The Ghost Writer

by Loreth Anne White

Grief is a dark mistress. She makes me second-guess, blindsides me at the most unexpected moments, slices my heart open and renders me vulnerable to all the emotions that roil over the loss of a loved one: hurt, anger, remorse, guilt, fear, loneliness.

“Charon.

As in the ferryman to the underworld in Greek mythology, the boatman who transports the souls of the dead across the river Styx?

In the art of battle, the first move is to throw your opponent off balance, both physically and mentally.

“That’s the thing about a terrible secret, Grace. You think you’re keeping it, but really, it’s the secret that keeps you.”

“Nothing in nature is intrinsically evil. Nature just is, and does what it does for survival. Good, bad, evil—those are human value judgments we bestow on things, depending on our cultures, traditions, history. And we use this to keep our communities, tribes, societies in check and functioning as a whole because, really, we are just herd animals.”

“People justify what they do in this way all the time. By changing their inner narrative of things. The bigger worry becomes whether they’ll get caught, not that what they’re doing is bad.”

“Everything is narrative, Grace, even memories and the so-called ‘truth.’ We can only see the world through our own eyes and within the context of our own biology and our own pasts.”