The Ghostwriter

by Julie Clark

“Your dad killed his brother and sister. Murdered them in their own home.”

When you grow up being told your father is a murderer, you learn how to compartmentalize danger in a way that allows you to ignore it most of the time, even though your subconscious is constantly alert. Preparing for it. Waiting for it to surface.

It’s hard to know who hurt me more—my mother for leaving and never looking back, or my father, who disappeared before my eyes. Pieces of him vanishing like a parlor trick, until there was no one left but me.

I linger for a moment on the dedication: For Danny and Poppy—This isn’t your story, it’s mine. But I hope in the telling you’ll be able to shine again, if only for a moment.

“Poppy’s hiding place. It’s supposed to lift up,” he says, his voice a whisper. “But now…I can’t find the opening. It’s gone.”

“Siblings define who you are at that age. I’d always been the middle child, measured against Danny and Poppy my entire life. Then suddenly they were gone and all that was left was this vast emptiness. Silence. Except for my mother’s crying.”

They will find clues, but they will never see the truth.

The truth I can never say aloud is that I’m not sad about Danny. I’m glad he’s dead.

You can’t hide from who you are.

This is the consequence of speaking out as a woman. We are labeled hysterical, emotional, unreliable, and finally, incompetent.

My mother had something she’d say whenever Poppy got too nosy: Sometimes, when you go looking for something, you might not like what you find.

The truth lives in people’s actions, their unguarded moments, not in the lies they tell.”

“Danny was a lot of things to me—hero and abuser—but I could never figure out how to suggest he could have been a killer.”

There’s a reason historians rely so heavily on primary sources. Because human memory is flawed.

Because it’s not Danny burying the cat. It’s my father.

“A week or so before she died, Poppy told me your father pulled a knife on Danny. Pressed it against Danny’s chest.”

“Poppy was growing scared of both of them. Danny could sometimes be cruel, but Vince was truly frightening.” I sit with that for a moment, thinking again of how tricky memory can be. Of how our brains will lead us toward a story that fits into our own worldview, and no amount of evidence can convince us otherwise.

I’m beginning to realize that once you lie about your past, you wall yourself off from the present.

“He never showed up for me.” Jack gives me a sympathetic look. “Relationships aren’t transactional.”

Jack’s voice is gentle. “Then you need to ask yourself why this is the story he wants to tell.”

“Every chapter has to have a point. Even if the reader can’t yet see it. Every story told must serve two purposes—to allow your reader to know your characters better, and to push the narrative toward the conclusion.”

This isn’t just a memoir. It’s a treasure hunt—our last one—and every story is a clue.

I feel the shifting sands of being both a ghostwriter and a daughter. Fighting—and sometimes failing—to maintain an objective distance. Because my own memories are tied up in this tapestry that’s slowly appearing before me.

“I grew up with two older brothers who wanted to kill each other. War zones don’t scare me.”

Ominous

I’m no different from my parents—refusing to acknowledge or speak about difficult things. And yet, I’m this way because I was raised to be this way. Their weaknesses are my own.

Information is power, yes. But it’s also a burden because once you know something, you can’t pretend you don’t.