Mom, please.
         Your long hair, you remember how I used to brush it for you? And you’re smiling with your mouth closed because of the braces. But still, you’re smiling. You used to smile, said mom.
         I still smile.
         Before all the piercings and the tattoos, said mom. Your little uniform blouse and skirt, and you cried and wouldn’t let the man take the picture until we let you take it with your panda bear. What’s his name? That little guy there.
         His name was Hi-fi.
         Like our stereo! You would sit and listen to those Alvin and the Chipmunks records but you’d play them at the wrong speed so they just sounded like weird guys. And remember, you would play Willie Nelson at a fast speed and it sounded so crazy and we’d laugh. Do you remember? You can see the shelf with the records: Gordon Lightfoot, Carly Simon…
         Mom, are you looking at something different now? I thought you said you were looking at my fifth grade photo.
         This is more… I think it’s a few years later. You’re so much more mature, almost a young woman. The old apartment, before I met your stepfather. Can’t you see? There’s Bagheera-kitty.
         I can’t see it, mom, you’ll have to describe it to me.
         Mom was happy to describe it to her. Over the next few minutes, though, her voice grew fainter and fainter until it disappeared completely.
         Kristen sat for a while longer by the bed, holding Matthew’s hand as he slept. Her son, who had had troubled sleep for most of his ten years, now rested peacefully. For days she had heard him talking in his sleep, until a few nights ago when she sat down by his bed and really started listening, and it became clear what she was hearing: Her mother’s voice, quietly calling her name. Her mother, whom Matthew had never met, who was twenty years gone. So now Kristen had a new evening ritual, reminiscing with her mother, who she had learned did not want to hear about recent things, like Matthew or his father, or their home. Mom’s ghost, if that’s what it was, only wanted to go over all the old stories again.
         Gently releasing Matthew’s hand, she rose and crossed the hall to her bedroom. Lights out, she lay on the bed for some time trying to remember the name of the downstairs neighbor girl she used to play with all the time. Stephanie? Sharon? It was no use. She would have to ask mom tomorrow. Mom would remember.
         She cried a little, but there was no one to see her. Matthew was asleep, and the house, at least until tomorrow night, was lonely.
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