I don't know what to think anymore, so I'll start from the facts.
My name is Emily Conway. I live in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with my seven-year-old daughter Fae. I work as a pharmaceutical consultant – it is mostly telecommuting, so our home is my office. Life is quiet here; days go by slowly – for me, that is. When it comes to Fae, her head is so high in the clouds that she barely sets morning and evening apart. While she plays, I work, and time keeps passing. At the moment, as I begin writing this text, I'm done with reports and risk analysis; it's getting late. I sit at the living room table as Fae watches cartoons in front of me.
I stare at her – she is lying on the carpet and drawing the cartoon characters with crayons. Every now and then she takes a look at the TV; at the characters trying desperately learn how to golf – and naturally the club smacks everything but the ball, and she loves it. She draws the talking duck and spends so much time with the appropriate choice of colours. Of course she does, since there are 31 options to choose from in the metallic box. Duck's beak is difficult; the shade of orange must be exactly right – and eventually she finds the fitting crayon.
I wouldn't know how to assemble a stick figure, and yet Fae surprises me every time she gets creative. She might lie there for hours, even after the cartoons end, and continue working on that one single picture. But she never talks about drawing herself; usually she just asks ''Can we watch cartoons?'' – and it's always we. But a few minutes later a piece of paper and crayons have appeared out of nowhere. She keeps them in a drawer right below the TV – there are some pencils and brushes too, all of them arranged in pretty little chaos. I rarely bother her during artistic process, but tonight I asked something while entering the living room:
''Is that the golfing duck?''
''Mm-hm. His name is Austin'' she replied with such brisk tone. As if for her, the talking duck was a real person – and I certainly can't blame her:
It was five years ago when my daughter passed away.
Yet there she is, in front of me. Impossible and true; a ghost that won't disappear when I stop believing in it. I can talk with her, hug her and tug her in bed just like I used to; and she talks with me, hugs me and smiles at me just like she used to. And still, that piece of paper buried in my closet makes her officially nonexistent; deceased. I held her after she was gone – it was real. But the girl lying there is my daughter; I don't doubt it anymore.
