I woke up when the water hit my face. The water had sat in the hose during the low temp nights and felt near freezing as it soaked into my shirt. I sat up and looked around. Her dad was sitting at the edge of the driveway, hose in one hand cigarette in the other.

Sitting up made me remember. My father, my mom crying, the ghost of her. The pogo.

"It works on getting the stray dogs out of the garden, too," he said.

"Good morning, Mr. Hill."

"Sam told us what happened. He was an honest man. Tell your mom if she needs anything."

I nodded. She wasn't a ghost, after all.

"You should be back with her," he said.

It took me a moment, then I realized he meant my mom.

"Yes sir."

When I was growing up I would come to Mr. Hill's backyard almost every day. Sam and I would play all kinds of games. They were another family. In some ways a better family. Mr. Hill was the one who taught me how to hit a baseball, how to slide head first into a base.

But then Sam and I began dating. She was my first everything, I was hers. Mr. Hill began treating me different, treating me like I stole his daughter away.

Then Sam left.