, chick.” 

We cross town to stop at home before heading to the diner for the dinner shift.

I think we both know we need a chance to calm down. To cool off. To collect ourselves.

“No one is angry at you, love. You know that, don’t you?” Grandma puts her hand on my shoulder for a moment as we walk down the sidewalk.

I nod.

“And I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have talked about him in front of you like that. None of us should have. I just…” She trails off, and I hear that fear again at the bottom of her voice.

“I want you to be safe. And I know I won’t always be able to make you safe.” 

I slow down and fall behind her as we pass the cemetery. Does she know she’s forgetting things? 

Grandma shakes her head to herself, looking down at her feet as she walks. “But I shouldn’t have argued like that in front of you.”

A few steps later, she rushes back in, and the forcefulness of her words and her footsteps carries her briskly past the Gardner’s house: “But it’s not wrong to say no. About your dad. It’s your decision.”

She stops abruptly, and turns to put her hands on my shoulders, looking right into my eyes for a moment. Her gaze is intense. Urgent. 

“And I believe you.”

I blink at her, unsure how to respond.

She doesn’t wait for a response, though. She nods to herself, looking back down at the sidewalk, and turns around to keep going.

I don’t completely know what she means about believing me, but I know she’s on my side, no matter what. 

“I’ve got your back, kid.” She bumps me lightly with her elbow as she holds the gate open for me. We walk together up the steps to our house, and I know she means it with every fiber of her being–as much as she’s able.

We change into more comfortable clothes–always an important step to shaking off Team Meeting vibes–and gather a few things to prepare for the dinner shift. I’m all set to go quickly, and slip into the pantry for a moment while I wait for Grandma.

Hello, I think, as I tiptoe back to the little door.

Are you there? I ask in my head–I don’t know how else to. At least not yet. And I know it’s crazy, and I don’t even know what I’m doing here, or for sure what’s even happening.  But after today, I feel like I need a friend, and somehow she feels like one.

It’s quiet, so I tap a few times.

Tap, tap, tap. Comes the answer.

I smile.

We may not be able to really talk, but who can I really talk to, anyway? 

Communication is more than talking, and somehow, I feel the support from the other side of the little door, even though I wish it could be more direct and certain. Maybe someday soon I’ll figure it out.

I hear Grandma at the top of the stairs, and tap, tap what I hope feels like a quick goodbye before hurrying my way out of the pantry again quietly. 

By the door, I pull on my boots while Grandma sorts through the pile of sweaters and jackets on the hooks for her favorite cardigan.

“Oh! Take this out to the mailbox for me, would ya, love?” Grandma pulls a letter out of her tote bag, and holds it out to me. 

It’s one of her mysterious letters–the ones she's been sending lately. I study her face, but it’s utterly normal, like she sends letters and I take them out to the mailbox every day. I reach for it, hesitantly.

“It’s alright, love, it’s not going to bite you. It’s just a letter to a friend.” She laughs, and starts rummaging through her tote bag, looking for her two diner pencils. There are already three stuck in her ponytail–I pull one out and hand it to her. She laughs and throws it into the tote bag, then turns back to the sweaters and jackets, and I step out the door to hide the fear on my face.

It’s just an extra pencil, I tell myself. And this letter is just a letter, right? C’mon, June, it’s just a letter.

For a second, I believe myself–I’m so used to passing things off as nothing these days, it’s starting to work on me, too.

But I pause at the mailbox to study the letter anyway. 

It’s addressed to someone named Fay Petersen, at a Mental Health Institute up north.

And it’s been returned to sender already.

There are postal stamps all over it, and it has clearly had Attempted Delivery at No Such Address, possibly more than once.

I glance up through the window, but Grandma’s still pottering about, gathering her things. 

How many times has she tried to send this? How many more times until someone notices it, and realizes what’s happening with Grandma?

The mailbox is already open, the flag already up, and my hand’s frozen with the letter at the mouth of it. 

“I’ve got your back, kid.” Grandma had said.

I know she means it. But whether she knows it or not, I know she’s not always able to have my back. That I need to keep having hers, too.

I think this might be mail fraud, I don’t know. But I don’t know what else to do–the letters aren’t getting to… Fay Petersen?... anyway.

I close the mailbox and shove the letter in my pocket. 

I’ve got your back, too, Grandma, I think.

She comes outside, and we fall in step on our familiar route, and I feel like I don’t know how to compute who we are, now. Who is taking care of whom? It’s hard to know which way is up, but I know we both care. We’re in this together, somehow, even when it sometimes feels like we’re miles apart. It’s hard to describe, and hard to know how to handle.

As we enter the diner and the bell rings above us, I feel my shoulders relax a bit. I try to let out a full breath. Putting our jackets on hooks on the wall feels like greeting an old friend. Like a hug on a bad day. 

It smells of hot coffee and sausage gravy right now–someone’s ordered breakfast for dinner. Hank’s in the kitchen, at the grill, and throws us a wink. Tracy’s taking an order by the front. She turns and gives us a quick wave–for her, that’s a lot. 

Mr. Laurent’s at the counter, sipping decaf and finishing a plate of house fries.

“Double header today!” He laughs and grins and waves a fry as we pass him on our way to the kitchen. He always calls it a “double header” when he comes in for multiple meals in one day–which is pretty frequently, really. 

We do our prep, and I finish quickly–on school nights Grandma doesn’t want me to do very much here, at least not until my homework is done. She’s in the kitchen, apron on, checking orders and talking to Hank, and I see her relax. This is our place. Her place. The familiarity of it is comforting, and grounding, and when she’s here, sometimes it's hard to even remember moments like the one in the woods. Big lapses don’t tend to happen here, for her. The familiarity seems to help both of us. It steadies us. I see her fitting into all the old grooves she loves so much, and I know she’s home. We’re home. And it’s something, amidst all the chaos.

We need this place.

And I’d like to think it needs us, too. It definitely needs Grandma.

I sink into my corner booth and pull out my English homework as I watch her head out onto the floor, and do her usual dance on it–topping up coffees and saying hellos and chatting to Bobby from the hardware store about the sauces for chicken and waffles the other day. 

Priya and Christopher, the young couple that run the convenience store a few blocks down, come in and sit at a table not far away from me, waving at Grandma as they sit.

Priya seems excited to talk to Grandma, who’s now busy refilling the coffee machine–she’s grinning and squeezing Christopher’s arm, and  keeps glancing over while they wait for Grandma to finish. They come in often, and Priya, especially, has made good friends with Grandma. I don’t think Priya has much family around, and Grandma is so good at being family to everyone. She’s also good to talk to about running a business, and Priya always values her opinion. She and Christopher bought the store last year, just before they got married, when the old store owner, Mr. Gould, retired. Things seem to be going well-they bought the little house next to the post office a few months ago, and Grandma made them some new kitchen curtains. I helped choose the fabric.  

Grandma finishes with the coffee and heads over, smiling in the way she does that makes each and every customer feel like they’re her favorite.

And if you want to know the truth, I think it’s always real–they all are.

Priya' s smile is wider than I thought possible as Grandma turns to wave me over.

“It’s been so hard not to tell you!” Priya is telling Grandma as I arrive. “Hello, June! We wanted you to be some of the first to know. Guess what, you two?”

Grandma looks like she already knows, but is trying not to give it away. I see the just-barely-fake-but-no-less-elated surprise bloom on her face as Priya announces:

“We’re having a baby!” 

“Oh, congratulations! That’s wonderful!” I type in and announce my own joy while Grandma shares hers in hugs and tears for both of them. Love is spilling out and over the table into the whole diner, and people cheer, and it's beautiful. 

I retreat back to my corner pretty quickly, and watch the festivities unfold as Grandma shouts into the kitchen to tell Hank (“We’ve got a baby to celebrate, Hank! PIES!”). She brings Priya and Christopher pie on the house and leans in to hear all the details –due in April, morning sickness getting better, have some names on a short list, haven’t painted the nursery yet, doctor says everything’s going well. 

The rest of the diner descends on their table to give all their own congratulations, and offer old baby things and unsolicited advice. Someone takes a photo of the occasion to put up on the wall later—an important piece of diner history. Grandma comes to sit by me, and pats my hand as I put my pencil down, a faraway look in her eyes.

I look closer, worried, but it’s not a scary faraway look–just a woman remembering her life.

“I remember being pregnant.” She sighs, looking somewhere up at the ceiling on the far side of the diner, “The excitement. All the big dreams. I even got to share it with my best friend–she was pregnant at the same time.”

Really?  I sign. 

“Yes, really,” She speaks softly, still looking vaguely up at the ceiling, as if it’s all playing out there, in a little invisible theater, “We did everything together. Grew up, got married, bought houses, had babies…”

She lets it play out, I think, in her mind for a moment, and somehow I don’t feel like I should interrupt. I wonder how much of that magical, matching life they got to live together, before her best friend died, and I think Grandma is thinking about the same thing–her smile fades, and her gaze shifts downwards. 

She’s gone deep inside, somewhere, and I’m not sure if she’s sad, or if she’s forgotten something. It feels a bit like both. Like there’s something she can’t put her finger on, that is causing her pain, and for a second I worry she’s noticing how much she’s forgetting.

Something is missing.

I see it in the furrows of her forehead, and the way she looks around for something. The little memory theater has gone dark, but it’s like there’s something there she wasn’t ready to leave in the past.

I put my hand on hers on the table and sign, Grandma?

She looks up right away, and smiles sadly at me, and pats my hand, but is up and running before I can get a good read on her.

“Well, folks need their pie for this celebration, don’t they?” She’s halfway back to the kitchen before I can sign anything back, grabbing the coffee carafes as she goes.

I take a deep breath to settle back down, telling myself not to be so paranoid, when I hear it:

“Hank, did you hear? We’ve got a BABY to celebrate! Bring out the pies!”

The rest of the diner is still abuzz with conversation about babies and future plans and nursery colors, and for a moment I’m sure, I’m absolutely positive, that no one else has heard her over it–that no one else noticed she announced it twice. Or if they did, they won’t notice it wasn’t just for a second round of celebratory pie.

But then I catch Hank’s eye. 

He’s looking right at me, full of confusion and concern, and in all the noise I still hear him start to ask the question:

“Has she–” Halfway through he thinks better of it, and shakes his head. He waves it off and wipes the worry from his face and smiles.  I make out like I didn’t hear him with a confused look and a hand held up by my ear, and we both fake it together.

Never mind.

Nothing’s happened here.

Everything’s fine.

But everything is definitely not fine. And Hank knows it. Or at least he’s starting to.

For some reason as the diner bustles with celebration, and Grandma carries on as if everything’s normal, and Hank sneaks glances at her over the grill, I think of that old Christmas tree, and how we left it up for months. How it kept everything else at bay, stopping the New Year from fully dawning. Protecting us from whatever came next.  And I know there’s no Christmas tree magical enough for that now. Not anymore. 

That night, I sneak down to the pantry. In my pajamas and a bulky cardigan, I sit on the tall stool by the door and wait.

This evening, after we got home, Grandma said more strange things again. 

“She’s in the house… She’s still in there…” She was falling asleep, on the couch, but she was agitated. “...she’s not my baby.”

I tried to talk to her, but she was confused and upset until she drifted off again a few minutes later, and I covered her up with some blankets as best I could so she could sleep.

I wish you could just talk, I think to my ghost, in the pantry, and then catch myself. 

Okay, I realize the irony of that.

I tap a few times, and she taps back, but of course I don’t know what she’s saying. Maybe she’s not saying anything at all–maybe she never was. 

My bare feet are cold on the metal stool and Hank’s facial expression is hanging in my mind, and in the living room, my Grandma is losing her memory. How many memories does she sleep off each night? How much will she remember in the morning? What else from a nonsense world will sneak through tomorrow?

And how long until Hank says something?

I put a hand on the little door and will whoever–whatever–is on the other side to understand. To help. To be a friend. To make this all make some sense, somehow. 

But of course there’s nothing, and I slip back up to bed to lie awake all night.

The next day at school, I try to stop thinking about Hank, and about Grandma, but it’s almost impossible.

This morning, there was another returned letter to Fay Petersen, Ward B, Mental Health Institute, in the mailbox. I checked early, before Grandma came downstairs, just in case, and snuck it into my backpack. I won’t read it–I don’t want to invade her privacy–but I can’t let this keep happening. I have to start getting there before the mail carrier does. I have to start watching more carefully at the diner. I have to I have to I have to.

But at school, it’s agony. There’s literally nothing I can do. Grandma could be wandering around town in her underwear right now, and I wouldn’t be able to do a thing to stop it. 

In math, I bite my nails until they bleed without even realizing I’m doing it. In History I read the same page over and over again for ages without absorbing any of it. In English, Gemma sits next to me, and I feel the waves of guilt mixing with the fears about Grandma. I catch her eye and try to give her a little smile, but I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say. “I’m sorry I’m such a jerk, it’s just that I’m a human disaster bomb that kills everything it touches”? Or “I do actually wish I could be your friend, but I’m such a mess of secrets and fears I don’t think you’d like me anyway”?

Ugh, I’m the worst.

I’m not sure if Gemma actually didn’t see me, or she’s just pretending. She goes back to tapping her pencil on her desk while she reads, and it makes me think about my ghost. I latch onto it, grip it for dear life. Something to distract me.

Who is she, my ghost?

Tap, tap.

And why is she there now?

Tap, tap, tap.

And how can we possibly communicate when—

Tap, tap.

Oh my gosh. 

I freeze, staring at Gemma’s pencil.

And I barely make it until the bell rings for lunch and everyone’s filing through the hallways and into the cafeteria, and I’m doing my best to stay right behind her. I know we’ve barely talked, and I know it’s my fault, and I know I can’t tell her why I need to know, or literally anything else that’s going on in my life, not honestly, but–

“Gemma I’m really sorry and I want you to teach me morse code!” 

It’s loud in the busy hallway, but she still hears my app–mispronouncing her name and all. I cringe a little at that–it feels like an added insult, on top of everything I’ve already done wrong.

It’s a sudden proclamation, and without any kind of graceful introduction, but there it is, and I mean it just as awkwardly, suddenly, and desperately as a plea for friendship as I do a way to talk to my ghost.

Because I’m sure that’s what my ghost has been using all along–morse code. I honestly don't know how I didn't see it before! Repeated patterns. Some taps sounding closer together, some with more space between, scratches that sound more like longer taps–that’s a morse code thing, right? Longer taps and shorter taps? 

It’s morse code.

It’s gotta be.

And somehow it feels like this is the answer that will make everything less… bad. I don’t know why–it doesn’t make any sense, and who believes in ghosts anyway? And even if she is real and I can talk to her…I don’t know how this will help anything, really. Maybe it’s just how anxious everything else makes me feel. Maybe I just really need a win.

Maybe I really need a friend.

And I’m not sure, in this moment, if I mean Gemma or the ghost. Or both.

I feel my desperation reaching around my throat in the slow-motion moment I wait for Gemma to react.

Gemma turns around, and I’m afraid she’s going to be annoyed–

that it took me so long, 

that I’ve been so weird, 

that I couldn’t work up the courage to try to talk to her until I needed her. 

She doesn’t know that part, and I feel a horrible pang of guilt in the pit of my stomach at that one. I wonder if I shouldn’t have reached out anyway–there are probably books about morse code somewhere, and what if this goes really really wrong? What if she finds out about… anything?

What if she hates me for this? What if she is annoyed?

“Really?” Gemma asks, and I can’t read her face.

Really. I type, almost afraid to hope. And I’m really sorry. 

There’s another agonizing pause.

Then she smiles, and I find myself smiling back.

Twenty minutes later we’re sitting in the cafeteria, lunch trays mostly ignored next to us, and Gemma’s tapping out a test message for me on the table with her pencil while I write it out on my notepad.

Tap. Taptaptap. Tap. Tap.

Taptaptap. Taptaptap. Taptaptap.

H-E-L-L-O

“Hello!” Once again my app’s voice fails me–if I could talk I would have yelled it in excitement, but Gemma can see that on my face, and I realize this might be the first real smile I’ve shared with her. I can tell she knows it’s real, and I see how happy it makes her.

“Okay, so S is:

Tap. Tap. Tap.”

Gemma continues through the alphabet, teaching me the codes as I write them down on an index card.

I’m slow at translating, but by the end of lunch, I have all the letters, and we’ve used it for things like “Hello” and “June” and “Gemma.”

Gemma’s finishing one last word before it’ll be time to get back to class.

Taptaptap. Tap.  Taptaptap. Tap. Tap.

I look down at my notepad.

“Friend.”

She smiles, and I smile back, but I hear another voice in the back of my head telling me I don’t deserve the title.

The rest of the day I work hard to communicate with her, to be as much of a real friend as I can be, but I’m worried I’ll never make it–that my disaster bomb of a self is ticking.

I wait until Grandma’s in her bedroom that night. It’s been extra difficult to focus through the dinner shift and closing up the Cozy Spoon and our usual bedtime routine, and it bothers me how much I feel like I have to act around Grandma these days. It doesn’t feel right. A few times I even consider just forgetting the whole thing and leaving the pantry alone–this is such a silly thing to do, in the midst of everything else. You took a ridiculous risk with Gemma for this. And what if it’s nothing anyway?

But what if it’s something?

I lay in bed for about half an hour, practicing tapping out letters in code on my hand.

Tap. Taptaptap. Taptaptap. Taptaptap.

J.

When I’m sure Grandma’s settled in, at least trying to sleep, I tip toe down the stairs, careful to avoid the spots I know creak. 

The pantry door squeaks a little as I open it, and I freeze.

There’s no sound from Grandma’s room. I can breathe again.

And then there she is–I see the flickering light again, behind the door, and the tapping starts.

Tap. Tap.

I rush to close the door silently and pull out the notepad in my pocket. My heart is beating furiously as I struggle to translate in time.

I-M-H-E-R-E

Part of me can’t believe it. And part of me is terrified. My hands are shaking as I clumsily tap out my own greeting:

Hello?

I wait.

Nothing.

Maybe she’s still waiting for me? I try again with a new message:

Who are you?

The silence of waiting is full of all the reasons I’m losing my mind, that this is crazy.

I jump a mile and have to catch myself from falling off the step stool when the answer comes:

F-A-Y.

---

---

---

Graphic Novel Development:

DAISY & COLLEEN CHARACTER DESIGN

I threw a bit of color in this one, just to see—I’ve had such limited time to do development work each week, I’m still not sure exactly what style conventions I want to stick with (and let’s be honest, it will probably keep changing anyway, until I actually am doing final work on the graphic novel, and that’s okay).

Before doing Colleen’s character design, I got a new one of those paper texture iPad screen protectors (I’ve always meant to, but never tried one before). I like the texture, but I think it’s been throwing off my grip a bit—which was already a little challenging lately. I learned earlier this year that I have a rare connective tissue disorder that affects my joints a lot, causes a lot of pain, and I have to be careful how I grip my pencil and paintbrushes, which has a big impact on both my illustration and furniture finishing jobs. It’s been a real struggle to relearn how to draw in new ways, and I still have a long way to go. Sometimes it’s been really hard to feel like there’s any real connection between my hand and what comes out on paper unless I do all the things I’m not supposed to. Although I do like the direction Colleen is headed in here, I had a hard time getting the pressure right. I’ll keep playing around a bit with my Procreate brush settings as well, to see if I can alleviate some problems.

USING MEMORY AND SENSORY DETAILS VISUALLY

In the prose version, I spend a fair amount of time on sensory details in Team Meetings—the buzzing lights with a sickly glow, the smell of the coffee. Not only is it a way to use to words to illustrate June’s inner turmoil, it’s also based in the reality of experiences like this for me. I’m not sure if this is common or not, but between being Autistic and dissociating often (which can exaggerate and/or warp sensory experiences, at least for me), difficult emotional situations like this Team Meeting tend to feel built up out of lots of sensory fragments, exacerbating and bouncing off each other.

In this meeting, we also go deep into June’s memories, and spend a lot of time in her mind as she ponders the question, “How do you feel about your father being involved in your life?” I wanted to attempt a longer sequence in panel form here, using those sensory details and deep-diving into June’s memory visually.

This sequence was a strange mix of pre-planned and spontaneous storytelling, where I ended up using the way remembering and facing the idea of her father being in her life brings June into free fall, and eventually throws her right back into that terrible moment in the kitchen, with her mother.

It’s less and less polished as you go forward—I just didn’t have time to finish it all—but I think that’s actually a good thing. As I rushed to at least complete some super rough concepts for the rest of this sequence, I actually liked the energy of it, and realized I could really be doing mostly this level of (un)finished for now. I’m not intending to be making actual finished pages for the book, just fleshing out some ideas, and I could be moving through longer sequences, getting more practice with the flow of telling stories this way.

So here’s a mental note for myself for next week: You can do more with less.

If you’re enjoying Things Not Said so far, leave me a comment— even if it’s just a 🥞 emoji!

I know the pressure to formulate a comment can be stressful, but a simple digital stack of pancakes is all it takes to let me know you’re out there—and it all helps on this long journey to bring this story to life!

Ways to Support Things Not Said:

• Leave a comment, restack, or recommend on Substack (all free!)

• Become a paid subscriber here on Substack

• Buy me a coffee (one-time donation via Ko-fi)

• Commission me for custom work

This post has been published in the Things Not Said section. By default, as a subscriber, you’ll receive emails whenever I post to this section, but you can always unsubscribe from that section here and still get Leave the Fingerprints emails!

1. This is another piece I need to do more research on. The bit I’ve been able to do suggests this might be an appropriate term, but some other sources differ. It’s a complex one, the overlap of trauma and (not fully known to me at the time of writing) neurodivergence. I experience verbal shutdowns as part of my neurodivergence, and possibly also dissociation from trauma, but not to the same extent as June. I want to use the right terminology, but I haven’t been able to get to the bottom of it with the time I’ve had yet. This is another instance of me choosing to write and forge ahead to have something I can edit as necessary later. Otherwise I wouldn’t have anything.