Ignore the knocking from the lying-in room while you rake the leaves. Your wife irons the bed sheets and stacks them in the closet. The house shudders like a sleeping horse, and the teacups rattle on their hooks. Out comes the silverware polish. The chandeliers are next. The trees are bare, and the blackened limbs conspire with the burnt fields. You make your way to the hole in the fence where you keep your cigarettes. Only one left. Then the groaning comes. Uncle Bill, drunk on the porch with a carton of milk tucked between his legs, shouts at the ghost. “Get the fuck out of here!” He bangs his wheelchair into the wall, scuffs the siding. Smoke belches from the chimney; there is no fire. The children run, pretend to be scared. The leaves are the same color as your wife’s knuckles, the boys’ hair, the fresh ember you secretly nurture in the cup of your palm. The sky purples as you fire the piles.