I grew up in a house with ghosts. From the time we moved into the house, my sister and I
complained about the noise. Our parents never heard anything louder than a squeaky step. We
heard large pieces of furniture crashing against the walls, thudding into the floors, splintering
the air. Sometimes, when they were particularly loud for a long time, one of us would yell at
them from the bottom of the stairs. Occasionally the only way to get silence was to go upstairs
and scold the empty (and now silent) rooms. They always quieted when we explained that we
couldn’t hear a favorite radio program.

Time passed. My sister and I treated our ghosts as a private joke. If and when we spoke of our
noisy ghosts, it was with little conviction and less belief; all of it consigned to childish
storytelling.

I never shared an incident that occurred when I was still in grade school. I was in the backyard
with two school friends. We were playing tag and looking for opportunities to roll around in the
just-cut grass. One of the girls pointed to an upstairs window, “Your mother is home.” We all
looked up and waved to my mother and uncle, and they smiled and nodded back. I ran
towards the house, calling out to them. I realized there was no car in the driveway without
acknowledging what that meant— i.e., how could my uncle be here? how did my mother come
home? — when there was no car. The house was empty. When I returned to my friends, I let them
think that my mother was home.

Many years later I was at a family dinner. My niece wanted to hear family stories. At some point
she asked if her mother’s stories of noisy ghosts were true. My mother immediately dismissed
the entire idea that the old house had anything but dry rot and loose floorboards. My sister
broke into the conversation and proceeded to tell a story: she had been gathering apples in the
backyard with a neighbor. The neighbor and she saw a dark-haired woman and an older man in
the upstairs window and thought it was my mother and uncle. When she went into the house,
no one was there. Before my sister finished speaking, I said, “You saw them?” And she
responded, “You saw them too?” We had never spoken to one another or to anyone else about
whatever it was each of us had experienced.

Do I believe in ghosts? I don’t disbelieve. I read somewhere that we don’t question many
seemingly unbelievable things in the physical world because we have learned and continue to
learn more about the rules of the physical world. Perhaps we just don’t know the rules that
govern how the spiritual world works.

What I know is that I was frequently alone in that house and I always felt secure; it is difficult to
explain the feeling of charmed safety. The doors were never locked. I lost too many keys and it
became unseemly to continue to climb into first-floor windows. My sister was away at college;
my parents were consumed with their business and I was left alone. I was 11 years old
and quite capable of taking care of myself. It was my normal. It never occurred to me that I
should be frightened, not with the house wrapped around me.

I also know that when my sister and I moved out of the house, it was robbed. Call it what you
will — our wonderful nanny/spirits guarded two vulnerable children… but they drew the line at protecting our parents’ sterling silver.