Moving houses was always stressful...

ROSES

The ghost had “lived” in the attic. He was content with that. There were familiar things around him. The children and the annoying dog didn’t come up there. And when they did, they were far too much fun to frighten. Occasionally the father came up and added to or subtracted from the collection. He liked that least of all. Sixty-four years he’d stayed up there, until the day the father took the portrait of the woman away—the one with the frame with the carved wooden roses—the ones he’d carved by hand. He wouldn’t be separated from those flowers.