Once we asked Our Mother about sex. We'd heard the word from some playground gaggle of girls. They'd said it then giggled, pumped higher on the swings. They could see we didn't know what it meant. We blushed. We'd never wanted girls to become widows more than we wanted it for them. We'd asked Our Mother that night. We'd said, What is sex? Our Mother had the same sparkle behind her eyes. She'd said, Sex? Wind scuffed the shingles, limbed through the trees, levitated the spruce boughs in our backyard. Well, she'd said, then launched into the details. She'd watched the color wash from our faces as she labeled the parts, as she named the acts, as she told us what we never wanted to hear from Our Mother's mouth. She spoke until we couldn't take it anymore, until we stopped her with a pirate Arrgh, until Our Mother's smile grew broad, until she said Don't ask unless you're ready for answers. Since then we've kept so many questions to ourselves. We haven't asked if the rain will ever stop falling. We haven't asked if we'll ever grow up. We haven't asked if this township is all we'll ever know. We haven't asked if the waves ever bring anything but grief. We haven't asked if Our Mother sees the sadness in our hearts. We haven't asked when she'll go ghostly. We haven't asked if Our Father loves us. We haven't asked what it will feel like to be alone, when both of them are gone. But tonight, when it comes to the ghost of a girl in the once empty house up the street, her light streaming through the windows, we can't stop ourselves.

Our Mother will become a ghost. When she brushes a scatter of crumbs from the table, half fall through her hands. We've seen sunlight muddle through our windows and find its way past her body too, onto the floor, where a shadow should be but instead is only a patch of ragged sunlight, the outline of a window frame but no outline of Our Mother. We've felt how some nights, after reading us a story and singing us a song, she bends to kiss our cheeks and her lips melt straight through, floating into our hearts instead of resting like leaves on our skin. And once, one morning, when the light rallied through the clouds and the rain and the gauze of curtains, we nudged open her bedroom door. She was lotioning her illuminated thighs. We looked at the curve of her legs and the red triangle of fabric covering their junction, her foot gently toeing the floor, her hair draped down her neck. Later, in our bunk beds, one brother above the other, we talked about the musk of the room and how that was Our Mother more undressed than ever before. We talked about how her body receded where her legs met, how transparent she seemed beneath that covering. We wanted it to be a trick of light, a rare morning of sun, but we knew it wasn't a trick. We knew the rain of ghostliness was closing in on her. We knew there was little time left.