Dizzy sat at the break­fast table, eager to share the excit­ing news she had with her old­er broth­er, Miles, who was immersed in a book. She was des­per­ate for his atten­tion, but felt a deep con­trast between her own self-per­cep­tion and the per­fec­tion she asso­ci­at­ed with him. Miles, the star ath­lete on a schol­ar­ship and some­one admired for his kind­ness toward ani­mals, seemed to embody every­thing she felt she was not. Dizzy often found her­self yearn­ing for his acknowl­edg­ment, feel­ing as though her attempts to com­mu­ni­cate were ignored. She tried to tell him about the angel she had encoun­tered the pre­vi­ous day, but he didn’t even look up from his nov­el, his indif­fer­ence cre­at­ing an emo­tion­al dis­tance between them.

Her frus­tra­tion deep­ened as she con­sid­ered how lit­tle they tru­ly con­nect­ed, espe­cial­ly now that their old­er broth­er, Wyn­ton, was avoid­ing home. With Wynton’s recent trou­bles, Dizzy was left alone with Miles, and their inter­ac­tions only seemed to empha­size the gap between them. Try­ing to break through to him, she shared a strange fact about a woman expe­ri­enc­ing unex­pect­ed phys­i­cal reac­tions, but this only fur­ther caused Miles to with­draw from her. She was left feel­ing iso­lat­ed, her desire to have a mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion with her broth­er unmet. In the silence that fol­lowed, Dizzy turned to the gin­ger­bread she had baked, seek­ing com­fort in the famil­iar task as her mind wan­dered back to child­hood mem­o­ries.

Reflect­ing on the past, Dizzy remem­bered how she used to sleep­walk into Miles’s room, wit­ness­ing him cry in his sleep, a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that no one else had ever known. It was one of the few times she saw a side of him that wasn’t wrapped in per­fec­tion, but it felt like a dis­tant mem­o­ry, unspo­ken and for­got­ten. Despite the close­ness they once had, Dizzy now felt a dis­con­nect, only real­iz­ing the depth of their dis­tance when they were forced to spend time togeth­er. It made her long for some­thing more—more con­nec­tion, more close­ness, and per­haps, more under­stand­ing. Her life seemed to drift between these moments of long­ing, where the emo­tion­al bonds she craved seemed out of reach.

Uncle Clive arrived soon after, shift­ing the atmos­phere in the room. His arrival, as unpre­dictable as ever, brought with it news of a trou­bling dream he had about Wyn­ton. He spoke cryp­ti­cal­ly about Wyn­ton los­ing his “musi­cal voice,” a thought that unset­tled Dizzy deeply, as she had always asso­ci­at­ed Wyn­ton with music, believ­ing that he was music in him­self. Although her moth­er had warned them about Uncle Clive’s drink­ing, Dizzy couldn’t help but feel a sense of com­fort and admi­ra­tion for his cre­ative mind. She cher­ished their con­ver­sa­tions, see­ing in him a source of sta­bil­i­ty and expres­sion she couldn’t find else­where in her life.

As Clive left, Dizzy sat back down, feel­ing a renewed sense of long­ing. Her thoughts drift­ed back to her absent father, whose dis­ap­pear­ance left a void in her heart that no one seemed to fill. She longed for some­one to val­i­date her exis­tence, to rec­og­nize the spe­cial­ness she felt with­in her­self but often strug­gled to express. In the qui­et soli­tude of the vine­yard, Dizzy used her unique abil­i­ty, see­ing two ghost­ly fig­ures flick­er­ing in the light, locked in a ten­der embrace. She felt a deep sense of admi­ra­tion for their love, a con­nec­tion she envied, but nev­er dared to share with any­one. She feared being dis­missed, tired of hav­ing her imag­i­na­tion brushed aside as child­ish. The ghosts rep­re­sent­ed a long­ing she couldn’t name—an unful­filled desire for con­nec­tion that stretched beyond the phys­i­cal, and she yearned for some­one who would share her life as these spir­its shared theirs.