haunted

I have an older brother. He was born dead, seven years before me. I don’t know what his name was, if he even had one. I don’t dare ask.

From Jennie Vansaco’s excellent “What’s in a Necronym?“:

Fifteen years later, the clinicians Robert Krell and Leslie Rabkin identified three types of replacement children: bound, resurrected, and haunted… A “haunted” child lives in a family overwhelmed by guilt, which imposes “a conspiracy of silence.”

Yes. Even though none of us would describe me as a replacement for him.

How can someone without a name, with such tiny feet, leave such a large footprint?

He probably never even wore shoes.

He is still here, screaming in the corner of the room, using all the air in all the breaths he never took.