We used to cut through the backyards and cross Pfingston Road. Through the hedges behind Becky’s place we had to pass by the hulking gray shape of the overlarge farmhouse. Shredded curtains were still as the dead in the windows and there was no sign of life. The garage was full of newspapers from days no one remembered and whenever I peeked in, I always wondered if I’d find a paper announcing Kennedy’s death in a big banner headline. But I never got in and we never saw anyone in the windows. Even ghosts didn’t live there.
Now I wonder who’d owned the place. Who’d left it there for kids looking for a shortcut to pass by on their way to a school that probably didn’t exist when it was built.
