“Hi, mom.”

There it was…just a girl’s voice on a cell phone.

I was working in the yard and it resonated up the hill and into my ear.

It sounded as if she was yelling up at me.

She was excited to be at the beach and wanted to share it with her mother

her mother, the one who was listening at the other end of the phone.

My heart leapt.  How silly is that—three and a half years and my heart actually leapt.

That is how simple it is to conjure a ghost.

That is how simple it is to resurrect a buried tear.