Turkeys, presents, friends and families’ laughter and cheers. Phantom voices from another time, when happiness rang through the walls, and now tore at her as Shannon struggled to keep her focus off the past. She didn’t look at the cabinet where the wine glasses once nestled, or the vases where dead flowers remained soaking in browning water. Every fiber beckoned her to remove them and clean the vase, but she steeled against the urge. It was Greg’s problem now. It was no longer home and belonged to someone else now. A ghost. She was trespassing. Shannon steadied her footsteps while trembling vibrations pulsed through each finger. Gasps of air surged through her lungs as she edged up the back service staircase. Even the narrow stairway, lacking decoration and embellishments, elegantly climbed upward through walls that eased into a curved ceiling, boasting the quality and refinement taken in the architecture. But it’d always been more than a showplace.
