In this house, grief hangs on hangers and looks like a family of coats. There’s a father coat, mother coat, and two child coats, each done up in brown. The realtor banishes them from the closet before showings, casts them out with superstitious murmurs and deodorizing spray, but they return by evening, a quartet of ghosts, silent, sullen, stubborn.

The father coat’s made from stiff fabric: no give, formal tailoring, with a reinforced yoke that forces you plumb. You’d be right to call the coat old-fashioned. You’d be right to call it classic. You’d be right to say you feel colder just by putting it on. Its grief is aloof but definitive, with silver tich buttons that say s-n-a-p.

The mother coat’s worn, threadbare across chest and shoulders, dark and oily at the cuffs from pulling and tugging. The buttons on the front are beautiful, with a steadfastness about them that can only come from animal bone. The grief in this garment gathers in the pleats and smells of crushed marigolds and floor wax.

The first of the smaller ones fits an older child, a pre-teen perhaps. The trench coat style has overlapping lapels, perfect for hiding in, for reshaping oneself. It cinches closed with a nylon belt that doubles as a noose. The waterproof fabric feels slick in your hands. Its grief oozes through the weave, threatens escape, like condensation.

The last in the set is a toddler-sized velour number, shiny and daring. When it moves, it’s loud, draws attention to itself. Many people have touched this coat, will touch it again; it’s got pinch marks all over and traces of snot. Its grief is wide-eyed and blood-stained, the kind of grief that comes after surprise, comes after regret.

You try on the first coat, find it fits two of you, so you double yourself. The pair of you explores the pockets, fingers retracing the path of the original owner. Rather than holy fluff and bits of Bible verse, you find condoms and scraps of paper with names and phone numbers, the penmanship looping and hopeful, the ink still fresh.

The second coat fits nicely, falls right into place. You can tell this one’s traveled, borne witness. The remaining stitches scold those that have unraveled, mourn those that are lost. In an interior breast pocket, you discover damp tissues and miscellaneous pills, brightly colored, a rainbow world hidden inside a welted pouch.

You can probably squeeze into the third coat, but you don’t because you know it’s wrong somehow. The belt’s been hastily restrung, and it’s horribly twisted inside the loops. You fix it, taking your time doing so; it’s important it be straight, to look proper, be ready. There’s nothing in the pockets.

The fourth coat you hold in your arms, hugging it from behind. With warm hands, you press the wrinkles flat, massage the nap new. The outline of a young boy’s still here. The smell of the fabric loosens a memory, leaves you with déjà vu and questions. In one pocket you find a toy gun, in the other, real bullets.

Should you buy this house, the family of coats won’t demand much, just their hangers and a little closet space. They’ll slide over so you can store items of your own in here. There’s even a shelf overhead for hats and a rack below to lay out shoes. You’ll find that grief’s quite flexible; it compresses, folds up like origami. Plenty of room for you and yours, you’ll see.