Michael Bach

Sometimes I'd see the kids sitting in the spare bedroom like they'd just finished playing.

I'd see the man and wife standing outside looking at the trees.

Just these living pictures of a family.

Once I walked into my bedroom and the boy's wheelchair was in there, but he wasn't.

I gave it a really good going over, rolled it back and forth a little.

It was incredibly heavy, this old thing.

And of course, when I took a picture, the wheelchair wasn't there.

The strangest one was I went into the cellar, this totally dank, unfinished space.

And the husband was sitting down there at the table my father used to sit at.

And he had his head in his hands like this, concentrating.

And he looked at me and then forgot about me just as quick.

I thought I knew by then these people weren't in our family tree anywhere, but, you know, it gets foggy the further you go back.

It gets more and more uncertain.

I should say, there was another strange moment.

One time, they were all in the kitchen, and the husband was holding the little girl's hand, which was a first.

And the wife, her eyes were closed.

And she was holding something in her left hand under the table, something with a little circular top, like a tiny bottle.

I tried to bend down to see more, but they all vanished when I did.

So what I told Trevor, because she insisted on coming all the way up to the cabin to see me, was that my feeling was that these people were content somehow to be there with me.

And I'd leave at some point and see if they...