![]() It isn’t just the unfenced property covered in dead cars, old appliances, and play equipment trashed by unsupervised children and tarnished by the high desert extreme weather. Our neighbors live their lives like nothing I’ve ever seen in my privileged San Diego origins. “Down South,” my husband says, meaning the Deep South of the United States, not the rural part of Southern California in which we live. I take the phone and examine the two grinning blonds in the photo. ![]() I didn’t stop to offer my personal condolences because I’m not going to socialize with unvaccinated Trump supporters, no matter how sorry I am for their loss. ![]() I had baked a loaf of dark rye and a babka for him to deliver when we heard the news that the father of one of the children, our favorite of the men, Billy, had died in a prison hospital. I hadn’t stopped when I saw my husband visiting with our neighbors because, unlike him, I’m not yet fully vaccinated. “Yes,” I say, “and I saw him yesterday hanging on the back of your truck.” It shows a photograph of one of our feral neighbor children standing on her merry-go-round, an older boy next to her, their heads touching. ![]() “Do you see that boy?” my husband asks and I tense, but he’s holding up his cell phone. Sara has chosen to reflect on his death and the ghosts that have arisen from it. While editing “Haunted,” the father of one of the children mentioned in the essay died in police custody. Sara’s essay, “ Haunted,” appears in the Spring 2021 issue of Shenandoah, and was edited by fellow DW McKinney. ![]()
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