I keep hearing that awful 80′s song by Flock of Seagulls. And I ran. I ran so far.

When I was seven, my mother had my brother Wyatt. When I was eight, she had Wynn. They called them Irish Twins in an ignorant attempt at explanation. I was old enough to take care of myself, so why wouldn’t I be old enough to care for a toddler and a baby? As they laid the emergency contacts on the table, I felt trusted, powerful and maternal. It would be easy, my mother said. They had been changed and fed and held and put down for the night. All I had to do was make sure that the three of us were alive when my parents returned five hours later.

Sometimes, things can be so bewitchingly simple that you believe they are easy. But as all religious and atheist individuals know, that does not make it so.

Obviously there were signs, even to a child, that hinted at danger. But you must understand that we lived in a house that ran on creaking doors and supressed breath. My father loved films, including horrors. He was desperate for a companion to bring comfort and levity to the terror he regularly subjected himself to, and, starting at only seven and five, my brother and I served as a solution. We would be made to sit and watch, without comfort or respite, the worst that Stephen King or the horror director du jour had to offer. And when the trauma ended and the credits rolled, we would be brushed into beds in rooms that were allowed no light.

To a child, a house is very much like a heart: there are many chambers that we know are required to function, but there are far more dark corners that are haunted by The Unknown. After being subjected to gore and death, we were gently pushed into our respective restrooms to brush our teeth and prepare for sleep. Our parents had no time for the frivolity of fear, and the fear of my mother suffocated any imaginary demons. After getting ready, we would go to our rooms. One night, I walked into my room knowing that something was not right. There was a presence. I climbed into bed and looked at the moon, hoping to be somewhere safe. As I began to doze, the impossible manifested.

A single closet door moved ever so slowly but notably towards the wall.

As I gazed at it, I knew that what I saw was not, could not possibly be, right. But despite the string of logic my brain wove, there it was, opening slowly and silently. I knew I could not leave without being eaten by whatever the dark held. After ten minutes, I made up my mind to fight, and I ran. I leaped of the bed and called for my mother. As my tiny hand grasped the doorknob, I felt two massive hands squeeze my ribs and lift me into the air. I screamed, and it was met with laughter....but laughter I knew.

It was my father. He had hidden, as he often did, to terrify us.

It is not a lovely or funny story. I only tell it to you so that you understand what that house was like. It had been haunted by many, but it was haunted most aggressively by the living.

On the night that I was left with my brothers, everything was quiet. There were no storms or power cuts or black cats. It was just a boring, easy night. I was told to look in on them every hour, which I did dutifully. I adored those boys. I adore them now even more.

After approximately two hours, I was downstairs reading Jane Eyre in rare silence when I heard him. It was a sound that immediately inspired panic despite any knowledge. Somehow, I heard a single breath and knew it was my brother breathing his last.

I ran up the stairs and could barely open the door. Wynn was awake and standing in his crib, crying and reaching for his brother. Following his red eyes, I saw. Wyatt was in his crib, blue of face, choking and gasping.

There was no time. There was simply a child that could not breathe. I did not know what I did or why, but I found myself in the street, holding a blue boy, on the phone with first responders, screaming for help. After a few minutes, the adults rushed out of their well appointed homes and took my brother from me. An ambulance came. I remembered Wynn. I ran inside and brought him down, thinking in my infant mind that something might be wrong with our house. I stood there for a few minutes, watching the paramedics check one precious gem as they tried to revive the other. I overheard one say “He isn’t breathing. We have no pulse.”

I ran. I ran so fast and so far. I knew that I had killed my brothers. I had disappointed my parents. I had ruined our home. The ghosts had been a joke, but now I had made two of my own. So in that sable summer night, I ran and I ran until I fell, and more until I was somewhere I didn’t know. I could never go home. I had one job. “Just keep them alive!” my mother had said, her voice like silver against glass. But I hadn’t, so I kept running.

When I awoke, it was to the voice of a neighbor I knew. He picked me up and carried me to my home. I cried as we turned the corner, grieving not only the loss of my brothers but also the loss of my parents’ love. I wept until I slept. As he handed me to my father, he said “She’s been through a lot, but I know she’ll be best at home.” I remember the feel of my father’s big arms and hands as he took me, assuring the neighbor that my brothers and our family was fine.

When I finally woke up, it was to the beautiful glittering sound of babies’ babbling; they were fine. They lived. I kept them alive. But even now, twenty years later....

I run.

The first time I saw Henry, the sun was shining on his face as if it was the sole intended recipient. His eyes were half closed in the brilliant light, his lips slightly parted in a grin that came from the pure joy of being young and beautiful and alive. With a rake of his long fingers through his blonde hair, he strode out of the university library with the loping, unstudied gait of a man who had never doubted himself. I think of this moment as I sit staring up at him on the beach.

Our wedding six months later was the day that I first met my brother in law, Michael, and his fiancé, Violet. She was the single most enigmatic and charming person I have ever met. Large dark eyes constantly wide with excitement and a full red mouth ever spreading into a smile were the only soft features in her otherwise angular feline face. She was everything I wanted to be – wealthy, polished, confident, striking. It was easy to see why everyone loved her, and why they were devastated when she died not three months later.

Henry was the one who had found her on the shore. She had apparently fallen from her horse (who hadn’t left her side, bless him) and broke her neck. Unable to move, she had endured a rain storm and cold autumn winds. By the time they had gotten her to bed, she was delirious and fading. I had come the next day by train to say my goodbyes. Michael refused to leave her side, while Henry could barely stay in the house. Only two days later, Violet was gone. Michael was predictably inconsolable. To distract himself from grief, he fixated on finding the braided gold bracelet she always wore, spending hours digging at the site of her accident. How funny to think that all that time, it had been in the house, right under our noses.

Henry had been like a sailboat that drifted further each day. Determined to be understanding and supportive, I found myself mostly alone in the large estate the family had summered in since the boys’ father had been a child. Little trinkets and framed memories were an insight into the brothers. In Michael’s room, drawings of leaves and animals were executed with skill while volumes of notebooks had been filled and stored alongside novels and classic works in the dark mahogany bookshelf. In Henry’s I saw old leather football cleats, rackets, pictures of friends and, rather than books, shelves full of trophies. I smiled with a quiet pride. Behind the dangling ribbons one photo stood out: a picture of Michael, Violet and Henry, all smiles and embraces. My heart ached to think that Michael would never have what Henry and I would share for decades to come.

It was not until dinner on the fourth night after her death that I began to see. As I refreshed Michael’s wine and Henry’s gin, Michael snorted and shook his head. Henry raised an eyebrow and asked if anything was the matter before taking a long draw from his glass. Michael smiled and indicated that he’d have a gin as well. I breathed a sigh of relief. These two hadn’t spoken or smiled in days, and if gin was the antidote to all that silent misery, I would administer it consistently and liberally. Making myself scarce so the brothers could bond, I began to ready for bed. Unable to find my book, I looked through my dresser, my bedside table and our luggage. Hoping it had accidentally made its way into Henry's dresser, I opened the second drawer.

As I sit here with my husband watching the tide come in, I can’t help but wonder what life would look like if I had just remembered that I left my book downstairs. Or if I had read a magazine I brought or sat down and had a gin instead of being the skittering mouse ever shuffling out of the way. Can a simple change like that really change your life? Can looking here instead of there fully halt the long, foreboding fingers of fate and lead you down a path into laughter and light? Or maybe it was just an eventuality, some kind of cosmic necessity to set everything that follows into motion. Maybe these choices, all these little mundane lefts or rights, are just an illusion, a torturous fantasy that distracts from the inevitability of what is to come, what in the end must come.

I don’t know much about such things but I do know I’d go straight to bed if I had it to do again. Because in the second drawer of the dresser, on top of Henry’s silk pyjamas, was a small bracelet, made up of delicately twisted gold cord.

God only knows how long I stood there staring, with a cold knot hardening and growing in my stomach before Henry walked in. I turned just in time to see his drunk smile fading as he realised what I had found. He moved so quickly he crossed the space of the entire room in two steps and had his hand over my mouth before I could say a word. The explanations were pouring out of his mouth 0 convince me. She was going to tell, he said, they had been lovers and sure he may have messed up but he couldn’t lose me, couldn’t lose his wife and his brother, and she was going to tell Michael and tear us all apart. Does someone like that deserve respect or love or even to live? Tears were streaming down both our faces, as I realised what he had done, and he realised what he had to do.

As I rest my head on the dock, he secures the final weight to my ankles, still muttering, still trying to convince me. The light of the dawn shines behind him, but now, his face is in shadow.