By the time I knew my grandfather, he was mostly silent. He sat in the small living room with the wood-burning stove in a stuffed chair. Beside the chair was a rickety table with an ashtray on it. When I was young, that object fascinated me because I found it shameful. It was a miniature black toilet with a gold seat, the only flush toilet my grandparents would ever have. The house always smelled strongly of mildew and in winter of burnt wood. We rarely went upstairs, but I don’t believe we were ever told not to go there. The narrow steps led to three tiny rooms, one of which belonged to my grandfather. I don’t remember when it was, but I couldn’t have been more than eight. I sneaked up the stairs and walked into my grandfather’s room. A pale light was shining through the small window, and I watched the dust specks dance in the air. I looked at the narrow bed, the tall stacks of yellowing newspapers, the torn wallpaper, a few dusty books on a beaten dresser, the tobacco pouches, the clothes piled in a corner, and felt a muted sense of awe. I think I had a dim idea of the man’s solitary existence and of something lost—but I didn’t know what. In this memory, I hear my mother behind me, telling me that I shouldn’t be in the room. She seemed to know everything, my mother, seemed to sense what other people didn’t. Her voice wasn’t at all harsh, but it may be that her sanction made the experience memorable. I wondered if somewhere in that room was something I shouldn’t have seen.

My grandfather was gentle with us, and I liked his hands, even the right one, which was missing three fingers, lost to a circle saw in 1921. He would reach out and pat me or lay his hand on my shoulder and hold it there before returning to his newspaper and spittoon, a coffee can that said “Folgers.” His immigrant parents had eight children: Anna, Brita, Solveig, Ingeborg, another Ingeborg, David, Ivar (my grandfather), and Olaf. Anna and Brita lived into adulthood, but they were dead before I was born. Solveig died of tuberculosis in 1907. The first Ingeborg died on August 19, 1884. She was sixteen months old. Our father told me that this Ingeborg died shortly after birth and was so tiny that a cigar box was used as a coffin. Our father must have confused Ingeborg’s death with some other local tale. The second Ingeborg also came down with tuberculosis and spent time at the Mineral Springs Sanitarium, but she recovered. David fell ill with tuberculosis in 1925. He spent all of 1926 in the sanitarium. When he recovered, he disappeared. He wasn’t found again until 1936, and by then he was dead. Olaf died of tuberculosis in 1914. Sibling ghosts.