A phantom hand caressed her lower back but her children and husband were lying with her in the pitch black darkness of the bedroom. Laughter and giggles filled the air as her husband poked fingers into the little ticklish stomachs and under arms. The children wriggled and guffawed. Her husband also chuckled. But she lay still on her side of the bed, struck with sadness and loneliness. There was grief in the touch of that small hand, a deep regret and desire to be part of her hearth but she knew that laws of nature would never let it happen.

The touch burned deep into her soul and her maternal heart cried out for its ghostly soul. There was no fear to be felt, no screams to be mouthed or flurries of rough motions catapulting the family into a frenzy of experiencing a second hand ghostly haunting.

She quietly told her husband that it had happened again. But this time there were no shadows scurrying by or flashing images of a child playing in the silent playroom but a hand being put on her back demanding attention as if there was a third child feeling neglected.

The children could hardly understand what the parents were discussing such are the comforts of tender age but they knew something unusual had happened. Their mother had become unusually still and spoke to their father in soft measured tones.

The two years old laid a hand between her mother’s breasts, demanding attention and surety. The mother closed her eyes, the feeling was the same, she instinctively patted her child- She was there for her but who was there for that bewildered soul? Who would take that child home?