The Haunted

He’d thought he’d have to go a little way in, past pictures of Claire that he’d taken while they were dating, past their wedding and their first apartment. But nothing was in chronological order, and the photo that greeted him immediately upon opening the album was one of Miles that he’d taken at the beach that last summer, when his son was four. Miles was sitting in a hole that they’d both dug together in the sand, looking up at the camera and grinning. He was holding his little blue plastic pail, and there was a smear of sand on his cheek where he’d rubbed it with his dirty hand. He had on his Thomas the Tank Engine bathing suit, and his blond hair was sticking out in every direction. In the upper right corner of the photo, just past the rim of the hole, were Claire’s feet.

Julian didn’t realize he was crying until it became hard to see, and when he wiped his blurry eyes, he felt wetness on his cheeks as well.

He turned the pages until he found another picture of Miles, this one taken at his fourth birthday party. Miles was wearing his little suit, hair neatly combed, standing behind a pile of wrapped presents, and smiling. This was the way Julian saw his son in his mind. He used his fingernail to pull up the edge of the clear plastic sheet that covered the photos on the page, and drew the sheet back, peeled off the photograph and put it in his shirt pocket.

He missed Miles. It was a loss that time had not softened or made easier, and there was a physical pain in his chest right now, as though his heart actually ached. The depth of the hurt was why he and Claire never discussed their first son, why he tried so hard to live in the present and not think about the past. He knew from a lifetime of media exposure that such an attitude was probably unhealthy, that it was always better to let emotions out than keep them in, but he didn’t feel that way. This was the approach that seemed to work best for him, and while it might not be politically correct or socially acceptable, it was how he had chosen to do it.

It kept the guilt at bay.

He’d thought more about Miles in the past month than he had in the last thirteen years. It was the house’s doing, and Claire was right: once or twice, at the beginning, he had considered the idea that it was the ghost of their son who was haunting them. But that was obviously not the case, and with that possibility excluded, he was left with the discomforting memories that thoughts of Miles dredged up within him.

Memories of Miles’s death.

Julian closed the photo album, closed his eyes, tried to get his mind to go somewhere else.

It wouldn’t.

“Daddy!”

It was the last word Miles ever said, and it remained as fresh in his mind today as it had when his son shouted it, two terrified syllables that cut straight through his heart and would be perfectly preserved in his brain until the day he died.

As a college student, as a young man, Julian had enjoyed hiking. He’d belonged to the Sierra Club, had met one of his former girlfriends on a club-sponsored hiking trip, and had enjoyed taking Claire on backpacking excursions to various wilderness areas throughout the state. Even after they had Miles, they’d continued hiking on weekends, although, necessarily, closer to home.

It was on one of these treks, into the Santa Monica Mountains, that it had happened.

They’d been stupid to go that day at all. It was a Sunday, and though the Saturday before had been nice, for the entire week prior it had been raining. They should have known better.

But it had been a hard few days at work for both of them, and they’d wanted to get away from the city and out in the open air, if only for a couple of hours. Griffith Park would be too crowded, they knew, Angeles Crest too treacherous, so they’d opted for the Santa Monicas. They’d hiked there before, many times, liked the views and were familiar with many of the trails.

They were an hour in and pretty high up, Claire ahead, he moving more slowly, at Miles’s speed. He was letting Miles walk on the outside of the trail, though he’d never done that before. He’d also allowed the boy to walk without holding on to his hand, and he’d never done that before, either. Afterward, Julian asked himself why he’d been so negligent, asked himself a thousand times, but he had never been able to come up with an answer.

He remembered they’d been talking, he and Miles, laughing about something Oscar the Grouch had said on Sesame Street earlier that morning. And then, not more than a foot away from where he stood, the saturated ground under Miles’s shoes had given way, and Julian had watched in impotent horror as an entire section of trail slid down the side of the mountain, taking his son with it.

“Miles!”

Crying out, Julian dropped to his knees, leaning over the newly formed edge, expecting to see his son’s body sprawled at the bottom of the ravine below.