The ghosts in my house are becoming rambunctious.

I woke up to thunderous applause.

Had I left the window open? Is there someone muttering in the kitchen?

The quiet cough a person makes when they don’t want to wake the baby sleeping upstairs. I would recognize that cough anywhere. The sound of those hands making coffee. Reading a newspaper. Eating oatmeal, the same flavor every day for 45 years. I haven’t lived with my father for a long time. Why is he here now, so early?

No

It can’t be him. He thinks my house has a funny smell and sits uncomfortable in my chairs. He would not be here now.

Then who?

The puppy. I heard his snores curled up in a tight circle occupying the side of the bed that sits empty, where my love once lay. The sound of applause is a strange thing to confuse with his little snores. He is awake and looking at me under heavy lids. Not him.

No

The hall is dark, but I decide not to turn on the lights. I enjoy being among the shadows when the house is still.

I clear my throat. A familiar sound. A quiet cough to not wake the baby upstairs. But he’s not a baby anymore. He turned 8. “I’m almost ten! And also, Dad…” I can hear his voice. He won’t be awake yet, not for another hour.

I find the open window looking out on the street, orange light glowing through the curtains. I reach to close the latch. The hands are familiar too, they are the hands of my father. I imagine mine are a little smaller than his. A little less capable.

Thunderous applause. A dream. It was a dream. I have been known to have wild dreams. Change your whole life for love, wake up sobbing kind of dreams. That was it. I woke myself up from the raucous noise of my sleep.

It is Valentine’s day. The house is cold. I am utterly in love with my life. The ghosts move aside as I walk up the stairs. Nodding their heads and smiling. They love me. They show me their secrets; lives lived. How many Christmas mornings have they ran down these stairs? The puppy storms past me and bounds onto my son’s childhood bed. He is already awake but playing possum. The puppy leaps up onto the bed and roots around in the blanket looking for my son’s mane of hair, or toes, or the remnants of old farts lost in the mattress. He laughs and sits up.

“I love you.” He says to the puppy, looking at me.

The ghosts stand in the doorway leaning in to see. They want to feel the warmth our lives bring. The chapters we write on the walls of our home.

I realize they are clapping.

Only then do I know that I am among them. In time, one day, I will leave this house, our family will grow beyond the reach of the stairs, and the walls and the fenced backyard, already gaps form between the posts. These strangers who live with me know me well. Time does not flow for them as it does for us. Among them, I’ve always been, inchoate, but formidable.

I smile at the thought, join my hands together, my father’s hands, clapping as one in the crowd. Falling away from the present into memory. Into the future, as it becomes the past with each profusion of noise. We are so loud. A rambunctious crowd.

You’re doing so well, they say to me, I say to myself.

-You’re doing so good. I love you.