Ghost Writers: Us Haunting Them

Thin Air

thin air elizabeth kostova If the boys’ activity camp hadn’t been cancelled for that day, I wouldn’t have taken them to Greenfield Village, but it was. It’s not a fancy operation, that camp; Parks & Rec runs it out of a community-center basement. Melanie found it by looking for something cheaper than last year’s YMCA Sports & Fun Week. The idea was to give me a little time off the daily grind. I told her I didn’t need that, but she knew I did and signed them up anyway. On Thursday, the fourth of my five precious days to myself, a water main broke and flooded the communitycenter basement. Melanie had already left for work when they called us. Jonny said it served the camp right for being in a basement. Robert cried and said the flood had probably washed away a 01 Text.indd 39 8/19/11 8:16 AM elizabeth kostova  mural they had painted the day before. I said quickly that we would go to Greenfield Village and ride the merry-go-round, even though I knew it would cost as much as a week at camp. We hadn’t been there in a long time, but that was what came into my head, and I promised it to them before I thought about the expense. Which is unlike me, in all fairness to myself. We drove into Dearborn by way of the interstate. I parked in the big lot and we bought tickets and got our hands stamped, which Robert didn’t like—he said it hurt—and went in through the turnstile. It was already too hot to be doing this, at ten in the morning. I put my hat on and made the boys put on theirs, to protect them from sunstroke and skin cancer. When you’re with children, there are so many things to protect them from. In fact, I hadn’t been to Greenfield Village in several years. I used to go as a kid, with my school, and then Mel and I took the boys once or twice when they were really little. I had nice memories of that, nothing shocking or sad or supernatural, until this day off from camp; in fact, we have a couple of photos of the boys in a horse-drawn wagon, Jonny on my lap and Robert still in a little sling across Melanie’s front. Those pictures actually hang in our front hall, and when we had to move to the apartment, I rehung them by the front door. Amazing how much older five years can make you, I always think when I notice myself in those photos. Today the boys looked tall and stringy and independent, running ahead of me across the railroad tracks and climbing up the fence at the horse barn. They were the ones who had changed most, of course, not us. I bought a bunch of tickets that would let us ride the antique cars, the wagons, the omnibus , and whatever else we could get on besides the merry-goround , enough to kill two hours until we could have hot dogs and ice cream and see the indoor museum and then go home. 01 Text.indd 40 8/19/11 8:16 AM thin air  By two it would be too hot to stay outside, unless I wanted to give us all heatstroke, even with the hats. The smell coming out of the front of the horse barn was kind of pleasant, and I was thinking we could stay there a while longer when one of those classic Village Model Ts pulled up next to us. It was black, polished to a blinding shine, and the driver was dressed up to look like the right period, an old man with slicked-back white hair, not much of it left, and a black jacket and tie that didn’t look modern but didn’t look shabby, either. He stopped the car with a flourish, pulling some brake and adjusting the wheel expertly, waved, and opened the door for us. I whistled for the boys. “Don’t we need to give you some tickets?” I asked the driver. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said. He smiled—yellow teeth and blue eyes. He had that kind of face that holds together well in old age. He picked up a cap from the seat next...