What is an example of metaphor in the novel, You Came Back?

One of the most remarkable metaphors in the novel occurs when Chloe is trying to explain the pain of losing Brendan: “I’ve read about people who’ve lost limbs, who have phantom pain? I sometimes think, I have a phantom son. I feel his weight sometimes—like he’s a little baby, and I’m holding him on my hip. I smell him … Once or twice I could feel him nursing” (171). The narrator also uses metaphor to describe Mark’s own thoughts and emotions. When Mark contemplates the idea of Brendan’s ghost still living in the house, Mark asks himself what if it could be true and “the thought was a heartbeat, a malevolent, waking life.” The idea that Brendan could still exist after death is strong enough to take on its own life force. The last powerful metaphor that occurs in the novel is courtesy of Trudy, who discusses Brendan’s spirit as if it were sleeping rather than dead: “Think of it this way: He is asleep, most of the time. But he is a fitful sleeper, and sometimes he wakes, and then—then, yes, he is troubled” (238). These metaphors serve to elevate the prose out of the banal and turn the ghost story into literary fiction. They also offer a new way to look at grief and loss and tragedy, which is, perhaps, the mission of the novel, if it can be said to have a mission.