End of May // Luke Patterson

06

"Thanks." He switched to another batch of photos. "These didn't turn out, though." He switched to another picture and there were four glowing orbs near the piano. Julie looked at the screen. "The ones from Mom's studio. It's like... little lights and dots all over the place. Kinda look like orbs, right?"

Julie's eyes widened as she stared at the orbs.

Carlos shot up and said, "Orbs? I've seen some freaky stuff about those on YouTube." He rested his arms on the back of the couch as he sat on his knees. "People say they're ghosts." Julie looked at Carlos. "Do you think that's Mom and she made some friends?"

Ray chuckled. "That's a nice thought, but there are no such thing as ghosts."

"Sounds like someone's spending too much time on the Internet," Julie teased as she moved to stand next to Carlos. "You can just trash those."

"All right. So trash, trash, trash." He put the photos in the trash bin on the computer.

"Um, Dad?"

"Yeah?" He turned to his kids. "I was thinking, if we're just moving 'cause of me, and you and Carlos wanna stay, I'm fine with that."

Carlos immediately said, "I vote we stay!" He raised his hand and closed his eyes a moment. "I don't wanna have to clean under my bed." He lowered his hand and clapped once.

Ray pointed to Carlos. "Noted. What made you have second thoughts?"

Julie shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose a combination of things. I know that tía says that moving is moving on, but I don't think that's the answer."

Ray stood. "I totally agree with you on that. I mean, I think..." he clasped his hands together, "I think moving on has to come from the inside." Julie nodded. "And one of us took a huge step this morning."

Julie glanced down as she pocketed her hands and said, "All our memories of Mom are here, and we should be too." Julie placed a hand on her brother's right shoulder and he looked at his dad with a questioning expression. "Can we stay?"

Carlos squinted and smiled and Ray raised a hand and smiled before saying, "All votes are in." He clapped his hands and smiled. "Yes! Yes. Yes!" He hugged Julie. "Thank you."

"I love you, Dad," Julie said.

"Get in here," Ray told his son. "Come on." Carlos hopped over the back of the couch. "Mm! Big tight group hug." He let out a sigh and released his kids. "Okay. Somebody help me find my phone. I need to call the real estate agent." He began looking in his pockets.

Carlos lifted a finger. "Oh, um, I think I saw it in the kitchen." He pointed to the kitchen.

"Kitchen." He pointed to Julie, who took her father's hand as she sighed and led him to the kitchen.

Once the two were gone, Carlos sat at his father's laptop and pulled up the recently deleted pictures.

Carlos leaned back in the chair and smiled as he said, "Ghosts." He crossed his arms, still smiling.

---

Ruth tried to open the fridge door and huffed as her hand phased through it. She frowned as she tried and failed again.

Luke glanced at her. "Remember to focus."

"That's easy for you. You have your instrument. I have nothing from the band!"

Luke smiled and pulled a microphone with poor handwriting from one and three other nice signatures from his pocket. "This was gonna be your birthday gift. We all signed it. After you died, I couldn't bear to part with it."