"Good work here," said I, the father, the prince of pauses. I am endorsed by a mother who never knew misery until she met my father the contractor, the would-be architect who wasn't interested in the great schools of building and design. I cannot say why he never took it in that direction, simply not one for grand moments in history, even those forming the backdrop of his art?

My feet, disturbing dirt, land just before the door, half on and half off the Welcome Home mat. I am most welcome here, I see the props of an extended family through the fog of the door window. On the dining room table, poking out from a heap of bills is the brim of an orange hunter's cap bowed from a shaggy unkempt head whose owner was last seen marching up a path through tall pines. I'd like to call them spruce, but those form the border between our property and Ray's--they are taller than you'd expect of a line of Christmas trees, and would have lost their convivial roundness if they weren't set so tightly together. Our property (technically their property) is surrounded by a breed of pine that is freakishly tall and thin, not one of which has collapsed during our valley's periodic windstorms.

I wonder what I've abandoned, the people recently depicted or merely mentioned. I have only just now introduced them...you know why? They mistrust me and my artistic plans, they insisted on working for me only if I cast my personal motivations aside. It wasn't a set of ghosts they have successfuly fled until now. They did not, in point of fact, flee. More likely I forgot to collect them after school: two sisters, waiting an hour before closing their books, just slipped their other belongings back into their bags, glanced at the time, and trudged off. They aren't likely to suffer regret on my account, they know I haven't changed. But I persist in summoning them--join us at once, Steff, and call your mouthy sister Emily, let her know your brother is in town, he might step out of his bedroom in time to interact lest this family never look and feel like the real thing. But he's been dyeing his hair black, Dad, he avoids the sun for a pasty complexion and all that. His reality isn't doing so well, the sisters maintain, closing with, "Certainly you are so bold as to call James yourself."