Luke couldn't always see the ghosts that hung around him, but he knew they were there. They'd followed him around, always right there just out of sight, just in his peripheral, since he was a child. Since the night they'd left Hill House, ushered out of the red room, screaming and crying, into the station wagon. His dad might have driven them away from Hill House, but they never really left. Or more accurately, Hill House didn't let them go. Luke and Nellie most of all.
And with Nellie dead and in the ground, all those ghosts were with Luke. Hovering as close as the veil between worlds would allow. Some stronger than others, like the tall man in the bowler hat. He was always nearby. Luke could never, would never, get out of his shadow.
"Not hungry." Luke didn't eat much. Sometimes forgot to eat all together. He might be two years clean, and he was certainly in a better place mentally and emotionally than he'd been two years earlier, but he was far from independently functional.