NaNoWriMo 2016 - updates will be made to this post

It had been a good day, and a fun night, but I am tired now.  I just want to sleep.  My own voice in my head reminds me, "No, Anna, you can't sleep yet.  Soon."

But I am so tired.  I'll just close my eyes for a second.  Just for a second, and then maybe I'll feel better...

The next thing I know, I feel utterly alone in the dark and the cold.  I shiver, wrap my arms around myself, rubbing my shoulders for warmth, but there is none.  This is only darkness and a frigid breeze the blows right through me.  "Anna..." The breeze seems to whisper.

I shoot up to a sitting position and I'm panting as I try to orient myself.  The ceiling fan.  The familiar headboard.  My pulse slows as I slowly realize that I'm simply in my bed.  I glance over and see Todd laying next to me.  "Anna," I hear him mutter.

"It's okay, baby," I whisper.  "I just had a bad dream."

"Sleep," he mutters back, so I calm myself.  I lay back down.  And I go back to sleep.


When I wake up again, Todd is gone.  I glance at the clock and see that it's nearly 10am.  Todd is surely at work, and I've overslept!  I must have forgotten to set my alarm last night.  Why didn't Todd wake me before he went to work?  I grumble my annoyance at him to myself, but expressing it will have to wait until later.  I jump up out of bed and start to get ready.

There's no time to take a shower, but I can at least rinse my hair off in the sink and brush my teeth.  The first part goes fine, but when it comes to the teeth brushing, I can't find my toothbrush.  There is the holder, with the two slots, but only one of them is filled with Todd's toothbrush.  What happened to mine?  Is Todd playing some sort of joke on me?  That's not really like him.  I sigh and roll my eyes.  I don't have time to deal with this right now.  If he's going to decide to be some funny man, I'll just use his toothbrush instead.

Teeth brushed, hair somewhat washed, I need to get dressed.  I look down at what I'm currently wearing and see that I'm still dressed in the clothes I wore to the bar last night.  I must have been really tired to just flop into bed fully dressed like that.  Either way, I certainly can't wear these to work.

I look in the closet, on the half where my clothes go, and then on the other half where Todd's clothes go, and none of my clothes are there.  This is ridiculous!  I'm about to call Todd and ask him what the heck is up when I notice a box on the shelf, closed up and labeled:  "Anna".

My pulse quickens.  Why would all my stuff be in a box like that?  Is Todd trying to tell me something?  Is this his way of breaking up with me, packing all my things up for me?  Why would he do that?  I think back to the recent evenings we've spent together.  We've cuddled on the couch watching movies, even chick flicks that Todd broke down and decided to watch with me.  We've cooked together in the kitchen:  hummus and tacos and roast duck even.  He seemed to enjoy that.  We've talked; we've even started to talk about...

I let out a little gasp.  What if the talk of marriage scared him?  What if he felt like he wasn't ready and he just didn't want to tell me?  Is this his way of telling me?  I shake my head.  He wouldn't do that.  He wouldn't do that or else I don't know him at all.  With a heavy sigh, I take down the box and resign myself to not really knowing what's going on.  I'll have to talk to him about it later.  For now, I need to get to work.

When I open the box, the first thing I see is a picture of me.  Todd's favorite picture in a frame.  That's a bit odd, but I move it aside and start to dig through the box.  I find nighties and slippers and then finally at the bottom are my work clothes.  They're rumpled, but they will have to do.  I pull out a pink blouse and a gray skirt and put them on.  At the very very bottom of the box I find a pair of my heels, so I put those on, too.  I leave the box sitting on the floor, open and somewhat in disarray, thinking that will send Todd a message that I'm not ready to go yet.  And then I march out the door.

And I find when I get outside that my car is gone!  What the heck?  This has really gone too far.  Forget work.  Forget it all.  I need to call Todd now.  I march back into the house to the nightstand where my phone should be and find its gone, too.  Maybe it's in the box?  I dig through and sure enough, there it is, wrapped up in a pair of my less sexy pajamas.  With a sigh, I pick it up, turn it on, and hit the button to call Todd.

It rings several times, but eventually, the man in question picks up.  I feel pleased with myself when I can hear the nervousness in his voice as he says, "H-hello?"

"Todd!  This is nuts!" I exclaim.  "What are you trying to pull?"

"Hello?"  he says again.  "Who is this?"

"Who do you think it is?  This is Anna?"

"I can hear you breathing," he says.  "What is this?"

"What are you talking about?"  I ask  "Can you not hear me talking to you right now?"

"Whoever this is, this isn't funny," I heard Todd say, starting to sound angry.  "Calling me from Anna's number... I don't know who you are, but I, I..."  And then I hear him start to sniffle and then flat out cry.

"Todd, I'm sorry!" I quickly say, my eyes growing wide in surprise.  "I didn't mean... we can talk about it when you get home."

And with that he hangs up on me.  I'm just kneeling there in the closet, in front of the box of my life, cell phone in hand, stunned.  What just happened?  Why couldn't Todd hear me?  I might have thought he was pulling my leg at first, but by the end, he sounded genuinely upset.  Why, how could a phone call from me upset him so?  I decide I'm not going to work today.  I let the cell phone fall out of my hand to the floor, and drift back over to the bed, where I curl up in a little ball and find myself starting to cry until I fall back asleep.


What must be several hours later, I hear the door open.  Todd must be home.  I rush out into the entry way to tell him how sorry I am and how we can work it out.  I see him, but he seems to look right through me.  Like he can't see me at all.  "Todd!" I exclaim.

He turns his head to look right where I'm standing.  Directly at me, yet he doesn't acknowledge me.  "Hello," he says.  "Is somebody there."

"Of course, Todd," I say, "I'm right here."

He walks towards me, but still doesn't acknowledge me.  I see him shiver as he gets close.  He's about to run right into me, so I put my hands out to stop him, and at the last moment he shifts just to the side.  I watch him go right past me, still not acknowledging that I'm there.  He looks nervous.  No, he looks scared.  I follow closely behind him, still trying to wrap my head around what could possibly be happening right now.  Am I dreaming?  I don't think so.  I feel wide awake.  I would think I could tell if I was dreaming.  So what is this?

When he gets to the bedroom door, he cautiously looks in, and when his eyes fall on the closet, he gasps and jumps back.  I just barely get out of his way.  And then he's rushing to the closet, sobbing as he picks up my things, the things I had taken out of the box that morning.  His hands tremble as he holds the cell phone.  He picks up one my nighties and presses it to his cheek, his tears falling onto it.  He sets it back down and picks up the photo of me, his favorite photo, which he then sets up on the floor.  He then turns his attention to my cell phone, still sitting there in his hand, the unlock screen icon glowing.  I move up close behind him and look over his shoulder as he unlocks it.  His hands are trembling as he pulls up the call history.  He gasps and drops the phone as he sees the call I placed to him this morning.

"Todd..." I say.

He gasps again and spins around in place, nearly hitting me again as I stumble backwards.  "Who's there?" he demands.  "Who are you?"

I kneel down in front of him, looking directly into his frightened brown eyes.  "Todd, it's Anna," I say.

"I can't see you, but I know you're there," he says.

I reach out my hand to stroke his cheek, and as I do, it feels strange as if he's not fully there.  But he must feel something because I see him shudder, and after I pull my hand away, he touches the spot where it had been.  Then he takes a deep breath, pulls out his phone, and dials 911.

"Yes, hello," he says when someone answers, as I'm still trying to process what's going on.  "There's been a break-in at my home.  Yes.  Someone is taunting me with my dead girlfriend's things."

And that's when the weight of the entire universe falls down on me.  Did he say "dead"?  Of course he said "dead".  That's the only thing that could possibly make sense.  But how can I be dead?  I'm right here.  Did Todd have another girlfriend?  A secret girlfriend?  Maybe she's dead.  But I know instantly that that isn't true.  Todd wouldn't do that.  Todd loves me.  Loved me?  No.  As I look at him, I know he loves me still.  And my heart, if I still have a heart, is breaking to see him kneeling there amid my things, with me so close, and yet a whole realm, a whole universe away.  How is this possible?  How is this happening?  And above all, how can I possibly be dead?

I try to think back, and that's when I remember...

It had been a great party.  The only thing that made me a little bit sad was that Todd hadn't been able to be there with me.  He had to work late.  But that was okay.  It wasn't my actual birthday anyway and we had agreed to go out that weekend.  Secretly, I thought he might even pop the question, ask me to marry him at that fancy dinner we had planned.  I was reeling with excitement as we all left the bar.  I had made sure to give myself plenty of time to recover from the drinking, plenty of water, too, before I drove home.  I wasn't drunk, not even close, but boy was I tired.

"You going to be okay getting home?" I heard my friend Emily ask.

I remember nodding and waving her off to her car.  "Yeah, I'm fine," I said.  "Just a little tired."

Just a little tired.  Home wasn't that far, just a few miles, but as I went on, I remember my eyelids getting heavier and heavier.  I could barely stay awake.

I was so tired.  I just wanted to sleep.  To get home, to get into bed with Todd, and fall fast asleep.  I had to remind myself, "No, Anna, you can't sleep yet.  Soon."

But I was tired.  The light was red, and decided I would just close my eyes for a second.  Just for a second, and then maybe I would feel better...

I gasp as I start to remember it all.  Had I... had I died in the car that night?  Asleep at the wheel?  It had been a red light.  How could I?  Did I let my foot off the break?  Did I drift into the intersection.  What had happened?

I glance over at Todd and see he's hung up with the emergency dispatcher.  I watch him clinging to his phone, looking at my phone, at the box of my life, and starting to cry again.  And I cry, too.  I don't know how I can cry when I'm dead, but I am.  Todd feels a million miles away, even though he's sitting right there.  He's right there.  I'm right here.  And there seems to be nothing I can do about it.


A cop showed up at Todd's house a few hours later.  I tried to get in the way, to let them know I was there, but it was no good.  It seemed like no matter where I went, even if I was right in front of them, they somehow got out of the way.  Or I did.  Or something.  It was all really strange.

The cop took a statement and had a tech who was with him dust for fingerprints.  Since nothing was stolen, it seemed unlikely to progress very far.  The cop was very curious about who had keys to the place, since there was no forced entry.  Todd said it was just him.  Just him and, previously, his girlfriend, but she was gone now.  I was gone now.

After to cop left, Todd sat alone on the couch.  Just staring at his hands.  I sat down beside him and reached out to place a hand on top of his.  I could feel his warmth, but he couldn't feel me.  Except he shivered again.  Was that all I could do to him now?  Make him cold?  At least it was something, I thought.

And then I realized something.  I wasn't helpless here.  I had been able to move that box around, to open it up and sort through it.  That was what had caused Todd all this pain to begin with.  Maybe I could start to make it right.  Maybe I could let him know I was still here.  I got up off the couch and rushed back to the bedroom.  The box was still sitting on the floor, now with some fingerprint dust on it, but it was still there and so was my phone.  I reached for it with trembling hands, hoping against all hope that I would still be able to pick it up.  I grabbed it, felt its weight in my hands, and opened the text messaging app.  I composed a text to Todd that simply read, "I'm still here, baby.  I love you.  You rock my socks."  That last bit was an inside joke I hoped would assure him that, as impossible as it would seem, that it was really me.  I pressed send.

I could hear his phone buzz in the other room.  I could hear him gasp, and jump up from the couch.  I heard his feet rushing to the room, and as soon as he poked his head in the door, the phone slipped out of my hands and it's case bounced against the floor and it landed upside down.  He saw him trembling as he walked over to pick it up.  He must have seen it fall, but he didn't see me.  I tried to reach for it, to pick it up before he got there, so somehow show him I was right there, but somehow I couldn't.  When he got there and knelt to pick it up, I was centimeters from his face.  I could feel his hot breath on my face.  He couldn't feel my breath.  It seemed I no longer had any breath.

He turned the phone over and looked at the screen.  There was a small crack it in from when it had just fallen, but the words on the screen were still clear.  The message I had just typed was there.  "A-Anna?" he muttered, looking around the room, looking away from me as he tried to find me.

"I'm right here," I said.

"Anna?"

I started to cry, somehow gasping for that breath I no longer seemed to have.  "I'm right here, baby," I said.

"Anna, are you here?"

"Yes, I'm here," I said.  And I reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder.

He turned.  He looked at me.  I still didn't think he saw me, but he felt me.  He seemed to feel me, because he lifted up his hand opposite the shoulder I was touching, and he placed that hand on top of my own.  I watched with less surprise than I would have expected as his hand sunk right through mine, passed right through mine, onto his own shoulder.  But it was there.  His hand was there right on top of, encompassing my own.

"I miss you, Anna," he whispered.  "It's like I still hear you.  In my dreams I see you.  I just didn't think you were really still here."

"I am here," I whispered back.  "And I'm not going to leave."

I saw him smile, just a little.  "I don't think I'm ready to let you go," he said.

"You don't have to," I tell him.  "You don't have to."


Over the next several days, I do what I can to assure Todd I'm still there.  I try to leave him written notes, but the writing somehow comes out wrong.  When I'm emotional, it ends up just looking like scribbles.  When I'm really emotional, I can't even pick up the pen, I find that my fingers pass right through it.  I find I have to remain calm, but it's hard now that I realize what's happening to me, to him, to us.

He leaves my cell phone charged by the bed, apparently hoping I'll contact him again that way, but it seems to only sometimes work, like now that I know I'm dead, it's harder to behave as if I'm living.  There are still times, when I do my best to calm myself, to hear my breathing that should no longer be there, that I can send him texts like I did that first time.  Other times, as soon as I touch my phone, its battery drains completely.  The first time it happened, I tried touching Todd's phone, inside his pocket.  He seemed startled by my presence, but then he checked his phone and saw it was completely dead.  "Anna?" he asks.

I can't help but laugh, just a little.  "Sorry, Todd," I say with a sad smile.

From experimenting, it appears I can't move anything while he's watching.  How I wish I could put on some different clothes, let him see me in them, touch me, feel me.  But I can't.  I don't know the rules of ghosts or spirits or whatever the heck I am, but apparently it doesn't work that way.  Before I realized what had happened to me, it seemed like I could do more than I can do now.

Half the time or more, I can't even leave the house.  I reach for the door knob, thinking I'd like to leave the house, but also a little scared of leaving the comfort of home, and my hand just goes right through the knob.  I worry that I'm fading away.  I find it happens more, this inability to interact with things, the more as I worry more about the possibility of vanishing completely.

But whenever Todd comes home, I feel alive again.  He talks to me, tells me about his day, even though I can't talk back.  He knows I'm there, and that makes me smile, even if it's a smile he'll never see again.  He even turns on a "chick flick" some nights, which I know is for me because he would never watch that on his own.  He continues to cook our favorite dishes.  Sometimes he even makes a second plate for me, as if I could eat it, but I sit at the table beside him, watching him eat, and every so often he shivers, then looks over at where I'm sitting and smiles.  Even though he can't see me, he knows I'm there, and that seems to comfort him and I know it comforts me.

After a few weeks of this go by, though, I begin to get worried.  Todd isn't going out with his friends.  I know he always loved to hang out with the guys, but I watch as they call him up on Friday and he says, "Naw, I think I'd rather just stay in tonight."  They text him on Saturday and he says he isn't feeling up for it.  Sunday afternoon it's a beautiful day.  The kind of day when Todd and I would take walks to the park, maybe even play on the swings if there weren't too many kids around.  He doesn't even leave the house besides for work, and he seems to just be putting in the minimal effort there based on how early he comes back.

A couple days, I even follow him to work, riding in the back seat of the car, following him into the office, right past security, which doesn't seem equipped to keep out ghosts.  I stand nearby and watch him work, trying not to interfere, but still he seems distracted and much less productive than I know he used to be.  He loves his job and he's good at it.  I know these things.  But the performance I see now indicates that he's at risk of a rather negative performance review and a sharp halt to his career advancement.  It breaks my non-beating heart to see this, and I wish I could help him, but I fear I'm only going to be more of a distraction so I stop following him to work and just wait for him to come home, strangely hoping that he'll come home later to show me he's working harder, like he used to.

When he is at home, especially on the weekends when he has no where he needs to go, I try to get him to go out more, to tell him I could go with him.  But the phone doesn't work anymore for some reason and I seem to have no other way to communicate with him.  I try opening the door when he isn't in the room.  But when he comes back in, he closes it and asks, "Anna, you still here?"  I don't want to make him think I left without him, so I get close to him and he shivers and smiles.  He seems happy, but I know this isn't right and I'm just not sure what to do about it.

It's maybe five weeks after I first made contact with him that a friend of his, Brad, actually shows up at the house, and I feel so relieved to see this chance for Todd to make real human contact with someone who just might be able to convince him to go out again, to get back to the life he used to love before I died.

"Hey Todd, buddy, are you alright?  We've been worried about you."

Todd is a bit disheveled, and unshaven.  It's been getting harder and harder for us to communicate.  I think it's taken a toll on him.  But he forces a smile for Brad.  Maybe for me, too.

"No need," Todd says.  "I'm fine.  I'm just, you know, trying to get through."

"Yeah man, but it seems, it just seems like you were doing better and then, back to well..."

"Mourning her?" Todd asks.

Brad looks a little uncomfortable.  "Yeah, man," he says.  "I mean, I can't even imagine what it would be like, losing someone like that.  I don't want to tell you how to grieve, it's just...."

Todd shakes his head.  "I'm not grieving," he says.  "Not really."

I feel my pulse, which shouldn't exist anymore, quicken as I realize what Todd is about to admit and how it's going to sound.

"She's here," Todd says in a hushed tone.  "She's still here."

I can't lie about this.  His eyes to look a bit crazy.  His words sound a bit insane.  Had I been in Brad's shoes, I likely would have responded the exact same way he did, which was to look extremely uncomfortable and say, "Uh, dude..."

"I know how it sounds," Todd says, getting a bit more bold.  He places his hands on Brad's shoulders.  "But she's here.  She really is."

"How do you know that?" Brad asks, trying to give Todd the benefit of the doubt.

"She sends me messages.  On her phone."

"Uh...."

"No, really!" Todd exclaims.  "I had that break-in a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah...."

"It was her.  She was communicating with me."

"Listen, buddy..."

"I know how it sounds!"  Todd exclaims.  Stomping his foot and jerking his hands away from Brad's shoulders.  "I know how it sounds!  But it's true.  It's true!"  And then he breaks down and starts to cry.

I try to move forward to comfort him, but somehow I can't move.  I'm frozen in place, no longer the master of my own body.  I don't even have a body.  But Brad does, and Brad steps forward to comfort his friend, the man I love, by telling him, "It's okay" and hoping he'll come to accept that I'm really gone.

Except I'm not gone.  I'm right here.  And yet I'm a million miles away.  And in finding comfort for myself in staying here with Todd, I realize that I'm destroying him.  So I unfreeze myself, somehow, and I walk calmly back to the bedroom.  I hope I can send this one final message.  I pray that whatever is keeping me here, controlling me, whatever it is they're doing to me, will let me send this final text.

I pick up my phone.  I can do it.  I open the text message app.  I can do it.  I type the message.  And I press send.  I hear the chime in the other room, and the gasp from Todd.  I set the phone down gently, right where it was, and walk back into the other room to see the reaction.

Todd is mouthing the words of my text message silently.  Brad is standing right in front of him, looking at the phone upside down, still looking uncomfortable.  Todd whispers the words I've typed a second time:  "I love you, baby, but I have to go.  It's time to move on."

He jerks his head up and shouts, "No, don't go!"

I slide up to him, run my fingers through his hair.  It must be noticeable because out of the corner of my eye, I see Brad's eyes widen.  Brad takes a step away.  I look at Todd.  There are tears running down his face.  "Don't go," he whispers.

I lean in close hoping that just this last time he can hear me.  "I have to," I whisper in his ear.  And as he cries some more, I don't stop to figure out if he heard me or not.  I just lean in and kiss him on the cheek.  I step back and look at him, a soft smile on my face.  He looks right at me.  He has to see me now.  He has to.  I smile more brightly.  "Good bye," I say as I raise my hand in a meager wave.  He raises his hand back at me.  I close my eyes, wishing to be somewhere else, wishing to fade away to give Todd closure, and then everything goes dark.


I thought that was the end.  I thought ghosts only lasted through their unfinished business.  I thought saying good-bye to Todd was my unfinished business.  I was apparently wrong, because when I open my eyes again, I'm laying on the side of a road.  I sit up and look out over the scene before me.  I see two cars, collided into each other.  Everything is foggy and hazy, but I can tell that one of the cars is mine, and I see a man, equally foggy and hazy, standing next to it, staring at it, looking away from me.  Slowly I stand up.  I look down at myself, see I'm dressed in white, like I'd imagine an angel to be, but I have no wings and I certainly have no halo.  I see the man, still looking away from me.  "Hello?" I call out.

He turns.  He heard me.  He sees me.  He comes into sharper focus and I take a few steps forward.  As I approach, his eyes grow wide.  "You!" he says pointing at me.  "I know you!"

I feel confused.  I'm quite sure I've never seen his man before in my life.  "You do?" I say, continuing to step closer.

He nods and his outstretched hand begins to tremble.  "You're the woman I killed," he says.

I stop.  I stare.  I want to say something, but I'm not sure what.  I open my mouth to say something, and then everything goes black for just a moment, and then he's gone, the crashed cars are gone, the fog is gone, and it's a bright sunny day and I'm standing in the middle of the street, dressed back again in the clothes I was wearing before, the clothes I died in.

I jump the first time a car rushes by me, obviously not seeing me, but then I realize I'm already dead.  What's the worse that can happen to me?  I walk right through the traffic, literally right through, and stand by the side of the road trying to comprehend what's just happened.  This intersection is on the way back to my and Todd's home from the bar I was at that fateful night.  Was this the spot where I fell asleep?  Is this the spot where I died?  And who was that man?  Was he real?  I decide that my unfinished business must be to find out.  I have to find out.

And then I pause.  What happens to ghosts when they finish their unfinished business?  Don't they disappear?  In the movies, that's what I see happen.  Well, they don't really disappear.  They move on.  Is that what I want?  Am I really ready to go?

Well, I suppose that by definition, once I finish my unfinished business, I'll be ready to go.  But where do I go for now?  Do I go back to Todd's house, to our house?  I don't know how I could after telling him good-bye.  But where else do I go?  Who else should I haunt?  Not Todd.  I can't do that to him.  Could I do that to anyone I love?

And then I wonder, how long have I been gone anyway?  The night I died, it would have been two days before my 28th birthday.  I try to remember when I was haunting Todd, haunting my phone, what was the date then?  I didn't think of it before, but now I'm trying to remember.  Late October maybe when I finally said good-bye?  That would have been three months after I died.  Had it really been that long?  It didn't seem that long.  I looked at the intersection where I may have died, and it felt like just yesterday that I was there, in my car, closing my eyes as I waited for the light to turn green.  And yet, there is so much I can't remember.  Like that man who claims he killed me.  What did he mean?  Was he driving the car that crashed into me?  In the vision I just had of him, there was another car crashed into my own.  And was he alive or dead?

I sigh.  What could I do to find out?  I could go haunt a police station.  Try to sneak into a public library and see if my little ghost fingers can use a computer without freaking anyone else out.  Possess someone?  Is that something ghosts can do?  I ultimately decide that, for now, the best thing to do is sit here and wait.  If that vision I just had was a shared experience, if that man was really there, if he saw me like I saw him, maybe he'll come here looking for me.  And I want him to find me, because I want answers, whether it's really my unfinished business or not.

So I sit there on the sidewalk with my back against a kitschy little "boutique" shop, and wait as I watch the living go by.


After two days of this, and the realization that ghosts don't actually have to eat or sleep (which I knew before, but hadn't really thought about until I was sitting around doing back nothing), I decide I need to take a more active approach to this situation.

So I got up off my butt, dusted myself off, even though dust doesn't really stick to ghosts, and decided to go in search of a police station.  One problem was that I had never really had need of a police station before, so I didn't know exactly where one was, but I knew there was one downtown, so I decided to head that way.

After about a mile of walking, which still tires you out even when you are a ghost, I was relieved to see a bus with a "Downtown" heading stopped at a bus stop right ahead.  I rushed over, got on, felt a little guilty for not paying, and then sat down in the very back as much out of the way as I could.  As the bus started moving, I was surprised to hear a voice next to me say, "Hello."

I looked over, and there was a wrinkled old lady with sucked in cheeks and dirty gray hair going every which way all over her head.  She looked right at me and gave a large grin, revealing her gray teeth, except a fake on near the middle that appeared to be made of gold.  "Hello," she said again.

"Hello?" I said back, nervously.  I thought the living were supposed to fear spirits, but this living woman was making me a bit uncomfortable.

She grinned even wider and nodded.  "I knew it was you!" she exclaimed.  "A spirit!"

The loudness of "a spirit" drew glares from passengers in front of her and I noticed a couple on the bus muttering to themselves, probably about what a nut job this woman was.  And then I realized that when I was alive, I had done the same thing, told Todd about the crazy old lady walking down the street or the nutso man on the bus who were talking to themselves.  Now I couldn't help but wonder:  Had they really been talking to themselves and had they really been crazy?

"I know the spirits," the woman whispered, having the wisdom at least to lower her voice.  She scooted over to the seat right next to me.  She cupped her hand up to my ear and whispered into it, "I can help you."

I looked over at her as she leaned back in her seat and smiled, seeming to be very proud of herself.  I felt my face wrinkle in doubt.  How could this old woman possibly help me?  But then again, how could she possibly see me when no one else on this bus could?  I was at least a little bit curious, so I asked, "How?"

She grinned again and nodded.  "You've gotta find your key," she said.

"Key?" I asked.

"The key to paradise," she said.  "If you already had it and they'd let you in, you wouldn't still be here."

I felt rather uncertain at that answer, but who was I to judge?  Six months ago, I would have never believed ghosts were real at all and now I was one.  "How do I find my key?" I asked.

She pressed her hand up against my chest and I was surprised to feel actual pressure from her touch, instead of a hand that went right through me like with everyone else.  "It's buried deep in your soul," she said.  "You have to unlock it."

"I have to unlock the key?" I asked feeling rather confused.

She nodded and smiled as if I understood perfectly.  "That's right," she said.  "Unlock the key and then you can unlock the door and you will be free of this plane."

I paused for a moment, trying to decide if I even remotely believed her.  "And what if I want to stay on this plane?" I asked.

Her smile turned to a frown and she pulled away from me.  "Oh no no," she said shaking her head, "you don't want to do that.  No no.  That will make you mad.  You have to find the key.  You have to!"

Her last exclamation was a bit too loud and drew stares again, which drew my attention as well and caused me to realize that we had reached downtown and I would need to be getting off soon if I was to find the police station.

I decided to give the woman the benefit of the doubt and ask, "Is the key related to my unfinished business?"

She smiled again and nodded.  "Yes, unfinished business," she said.  "Unlock your soul, find the key, get out."

"Well in that case, could you tell me where the police station is?  I think my unfinished business is there."

She nodded and said, "Next stop and go towards the sun."  I was again doubtful, partially because I wasn't even convinced this woman knew where we were, but I decided I had nothing better to go on, so at the next stop, I stood up and moved to the door.  I glanced back at the old lady who was grinning wildly with wide eyes and motioning for me to get off the bus.  I thought I saw her mouth "key" and then I felt the bus lurch forward and begin to move again, so I quickly jumped out through the door (one of the few advantages of being a ghost), located the sun in the western part of the sky, and headed in that direction, hoping that this crazy old woman had spoken at least a sliver of the truth, and wondering how many crazies were really just seeing ghosts like me that no one else saw.


I soon found that the woman had been right about at least one thing.  The police station was up ahead.  I saw cop cars in the parking lot and a large sign announcing that it was the first precinct of the city.  The building looked a bit past its prime, but I suppose that's to be expected when you're the first of anything.  I walked in through the front door intended to have a look around.

What I saw, and more so what I felt, surprised me.  I was struck by an immediate chill the moment I entered the building and as I shivered, I again felt the strange sensation of eyes flitting my way.  But as I looked around, I saw these were not the eyes of the living, not like the old lady's eyes, these were the eyes of others who were dead, just like me.

Except these spirits weren't quite like me.  At least I thought not.  I had the perception that I was still in a relatively solid state.  Though there were times when I would look down at my hand and feel surprised to see that it was slightly translucent, I was, for the most part, still put together and still me.  These spirits were a different story.

One woman was just a torso, no legs, floating above a desk.  She was positioned so that she must have been looking at the police officer working there, but her head was now twisted unnaturally towards me.

I saw a man whose feet where still in tact, but one of his arms and half of his face seemed to be missing.  He had only one eye to look towards me and he looked sad, whether for himself or for me, I couldn't tell.

What really broke my heart was the younger girl.  She seemed more together than the others, but she was flickering in and out all together.  I saw her standing in the middle of the room, holding a teddy bear and dressed in a nightgown.  Her face looked gray and sad.  She was like something straight out of a horror movie.

I looked around and saw others staring at me, with disheveiled hair, faded skin, and all together missing body parts and couldn't help but wonder, is this what I was going to look like some day?

Then I heard a voice next to me say, "Don't worry, they're harmless.  They're just here for justice, I'm guessing like you?"

I turned and saw a faded young man.  His skin was gray like the little girl, but his image seemed a bit more stable, though still translucent to the point where I could see through him.  He was dressed like a cop, but with a uniform that looked old and out dated.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I'm the keeper of this way station," he said.  "I'm here to help this lost souls find their way."

I couldn't help but smirk.  "You don't seem to be doing a very good job," I said.

He shook his head.  "I can't help those who don't really want to help themselves," he said.  He pointed at the woman on the desk who had moved her attention from me back to the officer who was busy filling our reports or checking Facebook or something.  "Like her," he said.  "That's her grandson.  She's been dead for 15 years, and she still just hangs around here watching him work because she's just so proud, she says, that she isn't ready to move on.  Or him." he pointed to the man with the missing face.  "I helped him solve his case 6 years ago, but the man arrested for his murder is still serving a life sentence, and he doesn't want to go until he fries."  I must have given him a look that conveyed I didn't approve of that term because he held up his hands and said, "Hey, his words, not mine."

"And her?" I asked, looking towards the little girl in the middle of the room who was still just standing there, now seeming to stare at nothing at all instead of at me.

He seemed to grow sadder at that and I saw his expression droop.  "I will admit, her I feel I have failed.  She doesn't even understand where she is or what's happened to her.  I can't even get her to talk, so I don't really know what happened to her either."  He sighed.  "It's so sad when a child shows up here."

I felt like I should say something to that, but I couldn't think of what, so to keep myself from the full reality of what he had just said, I instead looked back at him and said, "And you?"

He smiled.  "I'm a rare exception," he said.  "I've found my key.  I moved on.  And then they sent me back here to help others, which I was all too happy to do."

"So that crazy old lady was right!" I exclaimed.

"You must have met Martha," he said with a nod.  "Yes, a few of the living are given the gift of sight.  Martha is responsible for this general area, and leading people to us.  She must have led you here."

"Yes, I guess she did," I said.  "But she didn't tell me what to do now."

He continued to smile.  "Unlock your soul, find your key, escape this plane," he said.

"Yes, she was equally vague," I said with a sneer.

He laughed.  "Yes, well, sometimes the gift of sight does strange things to the minds of the living.  I hope I will be a little more helpful in your search.  So tell me, besides Martha, what drew you here. Why are you here, in this police station, at all?"

"Well," I began, "I wanted to find out the truth about how I died and I figured the police might have records."

He nodded.  "Yes, good," he said.  "I can help you with that.  Do you know when you died?"

I gave him the date of the party, and he said, "Wonderful!"  Then he frowned and added, "Well, not wonderful that you're dead, but I mean, you're a fairly recent case, which I could have known just from looking at you, but your records should be very easy to find."  He gestured with his head towards the south side of the building.  "Come on," he said.  "I think I can help you find what you're looking for."


We walk over to a back corner of the precinct, where those who appear to be what you would call "junior detectives" are sitting.  The ghost policeman, from whom I realize I never go a name, walks up to one of them with a computer facing towards a wall, kneels down close to his face, and blows in his ear.  I watch the living policeman rapidly blink a few times and then get up and walk away.

"What did you do?" I ask my nameless accomplice.

"He's just going to the bathroom," my host replies.  "He'll be back in a few minutes.  Plenty of time to get what we need."

I realize quickly why we wanted this station with the computer facing into a corner, because my guide sits down and starts typing.  He enters "RPrescott" and a password into some sort of database screen and we're on our way.

"Prescott?" I ask.  "Is that your name?"

He shakes his head as he types some more.  "No, that's the guy who sits here."  He motions to the nameplate that I now notice says Roger Prescott.  "If you're trying to ask my name," he continues, "you can just call me William."

William types a bit more and then sighs.  "Well, I found you," he says.  He shakes his head.  "Maybe if prohibition had taken back in the day, you'd still be alive."

I position myself behind him to look at the screen over his shoulder, where I see words like "vehicular manslaughter" and "DWI".

"What's that?" I ask, pointing to a little icon I notice labeled "crime scene photos"?

William frowns and glances up at me.  "It's what it says," he says.  "Are you sure you want to see."

I'm not really sure, but I'm nervous that Roger will be coming back soon and I'll lose my chance, so I nod.  William clicks the icon.

The first image I see is of the two cars crashed in the middle of the intersection.  Just like that vision I had seen.  I'm a bit startled by this, but really not that surprised.  William glances up at me and when I nod, he clicks on to the next photo.

This one is more disturbing.  I feel my throat get tight and tears well up in my eyes.  It's me, but my face is soaked and blood, my eyes are closed, and I look completely lifeless.  I shudder.  I think a part of me, until now, thought there was a chance I was somehow still alive, that I could come back.  But this photo, this seals it.  I really am dead.

I let out a whimper and William again looks up, pain in his eyes.  "Next?" he asks softly.

I nod, and when he clicks to the next photo, I do get a surprise.  It's another seemingly lifeless body, but laying on a stretcher and seeming to be hauled away into an ambulance.  This photo doesn't look as staged as the first two.  It seems like it was taken in a rush, perhaps not even by the police.  But what strikes me most is that body, that man in the photo.  I know without a doubt that he is the same man I saw in my vision.

"Who is that?" I ask.

William clicks a button that pulls up notes and says, "That's Adam Leeward."

"And he was driving the car?  The drunk driver?" I ask.

William shakes his head.  "No," he says.  "Adam was the passenger.  Are you sure you want to know about the driver?"

"Yes," I say quickly, "but first tell me about Adam."

William closes the photos and looks back to the report.  "It looks like Adam was in the front passenger seat of the drunk driver's car when it crashed into your car.  His part of the car directly collided with the front driver's seat where you were.  You were killed nearly instantly, but Adam was in a coma until... well, just a few days ago."

"And then..."

William frowns.  "He passed away, too."

My eyes grow wide.  "So he's a ghost, too?"

"Possibly," William concedes.  "Though not everyone becomes a ghost when they die."

"But I've seen him," I say.

William looks up at me quizzically.  "Where?" he asks.

"Where this happened," I say, gesturing to the screen.  "In some sort of hazy vision."

William nods.  "Yeah, that's probably part of what drew you here, right?"

I nod in return.

"He isn't necessarily a ghost, then," William says, "but he might be."

"How do I find out if he is?" I ask.

William's face looks flat and he shakes his head.  "There isn't a sure way," he says.  "You could try to reconnect Martha.  She might be able to sense him.  But really, it's just destiny or fate or whatever that seems to bring us here, together."

"And what if I don't believe in fate?" I ask.

He smiles just a little.  "Well, you'd be a very unusual ghost then," he says.

"Can you at least tell me where Adam lives, err lived?" I ask.

William seems a bit confused.  "You don't want to know about the driver?" he asks.

"Well of course," I say, yet feeling strangely disinterested in the person who was actually driving the car, "but Adam first."

William clicks a couple more links and says, "Here we go."  He pulls out a pin and paper from the desk, which I'm amazed he can do given how faded he seems to be, and writes down an address that he hands to me.  My hands pass right through it the first time I try to grab it.  He gives a comforting smile.  "Don't be nervous," he says.  "Emotions can mess with our abilities."

I take a breath, somehow, though I'm literally breathless, and grab the paper successfully on the second attempt.  I read it briefly and then tuck it away.  "Okay," I say, "and the driver?"

"Philip Fetherson," William says, looking at the screen.  He clicks another link and pulled up a mug shot of a very unhappy looking blonde man who appears to be in his twenties.  "Charged with vehicular manslaughter.  Driver's license revoked.  Pending trial."

I nod.  "Okay thanks," I say.  Then I start to walk away.

William stands up and follows me.  "Where are you going?" he asks.  "I can show you where Philip is being held."

I shake my head.  "No," I say.  "Thank you for all of your help, but I think I need to talk to Adam first."


I got William to help me Google the address he'd found for me, which made my departure from the police station slightly less dramatic, but in short order I was on my way to his uptown apartment.  The bus I got on to take me there was without Martha, which made for a much quieter and lonelier trip than my first post-death bus ride.  I found myself thinking of Todd, wishing he was there.  But I had told him good-bye.  I wanted him to move on, and yet I wanted him to stay with me just as much as he had wanted me to stay with him.  I wanted him to be happy, but I wanted to be happy, too, and I wasn't sure how I could be happy without him.  But how could I be anything to him now?  I couldn't.  I was dead.

As I thought back to Todd, to the good times we had together while I was still alive, hoping I had truly done the right thing for him by leaving him now that he was dead, I got distracted more than a little, but brought myself back to my present reality just in time to realize I had gone one stop too far on the bus.  Not wanting to wait for the next stop, I decided to try just gliding right out the back, which I found I was able to do with ease.

It was odd to go tumbling out of the bus, onto the road, to see an oncoming car and try to roll away, only to find I wasn't fast enough, but it didn't matter anyway since I was already dead.  The car passed right through me.  I mused to myself, trying to stay optimistic, that being dead had a few fun advantages, and then I looked around to get my bearings and head back where my bus had come from towards the apartment complex where Adam Leeward had lived when he was alive.  I wasn't quite sure what I expected to find there, but I guess I had imagined things would be place, much like they had at my place with Todd left behind to care for me.  Instead, when I flitted in, there were some things still in place:  a sofa, a TV, a chair, but also stacks of boxes and a woman with dusty blond curly hair hunched over in the chair gripping a cup of coffee with one hand and her forehead in the other.  I cautiously moved close to her.  She was facing away from me, so I couldn't see her face, but her posture combined with my knowledge of the situation told me she was sad, perhaps crying.  I noticed her curls bouncing up and down just slightly and figured she probably was crying.

I inched closer and gradually shifted around to the front of her body.  Her head hung low and I bent down to look up at her.  I could see her face, but it was clear she couldn't see me.  "Ma'am," I whispered.  She seemed older than me by maybe 10 years or so.  "Ma'am, can you hear me?"

"Of course she can't hear you," a voice behind me said.  "She can't seem to hear anyone."

With a start, I shot up from my kneeling position and spun around to see Adam standing there.  So he hadn't passed on yet after all.

"You!" he exclaimed, pointing at me just like he had before in my vision, or what I thought was a vision.  "You, you're... I watched you die.  I saw it over and over again."

I stepped up to me, trembling.  I didn't move.  I didn't know what to do.  I looked down at his outstretched arm as he reached out and touched me.  He gave a start and a gasp when he made contact, and jumped back just a little.  I looked back up to meet his gaze.  "You're real," he said.

"As real as you are," I said.

He looked confused.  "What's the supposed to mean?"

Now I felt confused.  "Do you not know what we are?" I asked.

"You mean humans?" he asked.

I frowned.  I didn't want to be the one to have to tell him this, but then again, he had kind-of already said it.  "You said you watched me die, right?" I asked.

He nodded.  "Well yeah, in my dreams."

"You've been having a lot of dreams?" I asked.

"Yeah, for the past... well, I don't know how long, but it feels like forever."

"Are you sure it wasn't just a couple of days?" I asked.

He wrinkled up his brow, either in thought or confusion or both.  "Pretty sure," he said.

I felt such pity for him.  I had been here, too, not so long ago, thinking my boyfriend was playing a trick on me, not realizing what I was, that I was dead, a ghost, a spirit, a spectre.  I had come to the realization on my own, and that was jarring enough.  I didn't want to just dump it on this man, even if he was a man who felt somehow responsible for my death.  I decided to try a different tactic.

"Who is that?" I asked, glancing backwards over my shoulder.

Adam frowned and sighed.  "My mom," he said.

I was surprised at that.  "You mom?" I asked.  She didn't look old enough.

"Yeah, I know," Adam replied.  "She had me when she was really young, just 19 years old.  She's in her early 40s now."  He sighed.  "I wish I could talk to her.  I don't know what she's doing here and I don't understand what's wrong with her that she can't hear me."

I did my best to pick my next words carefully.  "There's nothing wrong with her," I said.

"But she can't see me or hear me or anything," Adam protested.

I nodded.  "Yes," I said.  "But there's nothing wrong with her.  She's a perfectly healthy, living, breathing human being."

"Then why can't she..."

I let that linger for a moment and then said, "You're right about me, Adam.  I'm dead.  She can't hear me or see me, but you can.  And I can see and hear you."

I gradual realization seemed to come over his face, and then his expression lit up in terror.  "But I can't be..."

As he fell to his knees, I knelt with him and put my hand on his shoulder.  "I'm sorry, Adam," I said.

He shook his head and I saw the tears start to fall.  "It's not fair," he said.

"I know," I said.  "I wasn't ready to go either.  I'm still not.  That's why I'm still here."

He looked up at me.  "No, you don't understand," he said.  "Not for me.  For you.  For her," he nodded towards his mother.  "I kept hoping this was all just a dream.  Didn't want to accept it.  But it's all my fault.  It's my fault you're dead and it's my fault she's all alone, and I don't know what to do to make it right."  And he broke down and cried.

When he calmed down a bit, I helped him back to his feet.  We watched as his mother walked by to the kitchen to dump the rest of her coffee and get a tissue to wipe more tears from her eyes.

"She's such a trooper," Adam said, melancholy obvious in his voice.  "She dropped out of college to raise me alone.  She always worked so hard for me.  She had no husband, very few friends, and I was her only son.  What does she have now?"

"She'll be okay," I said, not really knowing if she would be.

"You can't know that," Adam shot back, again seeming to know my thoughts, but really probably just responding as anyone naturally would.

"No, I can't know that," I said.  "But you might be able to find a way to communicate with her."

He looked up at me and his eyes brightened for a moment, but then he frowned again.  "I doubt it," he said.  "She's been here for two days and I haven't been able to talk to her yet.  And besides, why would you want to help me?  I'm the one that got you killed."

"That's the third time you've said that to me," I said.  "The first time, well, I thought it was some sort of vision and that's what ultimately led me here.  But I found some real information and you aren't the one who killed me.  Someone else, named Philip, he was driving drunk.  He killed us both.  You're a victim, too."

Adam scoffed at that.  "Hardly," he said.  "Philip was my friend, and he was the one behind the wheel, sure, but I knew he shouldn't be driving.  I was slightly less drunk than he was and I knew neither of us shouldn't be driving.  I tried to take his keys and call a cab, but he insisted he was fine and I, well, I was stupid enough to believe him, even though he obviously didn't know what he was talking about.  Somehow I thought two drunk idiots together could be as good as one sober driver.  I tried to keep him driving straight, and it seemed okay for awhile until..."  Adam shook his head and his gaze dropped from mine.  "Until that intersection," he practically mumbled.  He spoke a bit more clearly as he said, "Our light was turning yellow and I remember shouting for Philip to stop, but he said, 'We can make it' and next thing I knew, we were making it right through the intersection and into you.  I remember seeing your face from the side.  Your head was bowed and you looked so peaceful, almost like you were asleep, because your eyes were closed, you must have been blinking or something, because the world was moving so slow and I remember thinking, 'that girl is going to die' and then next thing I knew, I was dreaming of you over and over again."

"You were in a coma," I said.  "You died four days ago."

"Four days ago," he repeated, again shaking his head.  He looked back up at me, seeming scared or nervous.  "And you?"

"Instant," I said.  "I've been dead for months."  I sighed.  "And it wasn't just you and your buddy.  I was to blame, too.  I looked asleep because I was asleep.  I was resting my eyes at the intersection.  That's the last thing I remember.  I must have drifted off to sleep and drifted into the intersection.  It wasn't really your fault, not really."

"I can't believe you really believe that," he said.  "I sure don't believe that."

I looked at him and considered.  Did I believe it was this man's fault, or was it my own?  Or was it Philip's fault.  Surely Philip and Adam had not been blameless, Philip most of all.  I shouldn't have driven home so tired but they obviously shouldn't have been in the car drunk.  I realized Adam was right.  I had been intrigued with him at first, wondered what role he really played in all of this, and now that I'd heard the story, I was somewhat angry.  I was mostly angry at Philip, but Adam was right.  I was angry at him, too.

"No, you're right," I said.  "I am upset at someone other than me.  I just didn't realize it so much until now."

"That's good," Adam said.  "You should be."

We just stood there in silence for a moment.  Adam seemed to be looking over my shoulder, presumably at his mother.  I looked down at my feet.  I heard the woman cough and glanced back at her.  She was packing boxes and wiping tears from her eyes.

"It isn't fair to her," Adam said, and I looked back at him.  "She didn't do anything wrong."

"No," I agreed.  "Neither did by boyfriend."

"When we die, I guess it's the ones we leave behind who suffer," he said.

We were silent for another moment and then I asked, "What now?"

He scoffed.  "I was hoping you would know.  Do you have to drag my soul to hell or something to free yours?"

My eyes grew wide, shocked he would even think such a thing.  "Jeez!" I exclaimed.  "I sure hope not.  I couldn't do that even to my worst enemy."

Adam shook his head.  "You're nuts," he said.  "You're just be giving me what I deserve."  He sighed.  "I wish I hadn't killed such a nice person."

"You can't wallow in pity," I told him, not even sure where my words were coming from.  "You screwed up.  Yes, you've convinced me.  You contributed to getting me killed.  Yes, maybe I should hate you, but now well..." I sighed.  "To me, right now, you just seem pathetic."

He looked into my eyes at that, and I saw a bit of an anger, a fire, but then it faded away.  "Yeah, you're probably right," he admitted.

At that, I couldn't help it anymore.  I don't know what was driving me, what was compelling me to help this man, but I felt like I had to.  Maybe he was my unfinished business.  So I slapped him across the face.

He stumbled back and rubbed his face.  "Ow!" he exclaimed.  "That really hurt."

"Not half as bad as the hell you seem to want to go to would," I pointed out.  "Now do you want to find your key to get out of here or not?"

"Out of the apartment?" he asked.

I shook my head, feeling so much older and wiser than him, even though I would guess I was only a couple years older in life and was only a few months older in death.  "Out of this plane," I said.  "I hear you don't want to stick around forever."

"But what about her?" Adam asked, nodding towards his mother again and giving me a sense of deja vu.

"Come on," I said, nodding towards the hallway that seemed to lead to the rest of the apartment.  "Let's see if we can find a way to properly say good-bye."


I led the way as I walked with Adam back into that hallway and then turned to him.  "For me, I was able to contact my boyfriend through my cell phone," I said.  "Have you tried that?"

"My phone isn't here," Adam said.  "I think it got broken in the crash or something."

I frowned.  "Well, how about leaving a note the old fashioned way?  Pen and paper."

Adam sighed.  "You know, I'm not even convinced this is the right thing to do."

I felt puzzled.  "But your unfinished business..."

"But my mom," Adam rebutted.  He sighed, walked forward into his bedroom, and sat on his naked bed, with the blankets and sheets and pillows removed.  "She's trying to get over me," he said.  "I mean, I would love to say good-bye, but maybe that's not fair, to tell her I'm still here."

"You haven't been gone that long," I pointed out.  "I'm sure she hasn't gotten over you yet."

Adam smirked a bit at that, as if I didn't get it, and said, somewhat defensively, "Yeah, I know that, it's just well, she's had some time to come to terms.  I've watched her the past couple days, crying, and now she's actually able to have some coffee without just breaking down.  I don't want to set her back.  She has to let me go.  I just... I just wish she had someone else to hold on to."

"Like who?" I asked.

"Like anyone.  A friend a loved one.  I mean, her parents, my grandparents, are still around, but they were never close and her older sister."  Adam shook his head.

"Yeah?"

"I mean, my mom looked up to her, still does I imagine.  And Aunt Peggy was always nice.  I just... I don't know why she isn't here, really."

"Well that's it then!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands up in the air and allowing a smile to cross my face.  "We've gotta find a way to get Aunt Peggy to come over."

Adam scoffed.  "Well how are we supposed to do that?  I mean, I don't even think I can leave here.  And if my funeral already happened, which I think it did because my mom was gone for most of the day yesterday, I think Peggy would have already come and gone."

"Well for one thing, I'm sure you can leave," I said.  "I can.  And maybe, well, maybe your Aunt doesn't know how much your mom needs her."

"That is possible," Adam admitted.  "Aunt Peggy was always sweet, but a little... slow."

I walked over to him and placed my hand on his shoulder.  "Well come on, let's go find her and see what we can do."

Adam looked up at me from his sitting position on the bed.  "I still don't understand why you're helping me," he said.

"Well, selfishly, I have unfinished business, too, and I think you're a part of it."  I frowned.  "And I've seen, just briefly, what can happen if you don't wrap things up here.  It isn't great."

"Well, I wouldn't want to screw up in death worse than I screwed up in life," Adam confessed.  He sighed and stood up.  "Alright, I guess it's to Aunt Peggy's we go."

"That's the spirit!" I exclaimed, then quickly realized my own joke and added, "no pun intended."

Adam looked confused for a moment, but then sighed and rolled his eyes, but I saw a little smile flit across his face.  It was probably the happiest I had seen him since I met him, and it made me just a little bit happier, too.


Once I saw Adam that he could walk right through his apartment door and out into the world, it was like a whole new afterlife had opened up for him.  He wasn't trapped in that sad space anymore.  He could actually go out and do something.  I thought to myself that he must have known this already, after all, we had seen each other at the crash site, in that shared vision we seemed to have had, but maybe his involvement was some sort of projection or something, or he woke up back in his apartment instead of on the side of the road like I did.  I still didn't quite know all the ins and outs of ghosthood, but it felt strangely reassuring to be with someone I could teach something to.

Adam and I got on the bus that we determined probably went toward he's aunt's house (Adam didn't actually ride the bus much, but we guessed based on the heading) and I more than half hoped to see Martha on board, but I wasn't surprised when she wasn't since this bus wasn't headed downtown and we were fairly far from the downtown area.  So instead of a lively discussion with someone who had been given "the sight" (a term I hadn't even known that morning), we sat together in silence in the back of the bus.

It was strange how I could still feel the coolness of the seat, here the quiet humming of the wheels and some of the passengers, smell the stale mix of diesel fuel and body odor.  How could I sense all these things if I was dead?  Now that I had a ghost buddy to ponder this with, I decided to speak aloud my thoughts.  "Isn't it strange..." I began.

"What?" Adam asked.  "How we can still sense stuff even though we're dead?"

I blushed, embarrassed that my thoughts weren't so novel, and then blushed more deeply from having blushed.

"Or how your face can be turning red right now," he added.

"It's like we're still real, still alive, but in another plane," I said.

"I guess maybe death is just a change of states," he said.

"That sounds familiar," I said.

"I think someone famous said it," he admitted.  "I don't really remember."

We fell to silence again, and then about 10 minutes later, Adam said, "We're close.  Not sure this bus will get much closer to Peggy's house."

I stood up.  "Then we might as well get out now."

"How do we..."

I glanced back down at him.  "We're ghosts," I said.  "We don't need the bus to stop."  And with a grin that I hoped came across as mischevious, I stepped right through the bus and tumbled to the street and ultimately to the sidewalk.  As I glanced back at the bus, I feared for a moment that Adam wasn't going to follow me, but then I saw him fall out, do a somersault through the road (seemingly in an effort to recover from his even less gracefully than me type of exit), and end up on the sidewalk at my feet.  His head was down and his hands at his side on the ground.  I couldn't see his face or tell if he was hurt, though I was quite sure he couldn't be hurt, but he didn't move at first, so I held down my hand to help him up.

As he looked up at me, I was surprised to see him laughing.  At first softly and then more robustly as he gave me his hand and let me help pull him up.  "That was nuts!" he said between gasping breaths of laughter.

I smiled, too.  "Yeah, I was pretty rattled by it the first time.  Then, I even got hit by a car and survived!"

Adam's laughter stopped and he frowned.  "Not like the first time," he said as he glanced away from me.

"Adam, I didn't mean..."

He looked back at me and I saw an anger in his eyes.  "No but you should have," he said.

"Dear lord!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands up in the air.  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself.  We're both dead.  We're in this together.  Get over it."

He continued to frown and let out a deep sigh.  "Let's just get this over with," he said.  "Find Peggy, help my mom, get our keys or whatever, and you won't have to deal with me again."

"Fine then," I rebutted.

"Fine."  And he marched off, leaving me to just follow behind him silently steaming about how immature and dumb guys were in general and how death didn't seem to change a thing.  If it hadn't required him dying, I really would have wished Todd were here with me instead of this self-pitying overly guilty and yet still somehow rude to the person he contributed to killing fool.


I followed Adam along in silence in a bit of a fog.  It continued to be so odd to be out there, in the sunshine, birds singing, but knowing I was dead.  Yet despite being dead, thoughts of how to deal with Adam was what had me in a fog.  It seemed to me that Adam was not handling death particularly well, but then again, had I?  I was in a funk for so long, and dragging Todd down with me.  I respected that Adam didn't want to do the same to his mother, yet he seemed to not be thinking of himself at all.  While I had been thinking of myself too much when it came to Todd, he was thinking of himself too little, other than to blame himself.  Really, it seemed to come down to blame.  I knew I couldn't pretend to understand Adam.  After all, I had never known him in life.  But I knew that blame wasn't healthy.  I recalled, reluctantly, that I had blamed myself for my death before I realized there was a drunk driving incident involved.  Had I ever really forgiven myself for the role I played in my own death?  Not yet, not really, I realized.  Chances were good that Adam, in his limited amount of time realizing what had happened, hadn't been able to forgive himself either.  Maybe it was too soon for him to even consider forgiving himself, but I felt like I needed, not just for him but for me as well, to share with him my thoughts on the matter.

"I forgive you," I said.

Adam stopped walking and I nearly ran into him, not being as prepared as I should have been for him to be taken aback by that.  He turned back and looked at me.  He didn't seem angry, but confused.  "What did you say?" he asked.

"I forgive you," I said.  "I forgive you for whatever role you may have played in my death.  I forgive you for not making the best choices that night.  I forgive you."

He opened his mouth as if to say something in response, but then closed it again.  This process repeated once more, and finally he just managed to say, "I don't know what to say.  What do I say to that?"

"I guess I don't know," I admitted.  "I just wanted to get it out there.  Maybe you don't have to say anything at all."

"I'm sorry," he said.  "I think that's what I should say.  I'm sorry for those things you said you forgive me so and so much more that you can't forgive me for."

"That's where you have to forgive yourself," I said.

He sighed.  "How?  How can I do that?"

"I don't know," I again admitted unhelpfully.  "Maybe going to talk to your aunt would help."

"I'm sorry for being such a jerk even now, feeling sorry for myself and all," he added.  "Like you said, we're in it together.  All we can do is deal with what we've got now.  That's what my mom was always about.  I think I would be honoring her by continuing on with that attitude."

I nodded.  "Well I forgive you again," I said.  "And I think your mom would be proud of you."

He laughed at that.  "I don't quite know how you could know that, considering you just met me and barely saw her today."

I shrugged.  "I guess that's the kind-of thing people just say," I said.  "But I can't imagine a parent not being proud of their child trying to do the right thing."

"You know speaking of that," Adam transitioned, "what really is the right thing?  I didn't want to mess with my mom's grieving process here, but I'm okay with messing with Aunt Peggy's?  I mean, granted, the grief is probably different for an aunt than for a mother, but Aunt Peggy and I were fairly close.  Should I be sacrificing her mental well-being for the sake of my mother's?"

"I think you have to decide if it's really 'sacrificing' your aunt or helping both you mom and your aunt," I said.  "And maybe I'm not the best one to ask since I've spent the most several months haunting my boyfriend and ultimately making it harder for him to move on, just like you feared doing with your mom."

"Well doesn't that tell you that I'm at least doing the right thing by not trying to contact my mother directly?" Adam asked.

"Probably," I conceded, "but maybe if I had just said good-bye and moved on right away instead of hanging around it would have been better for Todd.  But either way, he's a strong guy, and we did finally get to say a last good-bye, and I think that will help."

"You think so?" he asked.  It wasn't snarky or rude.  He seemed honestly curious and concerned.

"Yeah, I do," I said.

Adam was quiet for a moment and then asked, more softly, "Do you think your boyfriend, Todd was his name?  Do you think he would forgive me for taking you away from him?"

"Yes, I think he would," I said without pause.  I have to admit, I wasn't sure Todd would be able to forgive right away, but he had a heart for people and for looking for the best in them.  I was pretty confident he would be able to see the best in Adam's now still heart.

"So what should we do now?  On to Peggy's?"

"I think that's still up to you," I reiterated.

Adam sighed and crossed his arms across his chest.  I watched the look of concernation cross over his face as he shifted his weight (which should have been none for a spirit) back and forth.  "You know actually," he began after those few moments of thought, "maybe we've been approaching this wrong.  We've been thinking about letting people know we're still here.  You did it with your boyfriend.  I was planning to do it with my aunt.  Maybe there's another way."

I pursed my lips, thinking for a moment, and then asked, "You mean like a note or something that looks like it was from before you died?"

Adam smiled and nodded.  "Yes, exactly!  A post death note that looks like I was just musing on things before death.  Something that tells my mom it will be okay, somehow, and my aunt and mom that they need each other now."  He sighed and looked to me.  "You're better at this ghost stuff than I am.  You can help me with this, right?"

"Well you probably better know what to write..." I pointed out.

"Not what to write.  How to write." He said.

I couldn't help but laugh.  "You aren't illiterate are you?" I asked.

"No of course not, but ghosts can't interact with the world in the same way, right?" he asked.  "I mean, we've walked through closed doors and out the walls of buses already today."

"Well I think you're just thinking too much," I said.  "Pick up a pen and a piece of paper and write.  It's as simple as that.  You'll probably be better at it than me anyway.  It appears that the longer you're a ghost, the harder it is to interact with things.  But you do need to remain as calm as you can.  Emotions seem to mess things up, too."

"See," he said with a slight smile.  "You know way more than I do.  Now do you have this pen and paper I supposedly need?"

"No," I admitted.  I held up my hands to show him they were empty.  "Do you see a purse anywhere on this ghost?"

"No, I suppose I do not," he returned.  He shrugged.  "Well, I suppose we might as well go to my aunt's house to look for a pen and paper, since we came all this way anyway.  It will be good to see her one last time anyway."

I wanted to warn him that could be rough, to remind him again of how hard I had said it was to leave my boyfriend, but I realized that was projecting (like a ghostly hologram) my problems and hang-ups onto him.  Besides, I didn't really think he would hang out at his aunt's place for too long.  He had someone more important to him to get back to.  So I let him lead on to the home of his aunt.


When we got there, the first thing Adam did was to reach up to knock on the door.  I slapped his hand down before he could try.

"Ouch," he said.

"What are you doing?" I asked.  "I thought we decided not to let her know we were here.  You knock on that door and if she hears it, she comes and opens the door and wonders why no one is there because she can't see us."

"Yeah probably," he admitted.  "But at least then we can get into the house."

I sighed and gave what probably came off as a somewhat condescending smile, though really I was just thinking how cute it was that he didn't have the hang of being a ghost yet.  "Or we could just walk right in," I said, and then glided smoothly through the door.

Once I got inside I turned and looked back to see Adam nervously poke his head through and then continue the rest of the way so that he was standing in front of me.  "You know, I still don't really get it," he said.

"Get what?" I asked.

"How we can interact with things, but then also just pass right through walls."

He paused to think for a moment.  "Yeah, honestly, I don't fully understand it either.  I guess it's involuntary or unconscious?  Something like that.  Like how you can just walk, if life, without thinking about each individual muscle that you're using.  You just think, 'body walk' and you're able to do it.  I think it's a little bit of the same here, you think 'body interact with that thing' or 'body walk through that wall without running into it' and it's able to happen.  I mean, I never moved through any solid thing until I started to get emotional and upset.  I could no longer focus properly on what I actually wanted to do, but that helped me realize there was more I could do."

He nodded.  "Yeah, I mean, as strange as it sounds, that all makes sense.  I mean, as much as any of this can make sense."  He sighed and eyed me with meloncoly.  "You know, I think I robbed the world of a pretty clever person when I allowed my buddy to get in that car that night."

I decided to ignore the fact that he was still dwelling on the whole contributing to my death thing and instead said with a smile, "Are you trying to hit on me?"

He seemed taken aback by that.  "What?  No!" he exclaimed with a start, eyes wide as he took a step back.  "I mean, just, we're ghosts, right?  Why would we get romantically involved.  Not to say I wouldn't... I mean..."

I laughed and held up my hands to try to reassure him.  "Really, it's okay," I said.  "I was just teasing."

The color seemed to return to his face to the point where he blushed a little.  "Okay, well yeah, good."  He sighed.  "Alright, I guess let's see if my aunt is around and if we can find some pen and paper without alerting her that we're here."

We walked through the entry and into the living room where I saw a woman looking a bit older than Adam's mom sitting in a recliner reading a book.  I watched Adam stop for a moment and glance back at me with a sadness in his eyes.  He walked up close to her and put his arm on the armrest of the chair.  His aunt shivered, and he looked back at me in surprise.  "That happens sometimes," I told him.

That was when his aunt looked up from her book with a puzzled look on her face and said, "Hello?"

Adam stared at me.  He looked a bit scared.  But his aunt just shrugged and went back to reading.  I tilted my head back towards another room and Adam walked towards me.  He went ahead of me through the door to the kitchen, this time passing easily right through.

"What was that?" he whispered to me.

"I don't really know," I admitted.  "Todd, my boyfriend, he seemed to be able to hear me, too, the first time I saw him after I died.  I mean, he didn't seem to know what I had said but he could sense me, tell someone was there, hear something when I spoke.  I thought it was because of our close relationship, but maybe, well, I guess... maybe some people are just more sensitive to spirits than others."

"Or there's something special about you," Adam suggested.

"Well if that's the case, then why didn't your mom notice me?" I asked.

"I don't know," Adam conceded.  "I guess, well, let's just find something to write with and do what we came for."

He watched as he turned away and started to open some drawers.  On the third one, I watched as instead of opening the drawer, his hand passed right through the handle, and I thought I saw him shudder slightly.  I stepped up behind him and put my hand on his shoulder.  He gave a start, a slight jump at that.

"I'm sorry," I said, frowning, "just... are you okay?"

He twisted his neck to look back at me and I saw a tear forming in his eye.  "No, not really," he confessed.  "I'm dead.  You're dead.  My aunt doesn't know I'm here but she responds to you for some reason.  And I'm here fumbling around trying to just find some paper so I can write some sort of death letter to my still living but lonely mother."

"It's been a rough day," I said.

"Understatement," Adam quipped.

I gave a soft, sympathetic smile.  "Maybe we should just go get a pen and some paper from a store or something."

"And pay for it with what?" Adam asked.  "Ghost money?"

I laughed.  "We could just take it.  What are they going to do about it?"

"Wouldn't that be stealing?" Adam questioned.

"Aren't we robbing your aunt right now?" I asked.

Adam turned his whole body to face me and leaned back on the counter.  He twisted up one corner of his mouth, seemingly a sign of contemplation.  "Well, we haven't taken anything yet, but yeah, I suppose we technically would be.  Though it's just a pencil and a piece of paper."

"Exactly," I said.  "Heck, we could walk into a random office building a take a pen and paper from the supply closet."

Adam smiled just a little.  "I feel like you're trying to corrupt me with your higher level of ghost experience."

I shrugged.  "Just thinking about possibilities.  I mean, being a ghost doesn't have to be all bad.  We can go places we couldn't go before.  She things we never could have seen before.  I thought not being able to sleep was the worst, but it gives us more time to explore."

Adam nodded, but his smile faded a bit.  "But my mom," he said.

"Yes," I agreed.  "First things first.  Your mom."

Just then, I heard the door creaking behind me and saw a look of surprise on Adam's face.  I turned around to see his aunt walk in.  She still looked a bit puzzled, but she wasn't looking in our direction.  She walked by us, with a slight shiver on the way, as she went to get a glass from the cupboard, then filled it up with water, and then went back into the other room.  As soon as she left, I heard an odd sputtering noise behind me, then turned to see Adam was fighting to hold back laughter.  I smiled at him, and as his laughter came pouring out, I couldn't help but laugh, too.

"That... That was so weird," he said between gasping for airless breaths between his chuckles and snorts.

"Yes," I agreed, wiping a tear that never should have been able to appear from my eye.  "Except for the fact that she couldn't see us at all."

"That's so weird," Adam said.  "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."

Now it was my turn to feel sad as I thought back to all the time I spent at Todd's house, with him not being able to see me, but knowing or at least guessing that I was there.  "You don't want to get used to that," I said, frowning and looking down a bit.

When it looked back up, I saw that his brow was wrinkled so that he appeared a bit puzzled, but he didn't say anything.  He just sighed.  I think he kind-of got what I was saying, though, because after a few more moments he said, "Well then, should we get out of here and go to the nearest office supply store?"

"Or office building," I said.

He nodded and gestured towards the door.  "Lead the way," he said.  And then he added in a whisper, "Quietly please."

I nodded without saying a word and off we went, two little ghosts in Scooby-Doo style stealthing back out of Adam's aunt's house, really with none of what we had come for, but from my perspective at least, feeling a bit better about ourselves and this strange place in the world that we had begun to discover.


We got back out of the house and managed to find a small copy and office supply store back towards where we got off the bus.  Adam said he thought he had remembered something like that being in this area, and he was right.  We walked in the front door (without opening it) and started to have a look around.  It was strange, but I found amusement in what would have been such a mundane task in life:  shopping for paper and pens.

I glided down the aisles, past various supplies, letting my hands brush over some and pass right through others.  I realized I was practicing control over my interactions with the environment, a skill I hadn't fully realized I had until I had started to try to explain it to Adam.  I looked at phones and copiers and finally came to the office paper.

The phones reminded me of my time back at Todd's house, both before I was dead and after.  I remember going shopping for phones with Todd while he was alive.  He had an old junky phone that I always laughed at, teasingly, so he finally broke down and said, with a smile, that he would go get a new phone as long as I went with him to help him pick it out, since I seemed to be such an expert.

We went into his carrier's store and left an hour later with a new phone for him and a new case and earbuds for me.  He teased that the employees probably were glad I came with since I spent almost as much money as he did.  "Oh I did not," I had laughed, punching him playfully in the arm as we walked back to the car, and then he held my hand, just for a moment, before we got to the car and drove home.

Just for a moment.  That felt like what our whole relationship had been, just a moment.  So short, so fleeting.  In death, I realized that's what life was, just a blip, just a flash of a light or a blink of an eye and you're gone and then, apparently, you see the world go on without you, as cell phones change and relationships evolve.  I found myself, for the first time, wondering how long it would be until Todd started dating again and whether I wanted to be around to see that or not.

That was a thought that I knew could haunt me for hours, and I was so lost in it in that moment, that I didn't realize the voice near me saying, "Hello.  Hello?" was talking to me until Adam was standing right in front of me waving his arms.  "Hello?" he said again as I blinked and came out of my stupor.  "Are you okay?" he asked.

I nodded.  "Yeah, fine," I lied.

I was thankful he didn't say anything more about that.  Instead he turned and looked at the reams of paper that stood stacked before us.  "Well, I guess we found it," he said.  "Should we take a whole stack or..."

I glanced around to make sure no one was nearby and then ripped one of the packages open.

"Or it is," he said.

I laughed and grabbed a few sheets.  "Here you go," I said.

He picked them up and looked around in turn.  "So, if I walk out of here with this, will people just see them floating in the air or what?"

I cocked my head to the side as I reflected on that.  "You know, I'm not really sure," I said.  "When I was with Todd, he never saw me until the end.  And before then, I never interacted with anything in front of him.  I would drop things I had been holding right before he came into the room though, like by instinct or something, and then I couldn't pick them up again, not while he was watching, so I would think no, they wouldn't see paper floating through the air, but what do I know?"

"Hold on a minute," Adam said, holding the paper and shifting his weight to one foot as if I was about to be scolded.  "You said Todd never saw you until the end?  He did see you?"

I nodded reluctantly.  "Yes, when I realized it was finally time to say good-bye, yes, I think he saw me because..." I took a deep breath and tried to keep from crying.  "Because I stroked his cheek and waved my hand and he looked at me and waved back and then... then I was just gone."

"Jeez, I'm so sorry," he said.  "I didn't mean to..."

I shook my head and wiped away a tear that had formed despite myself.  "No, I know," I said.  "It's okay.  Really.  I'll be okay."

I knew he wanted to say more.  I knew he wanted to apologize again.  But he sensed rightly that it wouldn't do any good.  What was done was done.  All we could do now was move forward.  So in the name of moving forward I said, "Well, you've got your paper.  Let's get a pen and get out of here."

"Already done," he said, holding up a pen I hadn't realize he had.  "These were just in a tray so I didn't have to worry about ripping anything open to take one."

I smiled, just a little, "Yeah, okay," I said.  "I guess I be the ghost scout and make sure there's no one to see us, just in case."

He gave a somewhat awkward (though he didn't seem to notice it was such) salute with the pen and nodded.  "Right then," he said.  "Lead on."

And I did, doing my best to lead the man who had died because of the same crash that killed me out of the store we had just robbed of one pen and a few sheets of paper so he could write a farewell letter to his surviving mother and maybe find some sort of key to unlock his soul so he, and maybe both of us, could be free of this mortal plane.  What a bizarre life you lead when you're dead.


Ghostly thievery complete, we went outside and sat on a bus stop bench where Adam began to contemplate what to write.  Seeing he was struggling I asked, "What would you write to your mom while you were still alive, and what would you want her to know now?"

"I don't know," he said.  "If I would have written something to her while I was alive, I would have already done that."  That, I reflected, was a fair point.  "And as for what I want her to know now, just that I love her and I want her to go on and maybe that I hope she will spend time with her sister, with Peggy, and try to be happy again, and be honest with herself and with Peggy when she's having a tough time."

I nodded.  "Well, now you just need to find a way to convey all that in something you could have written while still alive."

He smirked.  "Easier said than done."

I thought for a moment and then suggested, "Maybe you could make it seem like some sort of essay or something for school."

"I've been out of college for two years," he said.  He looked over at me in surprise.  "How old did you think I was?" he asked.

I shrugged.  "I dunno."  I realized the answer was that I figured he was at least 21 since he had been out drinking at a bar the night I was killed, but I didn't dare say that.  "I guess I would have guessed you were out of school," I said instead, "but you could make it seem like something you wrote before."

"But that I would have typed on a computer," he said.

I threw my hands up in the air with mock dismay.  "Well then why did we even bother to rob the paper store!" I exclaimed, glancing at him with a smile.

He smiled back.  "I don't know how you can find the humor in this," he said, "but strangely, I appreciate it."

I shrugged.  "Not strange at all," I said.  "Humor is a good coping mechanism."

"Were you a psychiatrist or something?" he asked.

"If I was, I wasn't a very good one," I said.

He laughed.  "Well, I guess we could sneak into a computer lab or a library or something," he said.  "If you think I should type something else."

I shrugged again.  "We could," I said.  "Might as well.  But maybe we should wait until they're closed.  I mean, the darkness won't keep us from getting in."

Adam shook his head.  "No, though I suppose few things would."

I nodded back towards the pen and paper he held in his hands.  "You could still at least write a draft," I suggested.

He nodded, too.  "Yeah, I suppose I could," he said.  And he took a breath, thought for a moment, and then began to write.


I didn't look at what he was writing since I figured it might be personal and private, but I glanced over and saw him scrawling away, straight-faced and focused.  He would cross some things out and replace them with other things, or just pause and look up towards the sky, tapping the pen on the paper, presumably in thought.  In those moments, I let myself get lost in thought as well.

I had been so focused on Todd, on my life with him, that I hadn't thought about how the others I left behind may have felt.  What about Emily, the friend who offered to drive me home and whom I declined.  Was she left wondering how things could have been different if only I had taken her up on her offer?

What about my younger brother, Benjamin?  I knew he had felt like he had lived in my shadow for much of his life, being 5 years younger than me and always being compared to his older sister.  I knew he would miss me now that I was gone.  Would he regret that we hadn't been closer?

What about my mom?  Like Adam's mom, she had been alone, but only recently.  My father had died from cancer two years ago, and that had hit mom hard, even though we'd have a couple years before that to prepare ourselves while he was sick.  I remember she took comfort in the fact that she still had her children.  And now she didn't have me anymore.  Ben lived closer to her than I did, but still, having someone 3 hours away versus infinite hours away makes a big difference.  I felt bad for not thinking of her much before.  I had been so wrapped up with my sympathy for Todd that I had barely even thought about my other friends and my family.  And now, here I was, sitting next to the man who felt guilty for killing me, and he had his priorities straight.  He was focused on his mom, wanted to make sure she was okay.  Why hadn't I felt the same?

My self-pity was interrupted by a deep sigh from Adam, followed by a statement from him:  "Alright, I think I'm done."  I looked over at him as he looked back at me.  "What to take a look?" he asked.

"Only if you want me to," I said.

He save a little smile and nodded.  "Yes," he said.  "I would love another opinion, and well..."

I chuckled, just a bit, "I'm the only one you can talk to about it."

"Well, I mean, yeah.  But I value your opinion, too."

I nodded, and took the paper he was handing to me.  What I read, I had to fight to keep from crying.  This is what his note said:

"Were I to be taken by death from those I love and who love me, I would want them to know what they already know:  that I love them, and that I always have and always will and that death won't stop that.  I would want my mom in particular to know not only that I love her, but how much she has meant to my life and what an inspiration she has been.  She's been strong and independent and inspired me to be the same.  I wouldn't want her to stop being who she is because she lost me.  I'd want her to remain strong and independent, but also rely on the help of others, like my Aunt Peggy.  Aunt Peggy also should know that I love her and admire her, and my mom and her sister Peggy should be strong together because independence is not just about being alone, I think it's about knowing when you need help and knowing when you can and should rely on someone else.

"Were I to be taken by death, I would not expect those I love not to miss me, but I would want them to remember me fondly, and I hope they could get some happiness and inspiration from memories of me just like I had of thoughts of them.  I want them to know that my death shouldn't stop them from living and that we can always love and admire each other, even across the barriers of death.  So I would simply want to say, 'Good-bye and I love you and don't let this change who you are.'"

He had simply signed it Adam at the end, and dated it as if he had written it three years earlier.  By the end, I didn't know what to say, but I did have to reach up and wipe the tears from my eyes.

"So?" he quizzed me as if he couldn't tell what effect this had had on me.  "What did you think?"

"It's perfect," I said, feeling the lump of an impeding outburst of tears forming in my throat.  "Don't change a thing."  And then I quickly handed him back the sheet of paper, and stood and turned away, not wanting him to see me cry.

Trying to hide my emotions in that moment was, of course, a fool's errand.  I quickly felt his hand on my shoulder.  "I would say your name right now," he said softly, "but I just realized that you never told me what it is."

Despite myself, I laughed at that, and then the tears came pouring out, mixed with little chokes of laughter and sobs of grief.  I turned back to face him, knowing my eyes were red and puffy and my face was disgusting, but I didn't care.  "It's Anna," I said.  "My name is Anna."  And then I really broke down and started bawling and I felt him wrap his arms around me and then he was crying, too, almost deafeningly loudly in my ear, but despite all that noise, I knew no one else would hear us, and that just made me cry even more.  So we held each other like that, and I felt like I was frozen in time, as I thought about all the people I had left behind, to whom I hadn't been able to say good-bye, and seeing Adam's beautiful note, I wanted to do something like that for them, too, but I didn't know how.  I just didn't know how.

Finally we calmed down a little bit and I slowly pulled back from his embrace.  We both wiped the tears from our eyes almost in unison and then laughed a little bit.  "Thank you," I finally said, looking at him.

Adam seemed confused.  "For what?" he asked.

"For being here," I said.

He frowned.  "You wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for me."

I shook my head.  "No, that's not true," I said.  "Your friend, without you, he just would have killed me, and I would have really been alone."  I sighed, trying to figure out the best way to say what I wanted to say.  I decided to just say it and hope he didn't get too upset.  "For me, selfishly, I'm glad you're here.  I wish you could have lived, I wish you hadn't died with me.  I wish you could go home to your mom and give her a big hug like you just gave me, but still, selfishly, I'm glad you're here."

Adam really looked like he wanted to say something.  He opened his mouth a couple times and closed it again, seeming to try to form the words.  Finally, he seemed to give up on being polite just like I had.  "You know what," he said, "if we're really being selfish, and selfishly honest, I'm glad you're here, too."

I laughed at that, and then I cried some more, and I immediately felt his hand on my shoulder again.  I looked up at him and again wiped away tears, tears that I still had no idea how they could exist given that I was dead, and said to him, "Come on.  Let's get this typed up somewhere and then leave this note for your mother to find."

He nodded.  "And then let's help you," he said.  "I have a feeling there's a lot more to your story than you've already told me, Anna."


Adam was right that there was a lot more to my story, but I didn't want to talk about it at the time, so instead, we wandered around in silence looking for a place with a computer hooked to a printer that we could use.  Eventually we found a library that seemed promising, and it was just closing as we got there.  We walked up to the front doors, I at least expecting we were going to again walk through them, and to my surprise, the doors slid open.  I looked at Adam and saw he was looking back at me in surprise as well, and then we both smiled and laughed at one another.

"I always thought sliding doors were finicky," I said.

"I wonder how often it was just a ghost in the machine," Adam said, completing my thought.

I smiled and laughed again, and we walked on in together, side by side.

When we got in, we saw a few teenagers checking out books and grumbling to one another, probably about how silly it was to have to use "real" books for whatever their class assignment was instead of just finding information online, and as they left through those same sliding glass doors had somehow noticed us when no one else did.  I watched as the librarian checked her watch, tidied some papers and seemed to get ready to leave.  Adam and I walked over towards the computers as the librarian got ready to clean things up.

"Man, I haven't been in a library since college," Adam said as he walked past some aisles letting his hands stroke the shelves.

It drew up a strange sort of nostalgia in me, watching him do that.  "I practically lived at the library in college," I said.  "I loved to just absorb knowledge.  I was an English literature major first and foremost, but I had to do something profitable, too, so I also got an accounting degree."

Adam looked at me, apparently stunned.  "English lit and accounting?" he questioned.  "That's an odd mix."

I laughed.  "Well, I guess I just wanted a challenge.  And it did ensure I took 5 years to graduate."  The lights went out and I glanced back to see the librarian walking off into the evening.  "How about you?" I asked, looking back towards Adam.  "What was your major?"

"Computer science," Adam said, "but I actually got a minor in philosophy."

"Well that's a bit of an odd mix, too," I pointed out.

He shrugged.  "I mean, it seems that way," he said, "but philosophy is about applying reasoning and logic to the mysteries of life.  Computer science is about applying reasoning and logic, too."

"Yeah, true," I agreed.  I went over to a computer and pressed the power button to turn it on.  "Well, I can do this much in terms of computer science," I said.

Adam came over and sat down at the machine.  "Oh I'm sure you can do more than that," he said.

I nodded.  "Yeah, well, I suppose you're right.  I learned a little bit of coding back in college.  It helps with accounting sometimes."  I watched quietly as the computer booted back up and Adam logged into a guest account and pulled up a document editing program.  I waited while he typed in his note, copying from his hand-written note, and tried to not let myself tear up all over again.  When he was done, he sent it to the printer.  I listened as the printer jugged away, and followed along as Adam walked over to the printer to collect his note.  He looked back at me and nodded.  "Well, should we continue on this mission?" Adam asked.

"Yes," I agreed with a nod.

Adam gave me a nod back, and we walked back out of the library, this time having to actually walk through the doors since they were locked and would not open for us, and headed for the nearest bus stop.

From there, as darkness started to fall over the city, we caught a bus back to his mom's house.  We started out in silence and then I felt compelled to ask, "Did you ever actually think about death before?"

He looked up from his typed note, which he had been reading when I asked.  "You mean before I died?"

"I meant specifically back in college, with your philosophy major, but more generally, yeah."

He frowned.  "I mean, I tried not to dwell on it too much, but yeah, we talked about it in philosophy class.  We talked about different views on existence.  Death is part of existence, it's part of living.  If you believe that we really are believe, you believe that we have to die."

"But did you think there would be an after, that we would keep on living after we died?" I asked.

He shrugged.  "I dunno, maybe," he said.  "It was interesting to think about, all the theories and ideas, but I guess I never really came to a conclusion.  It was all just... theoretical at the time."

"Things often are until they happen to you," I reflected.

"Yes, that's certainly true," he agreed.  When I didn't say anything more he returned to reading and re-reading his letter, and we continued on the ride in silence.

It was two stops later that my thoughts and inner silence were interrupted.  Adam was still reading and re-reading his letter, so he didn't see, but I saw a middle aged woman sitting on the aisle near the middle of the bus glance back towards me and smile.  At first, I was taken aback, thinking there must be someone else she was looking at, but after I looked around to try to figure out who it could be and then looked back at her, she shook her head and mouthed, "You?"

I pointed at myself and she nodded.  Then she turned forward again, hunched forward, and then sat back up straight, looking ahead, but with her arm dangling down into the aisle, where I saw a small slip of paper in her hand.  She glanced back at me again and nodded.

I realized what she wanted me to do, so I stood up.  That was when Adam sensed something was happening and looked up at me.  "Where are you going?" he wanted to know.

I glanced back at him.  "No where," I said.  "Don't worry, I'll be right back."

And I looked ahead again, towards the woman with the piece of paper still sticking out from her fingers.  She wasn't looking at me, but as soon as I got close, she shivered and as I reached for the note, she opened her fingers and let it fall into my hand.  She glanced over at me and whispered, "It will be okay, dear."

At that, the man sitting next to her gave her a dirty look, probably thinking she was crazy and talking to herself, but he neither saw nor responded to me or the note in my hand.  The woman just nodded and looked away, which I took as my cue to return to my seat beside Adam in the back of the bus.

When I returned, he whispered to me inquisitively, "What was that all about?"

"A seer," I said.

"What?" was his reaction.

"That lady up there," I tried to nod towards the middle of the bus, though I realized it was probably impossible to be precise enough with a nod.  "She can see us, can see ghosts.  They're called seers, I think.  And she gave me a note."

"Well what does it say?" Adam wanted to know.  I saw his pupils had dilated and the tone of his voice seemed excited.

My hands were trembling a bit, and he must have noticed.  "I can open it if you like," he said.

I looked over at him and smiled as he opened the note.  He read it to himself first and seemed very puzzled, which concerned me.  "What does it say?" I asked this time.

He handed it to me.  "It says, 'You need him, but he doesn't need you.'"  I mouthed the words silently as I read them myself.

"Him who?" Adam asked after I had read the note three times.

I looked up at him.  "I don't know," I replied.  "Todd, maybe?"  But I didn't actually think it would be Todd.  I already let Todd go, didn't I?  I knew Todd needed to go on with his life, even though it pained me to think of him living his life without me.  This woman didn't need to remind me of that.  But if she wasn't talking about Todd...?

I just continued to stare at Adam as all these thoughts ran through my head, doing my best not to show what I was starting to think.  I shrugged.  "I dunno," I said.

Adam eyed me suspiciously, as if he knew I'd had another thought and further knew I didn't really want to talk about it.  "Well maybe you could go ask her," he suggested.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that or not, but when I looked back up from the note I found, to my surprise and in a strange way to my relief, that the woman wasn't sitting where she had been.  I scanned the seats of the bus just to be sure, and then declared, "She's gone."

"Gone?  Like vanished like a ghost?"

He seemed to be teasing, but I took him seriously.  I shook my head.  "No, she was definitely real."

"She must have gotten off the bus," Adam suggested.

"Yeah, I suppose," I said, though I hadn't noticed the bus stop in the time since I received the note.  I continued to glance around the bus.  Nope.  I hadn't missed anything.  She was definitely gone.

I heard Adam sigh beside me.  Then, he did something really surprising, he put his hand on my knee.  I felt my unbeating heart beat faster.  The blood that I knew I could no longer possess seemed to rush to my brain, and I heard him say, "It will be okay, dear."

I quickly turned my head to look at him.  "What did you say?" I asked.

He looked confused, and I noticed that both of his hands were gripping his letter, no longer was one placed on my knee.  "I said, 'Well, we're almost there.'" he replied.  His face wrinkled up in concern.  "Are you sure you're okay?"

I shook my head, but said, "Yeah, besides being dead and all, I'm perfectly fine."

I looked at him for a long moment.  I noticed his dazzling blue eyes and somewhat dissheveled brown hair.  He had a mole just above his lip, almost perfectly centered in the left to right direction.  I felt embarrassed looking at his lips, so I looked to the side of his face and noticed a small hole in his left ear lobe.  I started to reach for it but then pulled my hand back suddenly, very embarrassed now.  I blushed as he looked back at my quizzically and I muttered, "You have a pierced ear."

At that he laughed.  I looked back at him and he was smiled.  "Yeah," he said.  "You have two of them."

I wasn't quite sure what to say to that, so I just laughed, too.  That was when the bus stopped and he stood up and took a deep breath.  "Alright," he said.  "We're here, back by my apartment."  He took another deep breath and let out a heavy sigh.  I stood up, too, and he looked over at me.  "Let's do this," he said, trying to sound confident, though his voice wavered.

I wanted to reach out and hold his hand, to reassure him, to tell him it would be okay, but I didn't, I felt like that would be somehow wrong or inappropriate.  So instead I just nodded and gave my agreement.  "Yeah," I said.  "Let's do this."


It was completely dark outside now, as we approached Adam's apartment building.  "This would be so eery for anyone who saw us here," Adam observed.

"Yeah, just a couple of ghosts heading in to haunt the old home of one of them," I added, trying to continue what seemed like his attempt to make light of this serious situation.

He chuckled just a little and led the way back into his place.

When we got there, all the lights were turned off.  Being a ghost doesn't give you some sort of super special night vision, so I couldn't see a thing.  I turned to where I assumed Adam was standing.  "Lights?" I asked.

He must have thought it was a good idea, because the next thing I knew the lights were on.  That was when I gasped, because I saw Adam's mother asleep on the couch.  I gasped, and quickly commanded Adam, "Turn them back off, turn them back off!"

Adam complied, and I hear a bit of mumbling and tossing and turning coming from the couch, but Adam's mom did not seem to wake up.

"Was my mom..." Adam began, seeming to have heard the noise but perhaps not seen her.

"Yeah, she was asleep on the couch," I whispered.  "I didn't want to wake her up."

"Yeah, probably best not to do that," Adam agreed in a normal volume.

"Well where should we put the letter?" I whispered in return.  "You have a closet or old boxes or something."

"I thought about that," Adam said, still not whispering, apparently convinced that his mother would not hear him, would not respond to him like she had to me earlier that day.  It made me sad that she would respond to me and not to him, but I tried not to think about that.  "I have a drawer in my desk where I would keep papers and stuff.  If she hasn't gone through it yet, I think I can just keep it there.  Maybe she'll think I kept it to remember what I had written or something, or that I was thinking of showing it to someone.  At a minimum, it wouldn't seem totally weird to find it there."

"Okay," I said, talking just a bit louder.  "Lead the way."

"Here," he said, and I saw in the extremely dim lighting that he was holding his hand out to me.

"Trying to be a friendly ghost?" I teased.

"Just don't want you to trip on something," he said.

As much as I wanted to hold his hand, I didn't want him to know that, and I was afraid my palms might get sweaty.  Do ghosts sweat?  Anyway, I refused his offer by saying quietly, "I won't trip.  If I run into something, I'll just go right through.  I am a ghost after all."

"Okay, suit yourself," he said, withdrawing his hand.  "Come on."

Adam led us on into his bedroom where he made his way to the small desk that was still standing in the corner.  He pulled open a couple drawers, and then said, "Okay good, she hasn't cleaned this one out yet."  I came in close so that I could see him lift up a few papers and place it underneath.

"Are you sure you don't want to leave it on top?" I asked.

"I don't want it to be too obvious," he said, "or to put it right on top in case she's looked in the drawer before."

"Yeah, that seems fine then," I said.  There was a moment of silence, and then I asked, "So what do you want to do now."

"Wait, I guess," Adam said.  "Wait for her to wake up and maybe notice it."  I felt him looking at me.  "Do we, do ghosts sleep?" he asked.

"We certainly don't need to," I said, feeling again like a ghost expert helping a fellow spirit out, "but it seems we can at least rest."  I blushed in the darkness when I decided to say what I was going to say next.  I hope he didn't see.  "Back when I was still with Todd," I began, "I would lay in bed next to him listening to him breathing.  I mean, after I was dead but before I had said good-bye.  In fact, the day I discovered I was a ghost, I thought I had been waking up from a dream, and I found I was laying in bed next to Todd and he was muttering in his sleep and I heard his say my name and the word 'sleep' so I went back to sleep."  I sighed.  "But that was before I realized I was a ghost.  I haven't slept since then, not really, and I've found I didn't need to."

"Geeze, Anna, that sucks," Adam said.  "I know you said you forgave me and all, but really, I am just so sorry that this happened to you."

I felt my face growing hotter, but I felt like I couldn't stop myself from saying the things I was so scared to admit to.  "I'm not as sorry as I was, now that I met you," I said.

He let out a nervous little chuckle and asked, "Anna, are you flirting with me now."

"Yes," I said, and I leaned in and kissed him.


That kiss was not what I expected.  He instantly pushed me away, and I felt shocked when I fell backwards and made an audible thump against the wall.  My first thought was that I hoped that wouldn't wake his mother, and my second thought immediately after that was why had he pushed me away.

As if he read my thoughts, which I guess shouldn't have been that hard to infer, he said, "I'm sorry, Anna, I just, I don't think I can do that."

I felt hurt, but I also thought of the note, and how I feared it meant that Adam could make me happy but I couldn't make him happy.  This was just confirming it, but I had to hear him say it.  I think that was part of the reason I had kissed him to begin with.  "Why not?" I asked.

He started with something normal to have said if we were both alive.  "I just met you," he said.  "You hardly know me.  And you just..." he sighed.  "You just got out of a long relationship."  Then he said something you would not say to someone who was alive:  "And besides, we're ghosts.  Can we even, do that kind of stuff?"

"Of course we can do that kind of stuff," I said, really having no idea besides the fact that I had felt some brief sensation before he pushed me away.  "And as for Todd, yes, I loved him and I still love him, but I left him.  I couldn't haunt him anymore.  It was time to move on."

"But with someone you just met?  And with someone who contributed to your death, nonetheless?"

And there was the kicker.  I had expected something like that, but I hadn't known what to say until that exact moment.  What I said was, "Did you never stop to think that I contributed to your death, too?"

"Anna..."

"No, really.  If I hadn't been so tired, if I hadn't drifted into the intersection, if my car hadn't been there for your buddy to crash into, you would still be alive, too."

"Anna, don't think that way," he said.

"Well then you don't think that way, either!" I exclaimed, throwing my arms up in the air.

That was when the light went on.  There was Adam's mother, standing in the frame of the doorway, looking stunned and confused.  I saw her shiver, but she didn't see us because she looked right through us.  My hands went up to my mouth, as if to hold in any further outbursts.  Adam looked mortified, but thankfully, so thankfully, she clicked the light off and went back to the couch to go to sleep.

"Adam," I whispered once she was gone, "I am sorry.  I am so sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," Adam whispered back, and I noticed he was also talking quietly now.  "I just, I'm sorry for assuming I knew why you were doing what you were doing, I mean, I like you Anna, I just, I can't stand thinking that we only met because we died and we only died because..."

"Because of our poor choices in transportation," I concluded.

"Yeah." he agreed.  I couldn't see, but I listened as he walked across the room, and I heard a faint creaking of the bed.  "Come sit here," he suggested, and I walked over and sat beside him.  Just after I sat down, I felt his arm around me and my heart fluttered just a little.  "I like you Anna," he said, and I noted that was the second time he'd said that, "but I can't, I just can't..." He sighed.  "I don't know how long we'll be here.  I don't want to get attached.  It's all so uncertain and fleeting, and you said early today there's a key to unlock a soul and get out of this plane."  He sighed.  "Would we even be together after we leave this plane."

"I don't know," I admitted, "but we're together now."

He gave my shoulder a squeeze and said, comfortingly, "Yes, I suppose we are."

I leaned my head on his shoulder and he laughed, just a little.  "This is so crazy," he said.  "I didn't even know you yesterday.  It's been barely 12 hours since we met.  I would never have a girl in my bedroom this soon.  Not ever."

"I'm no ordinary girl," I noted.

He laughed a bit more at that.  "No, I suppose you're not," he said, and that time he leaned over and kissed me, though just on the cheek.  It wasn't quite what I had hoped for, but I figured it was the most I could hope for after making such a mess of things.  Maybe that note was right.  Maybe it was just me who needed him.  But I couldn't help but still hope that it was true that we needed each other.  That was the only way I could find to make sense of dying, of him dying, of the two of us dying together.

When he pulled back, that was all there was.  Just a kiss on the cheek.  Nothing more happened.  It felt like nothing more needed to.  We just sat there, holding one another, together in this strange afterlife, waiting for the morning to come, mostly in silence, but ever so often, just sharing a little tidbit, a story, a morsel of who we used to be in life.


When the morning did come, Adam's mom made a pot of coffee that I could smell from the bedroom.  I mentioned to Adam how much I missed the taste of coffee.

He said he hated the taste of coffee and I told him he was crazy to which he responded that I was crazy.  I smiled and laughed.  It almost felt like we could be together, even though we were dead.

In that early morning light, I dared to reach up and touch his ear lobe, where I had hesitated to touch the evening before when I noticed his pierced ear.  "Why did you get this anyway?" I asked.

He removed his arm from around me and shrugged.  Then he reached up and touched the piercing himself.  "I don't really know," he said.  "I guess I just wanted to try it out."

"And what did you think?" I asked.

"Well, if I never used it, it would have been closed up completely by now," he said.

I nodded, trying to figure out if there was some deeper meaning there, coming from the dead philosophy student sitting on the bed next to me, when the door opened again and Adam's mom walked back in.  I found myself holding my breath, even though I shouldn't have had to, and hoping against hope that she would go over to the desk and find Adam's letter.

It was almost as if she read my thoughts, because that was exactly what she seemed to do.  She took a sip of her coffee, rubbed her eyes, which looked a bit red even though I hadn't heard her crying, and walked right over to the desk.

She didn't bother to sit down, but she set down her coffee mug on the desk after another sip, and then she opened the drawers, one by one, until she got to the one with the note in it.  She took out the whole stack of papers and sat them on the desk.  She started to page through them.  I sat completely still through all of this.  Adam, on the other hand, had gotten up and walked over to her.  He was now standing directly over her, watching as she pulled out the letter, and began to read.

Even from across the room, I could tell that the letter was having an effect.  I watched her shoulders move up and down, and I heard faint sobbing.  I watched as she reached up to wipe tears from her eyes, and by the end, it was clear she was flat out balling.  I looked up at Adam and saw he was crying, too.  I watched as he reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, but then quickly pulled it away, apparently afraid she might notice him.

I didn't want her to notice either of us, so I just stayed where I was on the bed, not moving a muscle.  Waiting to see what would happen.

And what happened next was beautiful.  Adam's mother, brought her hand up to her lips, seeming to kiss it, and then placed that kiss on the paper.  "I love you, son," I heard her say softly, "and thank you."

Then she got up from the desk, leaving her coffee behind, but taking the paper, and went out into the living room.  Adam followed closely behind, and once they were both out of the room, I got up very quietly and followed as well.

When I got into the living room, I saw Adam's mom sitting on the couch with her phone out, and Adam sitting beside her, smiling softly.  "Peggy," I heard Adam's mom say.  "No, actually, I'm not okay.  Could you come over to Adam's place, I just... I really need you."

She didn't cry when she said that, but Adam did.  And he looked at me and he smiled with such sadness but such joyfulness, too, that I wanted to rush over and give him a big hug, but instead, I just smiled back and nodded, I slipped quietly out through the front door.

A few minutes later, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked back to see Adam there.  "Why did you leave?" he asked.

"It's your mother," I said, "your moment."

"But you were a part of it, too," he said.  "You helped me.  I'll always be thankful for that."

I felt a little nervous at the way he said that, as if he was saying good-bye to me like I had said good-bye to Todd.  "Listen, Adam," I said, "about last night... I don't know what I was thinking, I was just..."

"I know," he said.  "It's okay.  Death is hard.  Dying is hard.  You just wanted a friend, and I'm glad I could be that for you.  Honestly..." he sighed.  "I wanted it, too, and I mean, look at you, you're beautiful and smart and you can find humor even though you're dead."  He chuckled and shook his head.  "If we weren't both dead, I would definitely ask you out on a second date."

I laughed.  "And where was our first date?" I asked.

He shrugged.  "The library I guess?"

I wanted to ask him who said we couldn't have a second, but instead I just said, "Well, I guess from here on, we can just be friends.  Friendly ghostly friends."

He laughed, "Yeah okay."  Then he seemed to get a bit more serious.  "If that's what you want."

What did I want?  I wasn't sure, but I just nodded anyway.  "Yeah, I think that would be nice," I said.

"So friends then?" he asked, holding out his hand to me.

I nodded.  "Yeah, friends," I agreed, and I shook his hand.  Then we waited, sitting on the stairs together, until Aunt Peggy showed up.  She seemed strangely to pause right before she got to the step we were sitting on, so we both stood up and moved out of her way, at which point she shrugged and went on to the apartment.  Adam went up to the door and listened to the talking and crying, and it was clearly sad, but I saw him smile, and then he said softly, "Good-bye, Aunt Peggy.  Good-bye, mom."

He turned back to me and said with a nod.  "Okay, I'm ready to go now?"

I felt confused.  "Go where?" I asked.

"Wherever we need to go to get your family stuff straightened out."

"You really don't have to do that," I insisted.

"Nonsense," he replied, smiling at me.  "After all, what are friends for?"


I suggested that maybe we could just go somewhere and talk through whatever it was I might need to do to put myself at peace when it came to my family, so we went to a little corner coffee shop nearby and sat at an unoccupied corner table watching living couples sip warm beverages and converse about the things of the living.

"So what's the story?" Adam asked.

"Honestly, I wasn't that close with my family," I said, avoiding eye contact with him, "certainly no where near as close as you were with your mom.  I mean, I would call or text once in a while, but mostly I was living my own life.  My brother Benjamin, he's five years younger than me, or at least he was before I died.  He would have turned 26 since I died.  He's manager at a clothing store, but I don't even remember which one.  And my mom, she lost my dad a few years ago and I was there for her when that happened, but I mean, I didn't really stick it out with her.  We never really had much in common, it seemed.  I mean, we should have gotten along great.  She was a teacher, a math teacher, and I was an accountant, after all, but she didn't seem to have the same hunger for learning, for trying new things that I did.  Numbers were fixed, and unchanging, and it seemed like she often was, too."

"What's the last thing you remember saying to her?" Adam asked softly.

"I'm sure it was 'I love you.'" I admitted, with a small smile.  I looked at him, "But that didn't really mean anything.  That was just the way we ended our phone calls."

"But still, she knew you loved her," he said.  "That counts for something."

I nodded.  "I suppose.  I just..."  I sighed and forced myself not to look away from Adam's wanting to help expression.  "I just feel bad that I didn't think of her.  I mean, I spent months haunting Todd and never even thought about my mother and brother."

"Maybe that's okay," Adam suggested.  "Maybe that helped them move on."

I sighed.  "Maybe, but I can't help but wonder I just... I want to see them, where they are, what they're doing and honestly..." I frowned and looked down in shame, "a part of me wants them to be a little broken up about my death."

I felt Adam's hand under my chin, and I let him lift my face up so that I was looking at him again.  "Hey," he said.  "I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to touch the people we left behind."  He chuckled a little and shook his head.  "Though I'm certainly not an expert on being a ghost, as the last 24 hours has made abundant.  But still, I think it's as normal as it can be for someone in our state to want people to mourn us, at least a little.  I mean, I'm touched by my mother's lasting love for me, but I want her to move on and be happy again, too."

I let his hand fall away from my face and then I nodded.  "Yeah, I want that, too," I said.

"Well good," he said.  "Then should we find a way to get to your mom and see that she's okay?"

I nodded again and smiled.  "Yeah," I said.  "That would be nice."  Then I quickly added, "But you don't have to come with me.  Not really.  You should figure out what else you need to do to move on."

"But I want to come with," Adam insisted.  "And besides, I really can't think of anything else I'd have to do or finish or put right other than helping you put things right."

"Thank you," I said.

He shook his head.  "It's incredible that you would be thanking me for anything," he said.  "You really are an amazing woman."

I blushed and let myself continue to smile.  "Thank you," I said.  And I stood up.  "I guess we might as well get going then."

He stood too and gestured for me to lead on.  "After you," he said, and we began our journey to reconnect in death with the mother and brother I had let myself drift away from in life.


At my own suggestion, we decided to see what we could do as "ghost hitch hikers".  The idea was that we would go to an intersection where cars were stopped or a gas station or something and find a car that was headed in the general direction we wanted to go and had empty seats in the back.  Then we'd spirit our way on in and ride along for a while until we found we needed to go another way or got tired of that particular car, and we'd just float on out.

I had hesitated to suggest this initially, given how certain people had been shown to react to my presence in the past, but I figured I might as well live it up a little in death, and also figured it would be interesting to see if people gave any indication of sensing something had changed in their surroundings.

In the first car we tried, the experiment didn't last long.  The man who was driving kept looking into the back seat, right where I was sitting, so I got nervous and bailed out, with Adam following closely behind.  "The last thing I want is to cause a crash and end up with more spirits joining us," I said solemnly.

"We can always just walk," Adam suggested.

"That would take days," I said.  "And besides, I want to be able to be around people without them sensing my presence.  I particularly want to be able to do that by the time we get to my mom's house."

So we tried again and then next car was much better.  I watched the lady who was driving shiver a little, make a confused face, and turn the heater on, but she didn't seem to actually notice us.  I wanted to talk to Adam about this observation, but I was concerned that if I talked, the driver might sense me, like Todd and Aunt Peggy and Adam's mother had, so I just kept quiet.  I found myself wishing I knew more sign language than the letters of the alphabet, but I figured it wouldn't do much good unless Adam also knew it anyway.

When we got out of that second car about twenty minutes later and resumed our journey, briefly, on foot, I decided I might was well ask him, "I don't suppose you know sign language, do you?"

He shook his head.  "Just that," he said.  I looked at him confusedly and he said, "Shaking my head, means no?"  When I gave him a bit of a smirk and a glare, he just smiled and said, "Oh never mind.  No I don't know sign language."

"That's okay," I said.  "I don't really either."

He laughed.  "Then why did you ask?" he asked.

I shrugged.  "I dunno.  Just curious."

We walked on for a little while and joking around, I held out my thumb like a hitch hiker, to which Adam laughed.  No one stopped, though I wouldn't have been terribly surprised if someone had, given that there were seers and such out in the world.  Surely not all seers were just crazy older ladies who rode around on buses were they?  Well at any rate, we eventually came to an interstate on ramp where we decided to walk up a small hill to a stop light before traffic would merge on and hop into a car that was getting onto the interstate.

We again rode in silence for a while, then I got bored, motioned to Adam that we should hop out, and we went tumbling out at 80+ miles per hour.

"That was nuts," Adam said, after we stood up from our fast fall, completely unharmed.

I giggled.  "I feel like you just said that," I said.

"I think that was yesterday," he pointed out.  "When you first got me to jump off a bus."

"Wow," I mused, "was that really just yesterday?"

"Yeah," he confirmed.  "It was."

We walked down the side of the interstate for a little while and then I wondered, "Why walk on the side of the road when you can walk down the middle of it?"

"Interesting question," Adam said, starting to step out into the oncoming traffic.

"No wait!" I quickly cried out, grabbing his sleeve to hold him back.

He looked back at me.  "What?" he said.  "You suggested it."

"Yeah, I know," I admitted, "but I just thought, what if one of those people who can see us saw you just stepping into the street like that.  Wouldn't it freak them out?"

"Yeah, I suppose it would," Adam agreed.  And then, as if on cue, a car pulled off the road in front of us and a woman appearing not much older than me got out of the driver's seat.

To our surprise, I think I can speak for Adam on this, she rushed towards us.  "Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed, focusing on Adam.  "Are you okay?  I thought you were going to step out onto the road.  Do you two need a ride?"

"You can see us?" Adam asked.

The woman looked confused.  "Why wouldn't I be able to see you?" she asked.

I realized very quickly that she didn't know what we were nor what she was.  How could that be?  The other two seers I met had been keenly aware.  Did seers not just know when they got the gift they were given?  I reacted as best as I could by giving Adam a little punch in the shoulder and saying, "He's just screwing around.  My brother and I would love a ride."

"Oww," Adam said.

But the woman just smiled.  "Of course," she said.  "I can take you about another 50 miles up the road, if you're interested."

"That would be just perfect," I said, realizing she was probably going to the city where my mother lived.  "Thanks so much."

As we followed her back to the car, Adam whispered, "I'm your brother now?"

"Sorry," I whispered back, "I didn't want to freak her out."

"You mean by telling her we're dead."

"You're really dead if you keep being such a jerk," I said, just a tiny bit louder, just in case she had heard his comment about us being dead.  I looked at Adam and back at the woman to try to indicate I didn't really think he was being a jerk and was just saying that potentially for her benefit.  I wasn't sure if he got it, but she didn't seem to react either way.

When we got to her car, she opened the back door on the passenger side and said, "You can just slide on through.  Wouldn't want you stepping out into the street and getting hit by a car while trying to get in on the driver's side."

I mused to myself how she had unknowingly avoided the awkwardness of making one of us try to open her door in sight of zooming by cars, which I wasn't really sure I would have even been able to do, and slide in ahead of Adam.  After he got in, the woman went around to the front and got back into the driver's seat and off we went.

"I'm Christine," she said after we pulled back onto the interstate.  "And you are..."

"Anna," I said.  "And this is Adam."

"Anna and Adam, nice to meet you," she said.  I couldn't see her face, but I felt the smile in the way she talked.  "So what's your story?  Where are you headed?"

"Home," I said.  "To see my mom."

"Our mom," Adam chimed in, and I felt thankful he was agreeing to play along.

"That's sweet," Christine said.  "When's the last time you saw her?"

"Nearly a year ago," I said truthfully.

"Aww, she'll be so happy to see you again," Christine cooed.

I couldn't bring myself to say something that a live person would say like "Yes she will", so I just remained silent.  Christine didn't seem to mind.  She had moved on to talking about her own family.  I got the sense she really liked to talk.  And as she went on about the concerns of the living, blabbing away to two people she didn't even know were no longer counted among the living, I felt Adam's hand reach over and give mine a tight squeeze before withdrawing.  I looked up at him and smiled, and the two of us continued on mostly in silence, even though we had found the car of a woman who would not have found it odd if we did start talking.


As we approached the city we were heading to, Christine asked, "So where should I let you out?"

"Oh, wherever is convenient is fine," I said.  "I'm sure we can find our way the rest of the way."

"Where are you ultimately headed anyway?" she asked.

I told her, roughly, and she said, "Oh, I didn't realize we were headed to basically the same place!  Well I can take you right up to your mom's front door, I'll bet."

"Oh, no that's fine," I quickly chimed in.  "We don't want to intrude anymore than we already have."

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed.

I wasn't sure what to say, and as I was thinking, Adam chimed in and said, "Actually, I'm kinda hungry and could really use a burger or something.  I think there's a McDonald's not far from mom's house, isn't there Anna?"

"Oh yeah," I followed along.  "I can tell you where.  If you'd drop us off there, we can get a bit to eat and just walk the rest of the way."

Christine seemed a bit disappointed, but she said, "Well if you're sure."

"Yes, we're sure," I said.  "And thank you so much for the ride.  It's been a tremendous help."

"My pleasure!" Christine exclaimed cheerily.  "Honestly, I don't know what you were doing to begin with, trying to walk all this way.  It would have been dark before you got here!"

I just gave a little nervous chuckle, and then let Christine go off on a tangent about how she hated to drive in the dark.


When we got to the McDonald's, I realized that I was a little nervous about how we were going to make our escape.  I still had never opened a door or done any other major interaction with a physical object with a living human being nearby.  Somewhat fortunately, when pulled up to the McDonald's, Christine decided to park and turn off the car, and which point she accidentally dropped her keys.  "Oops!" she said, and when she bent down to search for them, and was no longer looking at us, I gave Adam a glance and then slide out of the car right through the door.  He quickly did the same.

Christine found her keys, let out some sort of exclamation of joy at having found them, which I couldn't quite hear because I was now outside the car, and then she looked into the back seat and seemed started to find that we were no longer there.  When she glanced up and saw me standing outside her window, waving nervously, she seemed a bit started.

She opened the door and I took a step back to let her out, but she just stayed seated and looked up at me.  "I must be going crazy," she said.  "I didn't even hear you two open the doors."

I frowned at that.  "You're not crazy, Christine," I said, rather somberly.

That seemed to throw her off even more.  "I know that," she said, "I just meant...."  I saw her shiver and then she looked puzzled.  "Did you just feel a burst of cold air?" she asked.  "That was so weird."

I made myself smile, not sure what I could or should do to help her with what she was going through, or would soon be going through.  "It was nice to meet you, Christine," I just said.  "Thanks so much for the ride.

She seemed like she wanted to say more, but then she just shrugged and drove away.  Adam came over and stood next to me as she went, and I waved good-bye and then waited until she was out of sight.

I heard Adam breath a breathless sigh of relief beside me.  "I wasn't sure what was going to happen there," he said.  "But I guess it worked out okay."

"Yeah," I said, "until she starts talking to more people that no one else can see."

"I feel like we should have done something to warn her, to tell her what we really were."

"I don't know," I said.  "Somehow, it just didn't feel like the right time."

"When would be the right time to tell someone they were seeing dead people?" Adam asked.

"I don't know," I admitted.  "I just don't know."  I sighed.  "I'm so tired," I said.  "I wish I could sleep."

Adam put his hand on my shoulder.  "Are you sure you can't?" he asked.

"I haven't in months," I said.  "Never since I learned I was a ghost."

"Well, maybe try to forget you are a ghost," he suggested.

I chuckled.  "What, and just fall asleep here on the front lawn of a McDonald's?"

He shrugged.  "Who would know?" he asked.

I sighed.  "Who would know indeed," I mused.

"Come on," he said, holding out his hand to me.  "Let's at least sit, just for a while, and then we can go see your mom."

So we sat down in the semi-well kept grass and leaned against the side of the building.  I put my head on Adam's shoulder and he didn't stop me, and I let myself close my eyes.  I tried to imagine I was still alive and just for a moment, I started to imagine that Adam was Todd, and sure enough, I felt myself drifting off to sleep.


When I opened my eyes again, I was once again standing in the middle of a road, the same road where I had stood in the vision where I first saw Adam.  I looked down at myself and saw I was again wearing a white dress.  My dress was billowing in the wind, even though I felt no wind, and I reflected that I was fairly certain I didn't own a white dress and if I had ever before actually worn a white dress, it had been long before I could remember.

I looked up from the dress and held out my hands, looking at the palms, and was startled to see what appeared to be blood on them, not a lot of blood, just little scratches, and I felt like they were smaller versions of the marks, the cuts from glass, I had seen on my face in the photos I had seen way back at the police office, so long ago.  Or had that only been yesterday?  My gosh, it had only been yesterday.

I shivered at the thought of how recently all of these things had started to be revealed to me, and I looked up, into the intersection, and again saw the crashed cars and again saw someone, now familiar looking, standing there.  "Adam?" I said.

He turned and looked at me, and he seemed confused.  "Anna?" he asked.  "What is this?  Where... this is like the dreams I had."

I nodded.  "I've been here before, too," I said.  "In some sort of vision, right after I left Todd and just before I met you."

"But this seems... real," he said.

"We seem real, too," I noted.  "But maybe... maybe we aren't."

"You mean here, or you mean out in the real world?" he asked.

I shrugged.  "Is there even a difference when you're a ghost?" I asked.

"There is to those we left behind," he said.  "I think, I think there should be to us, too."

Then I heard another voice, a whisper, faintly calling my name.  "Anna.... Anna...." And then a bit louder and more urgent, "Anna!"

Adam seemed to have heard it, too, because he seemed a bit startled.  "Who or what was that?" he asked.

"I don't know," I admitted.  "But it sounds somewhat familiar, like a voice I can't quite place."

"Anna?"  This time it was Adam speaking.  He looked worried, and I saw him touch his forehead and nod towards me.  I felt a kind-of goupy liquid on my face, and touched my forehead.  When I pulled my hand away, there was more blood on it.  I was baffled by this, and when I looked over at Adam, he looked extremely worried.  "Anna!" he exclaimed, taking a step forward as I felt myself falling.

And then with a gasp, I opened my eyes and stirred myself into a fully upright sitting position.  I looked over and saw Adam, who was sitting on the grass next to me, was also stirring.  As soon as he became fully away, he looked over at me, with fear in his eyes and asked, "Are you okay?"

I touched my forehead and looked at my hands.  No blood, no scratches.  I looked down and saw I was wearing the same clothes from the night I had died, no white dress.  Nothing from whatever that dream or vision had been was still there, except Adam.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said.  "Are you?"

"Yeah, I think so," he said.  "But, but what was that."

"I don't know," I said with a frown.  "Maybe that's what happens when ghosts dream."

"So... so that was real, you saw me and I saw you by the scene..."

"The scene of the crash?" I asked.  "Yeah, and I was wearing a dress."

"A white dress," he said.  "It looked almost like a..."

"I know," I said, not wanting him to complete that thought, afraid of what it might mean.  "I know.  That was just..." I shivered.  "That was weird.  It was just like the first time I saw you."

"The first time?" he asked.

I nodded.  "Yes, in the vision I had.  And your dreams?  I think we were linked somehow before."

"But how?" Adam wanted to know.

I shrugged.  "How should I know.  How are we even still here at all?  We should be in heaven or hell or returned to dust or something, but we're still here, at least in a manner of speaking."

"Yeah...." Adam let his voice trail off.  Then he sighed, stood up with a grunt, and held his hand out to me.  "Well I guess so much for sleeping," he said.

I took his hand and stood up with him.  "Yeah," I agreed.  "Though strangely, I do feel better."

He laughed a bit uncomfortably.  "Well that's at least something," he said.  "Are you ready then?"

"To go see my mom?" I asked.  And when he nodded, I sighed and said, "As ready as I'll ever be."

He placed his hand on my shoulder and said, "Don't worry, I'll try my best to be there for you, just like you were there for me.  Now lead on, whenever you're ready."

"I am ready," I said, and I walked off, away from the McDonald's in the direction of my mom's house, which was probably about two miles away.


We walked on towards my mom's house, chatting informally a bit a first, and then I said, "You know, my first real memory of my mom is playing with my stuffed teddy bears with her.  I loved teddy bears when I was little, and even on through probably about age 12 or so.  I remember sitting them around my little table and getting them plates of fake food and playing with my mom and having her eat her 'dinner', too.  I remember trying to dress them up in doll clothes that didn't quite fit.  I remember, finding my mother's lipstick, smearing it all over their faces, and hearing her say, 'No!  Don't do that!' when she found out what I was doing and then trying to calm me down when I got upset about the whole thing.  I remember sitting by the dryer with the open window and watching my bears tumble around when my mom did her best to wash the lipstick off of them afterwards."  I felt myself getting choked up in my own memories and I reached up and wiped each of my eyes before any tears could escape.  I sighed and looked over at Adam.  "I miss her," I said.  "And I feel really bad that I didn't miss her before."

He took my hand and gave it a squeeze.  "You have no reason to feel bad," he said.  "We feel what we feel and sometimes we can't help it, and what we feel in a moment or even several moments doesn't necessary reflect who we really are or what we really feel."  Then he sighed, and as he let go of my hand, he titled his head slightly and asked, "Does any of that make any sense?  Do you get what I'm trying to say?"

I let myself laugh, just a little, "And said, well it doesn't really make sense, but I think I understand what you're trying to say.  I can reason about the whole thing, tell myself I was so focused on Todd because that's who I spent the most time with and that was where I woke up first after I died, but it doesn't really stop me from feeling guilty for neglecting my mom."

"You're not neglecting her, though," Todd said.  "We're headed there now.  And you have the experience of dealing with Todd and helping me deal with my mom to decide the best way to help her with whatever grief she might still be feeling."  We walked on in silence for a few more moments and then Adam said softly, "Anna?"

I glanced over at him.  "Yeah?"

"It's been what, about 6 months since you died?  Not to be harsh or blunt or anything, but do you think it's possible your mom has already worked through it, already coped?  I mean, not to the point that she's totally okay, but, you know, already to the point we got my mom to?"

I paused for a moment, thinking about it, before responding.  "Yes, that is possible," I admitted.  "And maybe going to visit her now is more about me than it is about her, but I just want to see for myself, make sure she's okay."

"Yeah, and I think that's great," Adam said.  "I just didn't want you to feel worse if, you know, it seemed like she'd been able to move on."

"Honestly," I said, "it probably will hurt me a little bit if we go there and she seems fine, but that's what best for her, and I would be the happiest long term, for her, if she was already okay."

I guess Adam wasn't sure what else to say because we continued on in silence the rest of the way after that.


When we got to my mom's house, I felt a bit of a chill come over my and I must have visibly shivered or otherwise reacted, because Adam asked, "Are you okay?"

I nodded.  "Yeah, I'm fine," I said.  "Let's do this."

We walked in the front door and the first thing I saw was pictures of our family, still hanging proudly on the wall.  Photos of her and my dad, of me, of my brother, of all of us together from probably 10 years ago when we all still one close-knit family instead of all off doing our own things.  As we walked a bit further, we got to a small table with pictures that my mom hadn't had on display before, pictures of me at various ages.  Adam glanced around and then picked one up and showed it to me.  "You were a cute kid," he said.

I smiled and wiped my eyes again as I started to tear up.  "Yeah," I said.  "Thanks."  Then I touched his hand and put the photo back down.  I looked up at him.  "Would you mind going ahead?" I asked.  "I don't, I mean, I just don't want to get too close and startle her or let her see me by mistake like some of the other people I've encountered."

Adam nodded.  "Okay," he said.  "You've got it."  And so I directed him on ahead, past the living room, through the kitchen.  It was about dinner time, so I figured maybe my mom was in the dining room eating.  I nodded to Adam and he slide on through the door to check.

I was expecting a quiet reconnosiance followed by him poking he head back out to whisper to me what he saw, but instead, right after he went through the door, I heard a loud, booming male voice, familiar though nearly forgotten, shout out, "Who are you?!"

Adam darted back out through the door, his eyes wide, clearly shaken up.  "Uh, Anna..." he began.

That was all he got out before the originator of the surprising voice came gliding through the door after him.  It was another spirit, much more faded than Adam and I, flickering completely in and out visibly, yet I knew exactly who it was.  "Dad?!" I exclaimed.

The new apparitions eyes grew wide.  "Anna!?" he exclaimed back.  "But you?  What are you doing here?"

"I'm dead, daddy," I burst out.  "I'm dead, too."  And then I burst into tears and couldn't stop from crying as the spirit of my dead father whisked over and wrapped his arms around me.


While my mom continued to eat in the dining room, as both my father and Adam assured me she was doing peacefully and unalarmed, which I verified myself by poking my head into the room, the three of us spirits sat on the couch in the living room, me in the middle and the men on either side, for a good long talk.

Although it was not so much talking as it was just sitting in stunned silence for a good several minutes.  Then finally I said, "Why haven't you moved on yet, dad?"

"I don't know," he said.  "I don't know how this works.  I just, after I died, I remember dying, passing away, knowing I was ready to go, but then I just woke up back here, with you mom.  I tried to talk to her for days, weeks, months, but it was clear she couldn't hear or see or sense me in any way so eventually I just gave up."  He sighed.  "I went and checked on you, too," he said.  "You and Benjamin, after your mother seemed like she had learned how to cope as well as you could expect her to, but the two of you, you seemed fine.  I guess you'd forgotten all about your dear old dad by the time I got to you, and you couldn't see or hear or sense me anyway."

"Dad, I'm sorry," I said.

"No, don't be," he said.  "I'm glad you were able to move on with your life.  And for the record, that guy you were dating, Todd?  I didn't really get to meet him before I died, right?  But I saw you with him, after, and I really like him.  I wish I could have told you that before."

"I know daddy," I said, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze.  "And thank you for telling me know."

He squeezed my hand back and I looked up at him and smiled.  But then I frowned.  "But really, dad," I said.  "I'm so glad to see here, but you shouldn't still be here.  Bad things happen to ghosts if they stick around here too long."

"Yeah, I've found that," he said.  "I've started fading, and it scares me, but I don't know what to do.  And I feel sometimes like parts of my mind are going, too.  Like I remember you kids had a dog growing up, a dog you loved, and he was a big part of our family but I cannot for the life, or rather death, I suppose, of me remember that dog's name."

"Sparky," I said.  "His name was Sparky."

"That's it," My dad exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air.  He seemed really relieved and a little bit happy to have that answer, but then his countenance fell again, and he looked over at me.  "I don't want to keep existing like this, Anna," he said, "though it is really great to get to talk to you again.  I'm just so sorry you had to die for it to happen.  I am so so sorry."

"I know, dad," I said, "and I, I love love you."

"I love you, too, Anna," he said, and he gave me a big hug.

I had to wipe tears away from my eyes yet again when we parted and I said, "Dad, I want to help you.  I want to help you move on from this plane before you fade away or go crazy or whatever else bad stuff might happen."

"Okay," my dad said without hesitation.  "But how do I do that?"

"You're supposed to unlock your soul, find your key, escape this plane," I said, remembering the words that William the cop ghost had told me what seemed like an eternity ago but was really just yesterday.

"What does that mean?" my dad asked.  "I'm supposed to unlock my soul to get a key, not get a key to unlock my soul?"

"That's how it was said to me," I replied.  "Honestly, I don't really know.  I'm new to this."

"And him," my dad asked, glancing over at Adam.

"That's Adam," I said.  "He's new to this, too."

"How did you two meet?" my dad asked.

I sighed.  "It's a bit of a story I don't really want to get into right now," I said.  I glanced at Adam and he looked a bit relieved at not having to explain to my father his role in my death.  I gave him a brief smile and turned back to my dad.  "Let's focus on you," I said.  "You've been here the longest.  If you're still here, I think it means you have some sort of unfinished business.  Do you know what it might be?"

"Well, I would think it would be your mom and you kids, making sure you were taken care of, but you all seem okay to me now, I mean, other than the fact that you're dead and all, so I don't know what it could be."

"Are you sure mom's okay?" I asked.

He nodded.  "I mean, she was broken up at first, but she seems to be dealing.  She has friends and she goes out or they come over.  There were a ton of people coming over here after your funeral.  She was so sad and I wanted to hug her and comfort her and tell her I was sure it would be okay, but I couldn't and I didn't have to because so many people gave her the love I couldn't anymore."  He sighed.  "I'm gone and you're gone, but mom isn't alone.  She's had it rough, but I've seen her coping.  I mean right now, she's there in the dining room, eating a dinner she cooked herself and reading a novel, just like she used to do before you died, before I died even."  He sighed.  "I'm convinced she's going to make it through all this.  Honestly, I think she already has."

"I hope so," I said.  "I'm really glad to see her, to know she's doing okay."

"And your brother," dad went on.  "I'm so proud of him.  He's doing so well.  He makes a good salary based on the niceness of his house.  I saw him at work, after I passed, and he seemed to be firm yet kind with his employees.  It made me so proud."  My dad paused for a moment.  "I guess there is one thing..."  He let his voice trail off.

"What is it, dad?" I asked.

My dad frowned, looked down, and then looked back up at me.  "I had your mom, you had Todd, but Benjamin... Benjamin's never really had anyone as far as I know.  I mean, I understand that a son doesn't necessarily want to talk to his dad about his dating life, but even when I saw him when I was, well, this spirit thing, I saw there wasn't a woman, or even a man for that matter, who seemed to be a special part of his life.  He lived alone.  He kept his house clean and all that, but he lived alone."

"Benjamin did always keep to himself," I noted.  "I think he liked it better that way."

"Did he?" my dad asked.  "Or has he just been too shy to find someone?  I was so proud when I saw him at his job because he was so much more outgoing than I ever remembered him being as a kid.  I know he had friends, but only a couple, not a lot like you did.  And you, Anna, you had boyfriends, but he never had any girlfriend that he told me about."

"You really think getting Benjamin a girlfriend is your unfinished business?" I asked.

My dad shrugged.  "I dunno," he said.  "I can't really think of anything else."

"Well," I said, "I was going to go visit Benjamin next anyway, so we might as well figure out if there's something to that, but first..."

My dad smiled and placed his hand on my shoulder.  "You want to see a little bit more of your mom?"

I nodded.

"I understand," he said.

"I just don't want to get to close," I said.  "Other people have sensed my presence and if mom is really doing okay, I don't want to make her grieve again by seeing me and then having to say good-bye all over again."

"I wouldn't worry too much about that," my dad said.  "I tried to get her to sense me for months and she never did and she never has."

"Yeah, but still," I said.  "I think I'll just see how she's doing from a safe distance."

My dad gave a nod.  "Whatever makes you happy, honey," he said.  "Whatever makes you happy."


I didn't want to leave Adam awkwardly alone with my dad, so I asked him if he wanted to come with me, to which he responded, "Only if you want me to."

I nearly just blurted out, "Yes, of course I do," but upon further reflection, I realized that selfishly, I did kind-of want to do this alone.  When I didn't respond either way, unsure whether to help out Adam or help out myself, Adam saved me by smiling and saying, "Go on, it's okay.  I'll wait here."

I nodded and headed back towards the dining room.  As I went off, I heard my dad say, "So are you like a ghost boyfriend of hers now?"

I stopped for a moment, worried about what would happen next, but I heard Adam just say, "No, we're just friends trying to help each other find our keys, or whatever."

I heard a faint grunt of approval from my father, and I allowed myself to smile as I continued walking towards where I had last seen my mother.


I entered through the door to the dining room slowly.  I felt my impossible pulse quicken as I fully entered the room and noticed her shiver, but she just pulled the shawl she was wearing a bit tighter and continued reading her book.  I smiled a little to myself, wondering if she had sensed my father's presence, apart from his knowledge, in the form of feeling colder and that was why she was wearing the shawl.

Still, whether it was my father or me or both that made her shiver, I didn't want to risk alerting her to my presence, so I slide into a sitting position in the corner and just watched her.  I couldn't quite make out the title of the book she was reading, but it had a covered wagon on the cover so I figured it had something to do with the pioneer days, an era in history that I knew had always intrigued my mother.

I just sat there watching her for about an hour, and then she closed her book, placed it on a little end table she had nearby, cleared her dishes from the table and started to move towards the door I had come through, the door that led to the kitchen.  In a bit of a panic, I quickly got up and headed on into that room ahead of her, not wanted to alert her to my ghostly presence, and managed to calm myself down when she followed calmly behind and calmly put her dishes away.  Then she went back out into the living room.  I waited for a few moments and followed behind.

When I got into the living room, my mom wasn't there anymore, but Adam and my dad were still there, sitting on the couch, not looking nearly as awkward together as I had feared they might.

"She went to the bedroom," my dad said in response to my unasked question.  "It is nearly ten o'clock.  She watches the news and then she falls asleep."  A smile flitted across his face.  "That was always our routine, together," he said.  "Although when we were younger, we'd watch the late shows, too.  It's an odd comfort that she still sticks with tradition to this day."

I nodded, gave Adam a look that I hoped said, "Thank-you for being patient" and glided off down the hall to my mother's room.

This time, I just sat in the hall, waiting outside the door, listening to the news.  I was so scared she might see me or otherwise notice me that I didn't want to go in.  I really didn't want her or anyone to notice me.  I felt warm tears falling down my cold lifeless face.  I was looking down at my feet, caught up in my own thoughts and emotions so much, that it really started me when I heard a voice nearby ask, "Are you okay?"

I jolted upright and brought my hand up to my chest in sudden but brief fright.  I looked up at Adam and stated the obvious:  "You startled me."

He frowned.  "I'm sorry," he said.  "I just peaked down the hall and saw you sitting here and wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said softly, not wanting to disturb my mother.

"You're afraid she'll see you?" Adam asked, as he sat down beside me.

I nodded.

"As much as I tried to get my mother to see me and as much as your dad tried to get your mother to see him, for years even, I don't think she's going to."

I shook my head.  "I just don't want to risk it," I said.  "It seems like people are more likely to notice me than they are to notice other spirits."

"Yeah, I had kinda noticed that your presence has more of an effect on people than mine," Adam admitted, "but I figured it was just because you had been a ghost for longer."

I shook my head.  "No, I think it's more than that."

"Well, whatever it is, we can try to figure it out, together," he said.

He placed his hand on my knee, and I looked down at it, and then back up at him, puzzled.

"Sorry," he said, pulling his hand away and blushing a little.

"You don't have to apologize," I said.  "Just don't send me mixed messages."

"I'm sorry," he said again.  "I just... I wish we had met in life."

I wanted to say something more, I really did, but we were cut short by the opening of my mom's bedroom door.  In talking to Adam, I hadn't realized that the TV had been turned off and now my mom was coming out into the hallway.  I froze, my eyes probably grew wide, and I just looked straight ahead at first, but when my mother stopped right beside me, I couldn't help but look up, and I was shocked to see her looking down at me.

But just like when I had first tried to talk to Todd, she looked right through me.  It was clear she didn't see me at all.  She looked a bit puzzled herself, but not alarmed or scared.  She reached down and waved her hand right by me, and I again saw her shiver a little.  She checked the wall above my head, where I realized the thermostat was, adjusted it slightly, shrugged, and then shuffled off to the bathroom down the hall, where she was probably going to brush her teeth and make other preparations for bed.

I heard Adam beside me let out a sigh of relief.  "That seemed close," he said.

"Too close," I concluded.

"Well," he said, "I guess you were right to be nervous about her noticing you."

"Gee, thanks," I said, a bit sarcastic.

"I mean..." he began.

I looked over at him and smiled.  "I'm sorry," I said, "I didn't mean to be rude."  I sighed.  "It's been a long day and I just, I just really wish I knew how ghosts were supposed to get some rest after a day like today."

Adam shrugged.  "Maybe just go back out into the living room, sit on the couch with your ghost dad, and try to chill out a bit."

"Ha ha, very funny," I said.

"What, I?"  Then he smiled.  "Oh, he said.  Chill.  Right.  I didn't mean to make a joke."

I smiled.  "Well, you kinda did," I said standing up, "And not a very good one at that."

"Hey!" he exclaimed in a hushed tone.  "I told you I wasn't trying to make a joke.  That's why it wasn't very good."

"Well, then tell me a good one," I suggested as we started to slowly walk back towards the living room.

"Hmm," Adam pondered.  "Why did the chicken..."

"Oh brother!" I interrupted him, rolling my eyes.

"No, that's what you told Christine I was," he pointed out.

"Geeze," I replied with a bit of a chuckle.  "I guess that wasn't too bad."

With that, we emerged back into the living room to see my father stand up and look at me expectantly.  "So everything okay?" he asked.

I nodded.  "Yeah, mom almost sensed me, but everything is fine."

"You know, maybe it wouldn't be the worse thing ever if she did sense you.  Then you could say good-bye."

I shook my head.  "No, dad," I said.  "I think it's better for mom if she just think I'm really gone."  Then I thought for a moment and said, "You got to say good-bye to her, right?"

He nodded.  "Yes," he said.  "She and Benjamin were both there, you know.  I know you couldn't be there sweetie, but..."

"Dad!" I exclaimed in sudden revelation.

"I understand, it was near the end but we didn't know exactly when it was going to happen and you had been there the day before, so I understand..."

"No dad, listen," I said.  "What if I'm your unfinished business.  You said everything was fine between, us but maybe it wasn't, not really.  I think."  I sighed.  "I think maybe you wanted me to be there at the end."

He shook his head.  "It's okay, sweetie," he said.  "I understand why you weren't there."

"No, dad," I insisted.  "You're accepting that I wasn't there, but if you had a choice, you still would have wanted me to be there at the end, right?"

He looked down and to the side and then back up at me, and I saw there were tears welling up in his eyes.  "Well yeah, sweetie, of course," he said.  "I would have loved for you to be there at the end, to really say good-bye and not just 'see ya later'."

"I'm here now, daddy," I said, tears welling up in my own eyes.  "I couldn't see you while I was still alive, but I can see you now.  I can see you now, and we can say good-bye."

"Oh, Anna, honey.  I never wanted it to end this way.  I didn't want you to die to have to bring me peace," my dad said, tears now freely flowing down his face.

"I know," I said, taking a step towards him, not even trying to fight back my own tears.  "I know, daddy, but it's okay.  Really it is.  Honestly, I'm starting to be glad.  I'm glad I could see you again.  I'm glad we could say good-bye."  I took a deep breath and let it out in sigh.  "Maybe," I said.  "Maybe you're part of my unfinished business, too."

"Well in that case Anna, honey," he said.  "I want to help you move on.  I don't really care about me, but you?  I want to help you move on in anyway you can."

"Dad, I love you," I said.

"I love you, too, Anna," he said.

And we were embracing and crying right there in the middle of my mom's living rooms.  Two ghosts making a mess of it.  And my arms were wrapped firmly around his back, balled up in little fists, and then I felt something in one of them.  It was cold and felt like... I let out a gasp and took a step back.

"Anna, honey, what is it?" my dad asked.

I took another step back and unclenched my fist to reveal a small brass key.  "Anna?" my dad asked.

At this point, Adam finally stepped forward and looking at my hand said, "Oh my gosh, is that...?"

I smiled amid my tears and nodded.  "Yes," I said.  I looked at my dad.  "It's your key, daddy."

He shook his head.  "That can't be right," he said.  "It's in your hand."

"That's because I'm your unfinished business," I said, not knowing how I knew with such certainty that this was my dad's key, but knowing nonetheless.  "We have to say good-bye."

"But we only just found each other again," my dad protested.  "I don't know if I'm ready."

I shook my head.  "I know you're ready," I said.  "Otherwise this key wouldn't be here."  And before he could protest any further, I took the key that I held in my outstretched palm and pressed it to his chest, over where his heart could be, and said, "Good-bye, daddy."

Tears welled up in his eyes, but he smiled and placed his hand on top of mine.  "Good-bye, Anna," he said.  "My sweet girl.  Find your key, no matter what it takes.  And thank you."  And I watched as his fading form brightened and brightened and brightened some more until it appeared he was nothing but a bright ball of light, though I still somehow could sense his smile and a wave of peace washed over me and then he was gone and so was his key.

I just stood there, stunned for a moment, not sure what to do or say, feeling unable to move, and then finally, after what must have been several moments, I heard Adam say, "So that's it."

I nodded and reached up to wipe a stray tear from my eye.  "Yeah, I think that's it," I said.  "He's gone on to a better place."

Adam placed his hand on my shoulder and I looked up at him.  "You will, too," he said.

I nodded.  "I know," I said.  "When I'm ready.  My dad was finally ready.  I helped him get there.  But I'm not ready.  Not yet.  There's more I still have to do."

"Like....?" Adam led.

"Like say good-bye, too," I said.  "Really say good-bye.  To my mom and to Ben."

"Well your mom is right down the hall," Adam pointed out as he took his hand off of my shoulder.

I nodded.  "I know she is," I said.  "I know."  I took a deep breath and then said to Adam, "Wait here, I'll be right back."


When I got back to my mom's bedroom, I didn't just sit out in the hall listening to the TV.  For one thing, the TV was off so there was nothing to listen to.  But even if I could have just listened from the outside, I knew that wasn't enough.  So I took a deep breath and glided into the room.

When I got in there, my mom was already asleep tucked into her covers, laying on her side facing away from me.  I figured that was probably for the best.  I wasn't sure if I could do this looking into her eyes or even looking at her face.  I stood at what I hoped was a safe distance and I started to speak to her, but not really for her, it was more for me.

"Mom," I began.  "I love you, and I'm so sorry that I didn't think to come check on you sooner.  And I'm so sorry that I left you all alone when I died.  And I'm so sorry that I didn't visit you more when I was alive.  I really love you, mom, and I miss you and I know you miss me.  I just, I wish we could have said good-bye in person, like you and dad got to do, but we don't always get that, so I'm just saying good-bye now and hoping you know that I love you and know that I know how much you loved me."  I took a deep breath and glided forward towards the bed.  I was so scared I was going to disturb her, but I just felt I had to do what I was about to do.  I glided right through the bed until I was right next to her and I leaned down and kissed her gently on the cheek.  "Good-bye, mommy," I whispered in her ear.

I then I quickly glided back away and pressed myself against the wall, waiting for something to happen and fearing it would be something bad.

Several seconds ticked by and I finally felt safe to exhale the dead breath of air I had been holding in, but it seemed like as soon as I had done so, my mom stirred and then sat up in bed.  I watched in horror, pressing myself against the wall as she sat up, turned on the bedside light, and then... I expected her to look my way and freak out, but she didn't.  Instead, she pulled a small notebook from the nightstand.  I saw a soft smile on her face as she took it out and wrote down a few sentences with a pencil that she also seemed to draw from the drawer.  After she was finished, she put the pencil and notebook away, clicked off the light, and laid back down just as she had been before.  I continued to stand still and rigid for several minutes until I heard her breath soften and then a very faint snore escape her body and which point I was sure she was asleep.

I could have left just then, content with not being seen, but I felt like I couldn't help it.  I felt I just had to know what she had written down, so I very cautiously tiptoed around the bed, glanced down at her to make sure she really was asleep, which she certainly seemed to be, and then every so cautiously opened the drawer to take out the notebook I had seen her writing in.  I took it over to the window, where I could see enough to read it by the faint moonlight, and was amazed at what I read.

It turned out my mom had been keeping a dream journal, seemingly since shortly after my father died.  The pages were filled with accounts of dreams, some beautiful, some nightmares.  She had dreamed about her children getting cancer like her husband had.  She had dreamed about playing with me and Ben and a park and we were little kids again.  She had dreamed about a clown that was scary and chasing her but turned out to be nice when he caught her.  She dreamed about Sparky.  She dreamed about being a pioneer.  And when I got to that final entry that she had just written, tears welled up in my eyes again.  She had dreamed, just now as I was speaking to her, about me and dad and Benjamin, all three.  The journal simply said, "I dreamed that Anna and Roger and Benjamin were all here having dinner.  We were happy, but I knew they had to go, Roger and then Anna and then later Ben, too.  But it was okay because we were happy and we knew we would meet again."  The tears welled up in my eyes as I shut the journal and held it to my chest.  There was nothing more I had to say.  My mother's dream, the dream that I couldn't help but feel I had shared with her, had said it all.

I tip-toed back to the nightstand, slowly opened the drawer, and slid the journal back in.  I looked down at my mom one last time to see a content smile on her face, and I smiled, too.  I nodded, to her, to myself, to whatever force had inspired me to give this last gift to my mother and to myself, and the I slipped quietly away, out the door, down the hall and back to the living room.

Now it was just Adam who stood to greet me.  "Well?" he asked.

I nodded.  "I said good-bye," I said.  "I said good-bye."

And then I burst into tears and Adam was hugging me and it sounded like he was crying too, but it wasn't just tears of sadness, it was tears of joy, too, for both of us.  And when we pulled apart we both collapsed back onto the couch and breathed a sigh of relief, after which we both laughed a little at our synced up sounds.

"Well, what next?" Adam asked looking over at me.

"Now, I just need to rest here, just for a little while," I said.  "And then, go visit Benjamin."

Adam nodded.  "Okay," he agreed.  "Just let me know when you're ready."

I smiled.  "Okay," I said in return.  "And thank you, so much for everything."

He gave another nod and smiled.  "It's the least I could do," he said.

And then I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to relax as I thought of my dad and my mom and of Benjamin, my three closest family members to whom I was saying good-bye one by one, but it gave me such peace to think about it, I couldn't help but, yet again, do what should be impossible for ghosts and drift off to sleep.


This time when I opened my eyes into the strange dream world that I had seen Adam in before, Adam wasn't there.  At first I thought it was Adam, because whoever it was was standing in the same spot Adam had been before.  But it was different.  This man was taller and his hair was lighter.  And I was different, too.  I wasn't wearing the white dress.  I was wearing my normal clothes, the same clothes I wore as a spirit, the clothes I died in.

As I cautiously stepped closer, I managed to whisper to the mystery man, "Hello?"

"I didn't want this," he said in a voice I didn't recognize.  "I never asked for this gift and now, it's become a curse."

"What gift?" I asked.  Standing just a few steps behind him.

"This gift," he said, spinning around to face me.  I gasped as I recognized him.  I had never seen him before in life, but I had seen his face in death, on the computer at the police station, as the mug shot of the man who had been driving the car who killed me.  "The gift of seeing the woman I murdered," he concluded.

And then I watched in terror as flames shot up around him and he screamed in agony and then vanished.

At that, I awoke with a start and a gasp and looked over at Adam who was sitting on the couch next to me, literally twiddling his thumbs.

"What is it?  What's wrong?" he asked.

"I saw him," I said.

Adam seemed a bit confused.  "Saw who?" he asked.  "Benjamin?"

"No," I said, shaking my head.  "I saw your friend."  I turned and looked at Adam.  "The man who really killed me.  I saw..."

"You saw Philip?!" Adam exclaimed, jumping up off the couch.

I nodded.

"Does that mean... does that mean he's dead, too?" Adam asked.

"I, I don't think so," I said, slowly standing up as well.  "But I think..."

"What?" Adam asked.

"I think maybe he's a seer.  I think he can see dead people."

"What, you mean like as a punishment or something?"

"I'm not sure," I admitted.  I looked at Adam and couldn't help but wonder.... "You felt responsible," I said.

Adam frowned.  "Yes," he said.  "How could I not."

"But you weren't, not really," I said.  "Philip was the one behind the wheel."

"What's your point?" Adam asked.

"Are you... angry at him?"

Adam paused for a moment before he spoke.  "I, I suppose I am, at least a little," he admitted.  Then he looked at me with confusion.  "Aren't you?"

"I, I'm not sure," I said.  "At first, I didn't even care about him.  I was drawn..." I blushed a little and looked away.  "I was drawn to you."  I sighed and tried to regain my composure as I looked back up at him.  "My point, though, is we thought your mom was your unfinished business, but that wasn't all.  I think, I think maybe Philip has something to do with it, too."

"Yeah, I suppose, maybe," Adam replied, not sounding all that confident.  "But we can't go see him.  Not yet.  We have to go talk to Benjamin first."

I frowned.  "Why?" I asked.

"Because, he's definitely part of your unfinished business, and we need to help you first."

"Adam..."

"And besides," Adam went on, "didn't you say something about Ben living between your mom and you?  So he's on the way back to where Philip would be anyway, right?"

"Well, roughly..." I conceded.

Adam nodded definitively then.  "Well good then," he said as if that settled it.  "On to Benjamin's we go."

I felt this strong urge to protest, to get Adam to talk a bit more about Philip, but another part of me held back, felt like maybe it wasn't quite the right time.  So instead, I just nodded, and allowed Adam to lead me quietly back out into the night.


We walked through the night with me leading the way back towards where we came from, which was also towards Benjamin's apartment, or at least where I last knew his apartment to be.  I realized it was possible his lease had come up and he had moved since I last saw him, but I didn't let idle thoughts like that deter me.  Plus, I didn't want to raise anymore of what could seem like objections to Adam when he seemed determined to "fix" whatever my problems might be before we resumed working on his own.

It was about 20 minutes in when Adam suggested, "So tell me a little bit about your brother."

"Well, he's five years younger than me," I began.  "So he was in middle school when I went off to college.  We weren't super close, but we both liked animals."

"Like Sparky?" Adam asked.

I smiled, probably unseen in the darkness, and nodded.  "Yeah, like Sparky," I said.  I chuckled a little.  "Adam actually named that dog," I said.  "We got Sparky when Adam was around three, I think?  He didn't talk a lot back then, still doesn't now, but anyway, Sparky must have been the name of some TV character he watched or something.  He would point at the dog and say, 'Sparky', so the name just stuck."  I sighed.  "That dog was one thing we really did have in common.  One thing we both loved.  And he actually got more time with Sparky than I did because I went off to college and that dog lasted another three years before it passed away."  I felt a tear slowly drifting down my face and reached up to wipe it away.  I couldn't help but laugh and shake my head at my reaction to a dog.  "Despite all that had has happening," I said,  "with Todd with my dad, not to mention the fact that I am dead, I still get choked up over a dog."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Adam said.

"Did you ever have a pet?" I asked.

"Yeah, I had several," Adam replied.  "Though not all at once.  There was a hamster and then a guinea pig, or maybe it was the other way around.  Anyway, they don't live super long, either one of them.  We got a couple of beta fish when I was in middle school.  And then in high school I begged my mom to let me get a snake and she eventually agreed that I could have one if I paid for it, and she swore she wasn't going to touch the thing, but then one of my buddies got one before I did and I didn't want to look like a copy-cat so I didn't get one."  I heard him chuckle a little.  "I think my mom was pretty darn glad about that."  He sighed and then redirected back to me, "So what else is neat about your brother?"

"I wish I knew more," I said.  "He was always kinda quiet, would keep to himself.  He was more of an artistic type than I was:  drawing and writing.  He played the trumpet in high school, but I don't think he really stayed up with that.  I think he still draws sometimes.  He drew a portrait of our family once.  My mom probably still has it up in the house.  I should have shown it to you."

"That's okay," Adam assured me, though I think he probably would have liked to see it.

"Well anyway, I think Benjamin would have been an artist if he had been guaranteed to make money off of it.  He was practical, too, I think, though I really don't know if that was of his own doing or if he was just trying not to disappoint our parents or what."  I sighed.  "He did kind-of live in my shadow.  I know because the very few times that he complained about something, it was about that.  But he was a good kid, and I tried to remind him that he was his own person and didn't have to worry about following after me."

"Well, it sounds to me like he was willing enough to choose his own course in life," Adam said.

"Yeah, maybe," I conceded.  "But sometimes I still wonder how things might have been different in both our lives if he had been the older child and I had been the younger one."

"That's an interested thought," Adam admitted.  "I sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a sibling at all, but I think I turned out okay.  Well, other than being dead and all."

I laughed at that.  I was glad he was able to make jokes about our situation.  It seemed to me like he had come a long way in just two days.  Wow.  Had it really been just two days since we met?  I guess it had.

"What are you thinking now?" Adam asked to break the silence.

"Just amazed at how time flies," I said.  "Even when you're dead."

"Seems to me like especially when you're dead," Adam said.  "Which is weird since we don't sleep so you'd think time would feel slower, but whatever."

We chatted on about this and that, you know like ghosts do, for another hour or so, and then I said, "It's so quiet out here.  Just the two of us."

"And the occasional passing car," Adam pointed out, just as one drove by.

"Yeah," I said.  I cocked my head a bit to the side and pondered, "I wonder who these people are and where they are going, driving along at, what, like 3 in the morning?"

"Something like that," Adam said.

"Although I suppose..." I began, but quickly stopped myself.

"What?" Adam asked.

I shook my head.  "Nothing," I said.  But I could feel him looking at me, wondering what I had been going to say, so I shivered and then shared, "I was just thinking it wasn't much earlier than this when I got into my car and, you know."

"Drove to your death?"

I nodded.

"I know you've already forgiven me," Adam said, "but I really am sorry for the role I played in all of this."

"Me, too," I said.  "I should have never gotten into that car."  I paused and then added, "But I'm starting to wonder if maybe it was fate or destiny or something that I did."

"What do you mean?" Adam asked.

"Well, I was able to give my dad closure, to help him move on," I said.  "Apparently he never would have been able to move on until I died or became a seer or something so that he and I could speak again.  I'm sure he would have never thought of me dying as a good thing, he loved me to much for that, but I, I kind-of think it was a good thing, that I could help him."

"That's a really nice way to think about it," Adam admitted.  "I wish I had more people in my life I could help in that way."

"Maybe you do have them," I said.  "You just haven't figured it out yet."  And I thought of Philip, but I didn't dare bring it up.

We continued in silence for a bit more, and then Adam made some joke or comment or something that didn't quite stick in my brain, and we continued on with the idle chit-chat for another three hours until the first dim hint of dawn started to appear and I realized we were nearly to our destination.

"It sure does take a lot longer to go 60 miles by foot than in a car," I mused, "even when you're a ghost, but I think we're almost there."

"Good," Adam said.  "My ghostly legs where starting to get a bit fatigued."

The way he said that made me think maybe he had intended it as a joke, but I didn't really get it, so I just shrugged and continued on.  "I am a little nervous about this," I admitted.

"About seeing your brother?" Adam asked.

I nodded.  "Yeah, I mean, like I said, we weren't really that close, so I don't really know what to expect."

"Well, maybe just see how he's doing, make sure he's okay, and that will be enough for you to move on," Adam suggested.

"Yeah, maybe," I conceded, not really feeling like it would be that simple.  And honestly, I didn't want it to be that simple.  I wanted there to be something more than that.  I felt, in some odd way, like Benjamin deserved something more for living in my shadow all those years he was alive.  I wanted him to find purpose and meaning and guess I thought somehow that I might be able to help him out in my death like I felt I hadn't quite been able to in life.  And that, I realized, was probably my unfinished business, or at least part of it:  seeing what I could offer Benjamin that I never had before and making sure he really was okay.


It was actually another 90 minutes or so before we actually got to Benjamin's apartment.  I hadn't thought about how long it would take to get to his specific residence after we got into the city.  By the time we got there, the sun was shining brightly in the morning sky.  We drifted inside the apartment building, and I led Adam up the stairs to Benjamin's apartment.

"Well, he either still leaves here or left his door hanging behind," I said, pointing to the welcome sign hanging from his door.  "Another one of his art projects.  I guess it is possible he left it for the next tenants, but he probably still lives here."

"You were concerned he might not?" Adam asked sounding a bit confused.

"Oh!" I let out, realizing I had kept that thought to myself.  "Not really.  It just kind-of dawned on me that it was possible he had let his lease expire and moved somewhere else, but I didn't really think that would happen."  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly and looked over at Adam.  "Well, here goes nothing," I said.  And I closed my eyes and glided through the closed front door.

When I crossed that threshold, I opened my eyes and looked around.  I glanced back to see Adam come in behind me, and then I looked to the left at the living room and to the right at the kitchen.  I looked back towards the living room and noticed an easel on top of a tarp on the carpet.  "He must be trying out painting," I mused.

I walked past the entry way into the living room to take a look at the canvas, since it had been facing away from me.  I'm not quite sure what I expected to see painted there, but I admit that I was a bit disappointed when I saw that it was just a rather ordinary landscape.  Well, not ordinary in skill level, but ordinary in content:  lake, trees, mountain, sky.  I just simplifying it down to that is why I wasn't an artist.

"He's a good artist," Adam said, coming up behind me and looking at the painting.

For a moment, I felt a pange of jealousy, unfounded and unfair, and I cringed with guilt as it passed.  Adam must have noticed my reaction but misunderstood it because he asked, "You don't think so?"

"No, I do think so," I confided.  "I think he's very good.  I just didn't know he had taken up painting.  He's good at that, too."

"Did you tell him he was a good artist when he was alive?" Adam asked.

"Yeah, of course," I said.  "I think even when he was in college, I told him once or twice that he could major in art if he wanted to, but he ended up just getting a minor and majoring in business administration."

"That sounds boring," Adam said.

I laughed.  "Yeah, well, it pays the bills, is what Adam would say.  Though he probably could be in a more prestigious job than he is now, if you ask me."

"And where is that?" Adam asked.

"He's the manager of a department store," I said.  And then I slapped my hand to my head in sudden realization.  "And in fact, that's probably where he is now!" I exclaimed.  "Of course he wouldn't be at his apartment on a weekday morning."

"Is it a weekday?" Adam asked.

"It must be," I said, "because I don't think Ben is here."

Adam laughed.  "I think you have a bit of circular logic there," he said.  "Don't they talk about that in philosophy class?"

"No really," I said.  "But I'm only a philosophy minor anyway, so you can just hush."

Instead of hushing, Adam laughed some more.  "So should we go to this department store where Ben works then?" he asked.

"Yeah," I agreed.  "I'll just make sure he isn't sleeping in or something and then yes we should."


Ben indeed was not sleeping in, so we continued our journey on to his department store, where we found him working away.  He was filing paper work in his office when we arrived, but shortly after he had to come calm down a customer and then settle a dispute between two workers about who should have been helping the customer.  I kept a safe distance the whole time, but couldn't help but smile to myself to see him managing things so well.

"He seems to be good at this, too," Adam noted.

"Yeah," I said, feeling pride now instead of any hint of jealousy.  "He is."

We watched Ben for the rest of the day, placing orders, organizing schedules, talking with employees and customers.  I felt my pride of my little brother grow, but my feeling like he needed something more in his life was growing as well, and as his day was apparently wrapping up, though it was a bit earlier in the afternoon than I would have expected, and we watched my brother get ready to go home, Adam asked the obvious question.  "What now?"

I shrugged.  "I don't know," I said.  "I guess... I mean he does well at his job, but I already knew that.  I just always thought he should be doing something bigger.  Something grander.  I don't know how to help him find that."

"Well, maybe we should just follow him home, see what there is to see there?" Adam suggested.

"Yeah, okay," I agreed.  "That was what we originally thought we were going anyway."

"You want to just follow him to his car and catch a ride?" Adam asked.

"If I can get close enough to him without him sensing me, then sure," I said.  So we sent out on our little mission to continue stalking my brother from beyond the grave.  He didn't sense us, or at least he made no signs of sensing us, so we following him right into the backseat of his car and we were on his way.

It wasn't too long until I realized something was off.  My face must have wrinkled up in confusion or something because Adam leaned over and whispered, "What is it?"

"This isn't the way to his apartment," I whispered back.

"Maybe he's taking a different route?" Adam suggested in a hushed tone.

"No, I don't think so," I whispered back.  "I don't know where he's going."

"Well, I guess we sit back and found out," Adam said, a bit louder.

Benjamin glanced back then, and I was startled into fearing he had heard Adam, but it turned out he was just checking behind him before turning lanes.  I relaxed then, and tried to remain silent for the rest of the trip.

After about 20 minutes of driving, Ben pulled up outside of some sort of community center.  It was a little drab, and the bricks were painted a faint yellow color, but it looked spacious at least.  I continued to feel puzzled as Ben got out of the car and went up to the front door.  I saw a buzzer for a door bell there, but Ben didn't ring it.  He selected a key from his key chain, used it to unlock the door, and went right in.  I exchanged an intrigued glance with Adam and then we followed my brother inside.

What we found in that community center amazed and inspired me.  We followed Ben down a long hallway that opened up into a large room filled with probably two dozen kids and one adult supervising.  Half of them started shouting wildly when they saw Ben, while the other half just looked up from their easels and sketch pads and smiled.  Ben smiled back and laughed as he started conversing with the more rambunctious children.  Those who weren't already drawing or panting or playing with play soon were after Ben arrived, and Ben walked around the room, checking on each student, as it became apparent to me that that was what they were, and commented on their work, gave them words of encouragement, told them how much their mother or friend or whoever they were creating something for would love their creation.

What amazed me most was that Ben not only knew every child by name, but also seemed to know about people in their life:  friends, siblings, parents, even pets.  He asked some kids how math class was going and when they grumbled, told them how math was just as valuable as art.  Other kids who didn't do as good of a job with the art, he still praised and encouraged.  Some of them he guided.  There was a kid who wanted to learn how to draw a bicycle and Ben sat down with him and showed him how.

I was simply dumbstruck at what I saw.  My shy, rather reclusive brother, was out there connecting with all these kids.  His timid nature actually seemed to help him here, enable him to draw out the shyer kids.  And they all seemed to love him.  I felt my eyes start to well up, and then I felt Adam's hand on my shoulder.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah."  I nodded.  "I just had no idea.  Ben never talked about any of this."

"Sometimes people keep the good things they do private," Adam said.

I nodded again.  If I had done something like this, I would have told my mom who would have told Ben.  Things would have gotten around.  But apparently Ben never told anyone.  And here he was changing lives for the better.  How could I have ever thought he needed to do something more with his life?  He was doing more with his life than I have ever done with mine.

I watched as he continued to work with the children, and then one by one, their parents came to pick them up.  It was just about 6pm when the last student left.  The lady, probably in her late 40s, who had been supervising thanked Ben for all he did for the children, wished him a pleasant evening, and said she would see him again on Friday.  Ben seemed a bit more awkward around her than he had with the kids, but he wished her a good night as well and departed.

I was just frozen there for a moment until it dawned on me that Ben was leaving and I realized I really wanted to know where he was going to go next.  That, and Adam nudged me to see if I wanted to follow him and since I did, we hurried on out to his car and got in for the next leg of our journey.

After that display, the next part was fairly anti-climactic, but it still brought me happiness.  Ben called in and then went and picked up a food order from a little cafe not far from his apartment and then brought it back to his apartment.  It looked so delicious and I felt my mouth start to water.

"I wish I could still taste things," Adam mused as we watched my brother eat.

"Yeah, me too," I concurred.

As Adam ate, he was listening to something on his phone.  I dared to get close enough to peak over his shoulder and saw it was a podcast about music.  I guess he did still enjoy that kind of thing, I figured.

Just as Ben was finishing up his meal and throwing out his trash, there was a knock on his door.  When he answered it, he smiled politely at the older woman, probably in her 60s, standing there.  I heard Ben say, "Yes, I have it all ready to go."  And then he led her into his apartment and showed her that landscape he had painted.

"Oh it's beautiful," the woman said, clasping her hands in joy.  "It's just like the photo."

Ben smiled, took something, the photo, it turned out, from a drawer in his end table, and handed it to her.  "Yes, and thank you for letting me use the photo for reference," he said.

"Thank you so much for painting this!" the woman exclaimed.  "My husband will love this!"

"Would you like me to help you carry it to your car?" Ben asked.

"Oh yes please," she said.

Adam and I followed a moderate distance behind and watched as Ben loaded the painting into the back seat of the woman's car, covered it with a clear tarp, made sure it was secure, and then told her it was good to go.

"Thank you again," the woman said.  She handed him a check.  "This really didn't seem like enough," she added.

"Oh, it is just fine," Ben said.  "I was happy to help."

The woman gave one last big smile, and then got into her car and drove away.

I watched Adam go up and peak over Ben's shoulder.  Adam's eyes grew in surprise and then he went back over to me and said.  "He sold that thing for only $40.  On canvas?  That good?  It should be worth more than that, right?"

"A lot more," I said.  I watched my brother look at the check and smile, and I smiled, too.  "But somehow I don't think Benjamin really minds."

I watched as Benjamin turned and went back towards his apartment building.  "Should we follow him?" Adam asked.

I shook my head.  "No," I said.  "I don't think I have any unfinished business here.  My brother is doing good."  Then I raised my voice and called out after him, "You're doing good, little brother."

A wind blew past just then, and I watched my brother shiver and glance back momentarily, but he still didn't see me.  He just pulled the jacket he was wearing a bit closer, then unlocked the door to his apartment building, and went inside.

"So if your brother wasn't part of you getting your key..." Adam began.

"I think we need to go back home," I said.

"To Todd?" Adam asked.

I shook my head.  "No," I said.  "I think maybe it's time for me, for us, to talk to Philip."

Adam seemed a bit unsure about that as he said, "Okay... If that's really what you think will help you."

"I do," I said.  "I really do."

"Okay, then let's do it," Adam said.  And he took a deep breath, let it out, and led the way.


To get all the way back "home" would have been a multi-day walk, so we decided to start hitching rides in cars again.  It didn't seem quite as novel and exciting as it had the day before, but it was still better than walking alongside the road.  I was a little nervous still about someone being able to see us, like Christine had, but nothing like that happened this time.  We made it back to where we were headed without incident.  I knew it was after we got back that the incidents were sure to begin, as we were going to talk to the man who was most responsible for my death, but was still alive and in prison, and, if my vision could be believed, might possibly be a seer who could see us.

When we got back to the city, to our city, Adam said, "Well, that was quite the journey.  Maybe we should take it easy.  Follow up with Philip tomorrow."

I stared at him for a good long while and then calmly asked, "Do you really think this will be any easier tomorrow?"

He sighed and looked down at this feet.  "No, probably not," he admitted.  He looked back up at me.  "Alright, where do we find him?"

"I'm not entirely sure," I said, "but I know where we can go to find out."

The bus we took to the police station was seer-free, which actually disappointed me a bit.  I had hoped to again see my first seer, the old lady who had originally directed me to this concept of keys and escaping this plane, but she was not there, and no one else on the bus seemed to take heed of us.  I reflected that it was odd how many seers I had encountered early on in this whole mission and how I had encountered none now, but I figured that was okay, since we were about to visit a possible one.

When we got off at the stop near the police station, we walked the rest of the way, and then I led Adam right in through the front door.

When I entered the station, I saw William, bent down by that little girl who was still just standing there in the middle of the room.  I watched her eyes move up from the fixed straight ahead position they had been to look up at me, which William must have also noticed, because he turned and looked at me.  "You're back," he said simply.  "And you're still here, so there must be more that you are looking for.  And you brought a friend."

I nodded.  "Yes, to all of those things.  I'm ready now."

"Ready?" William asked.

"Ready to face the man who was most responsible for my death."

William nodded.  "The DUI," he said.  "Come on, I'll show you where you can find him.  But there's something you should know first..."

"He's a seer," I said.

William seemed a bit surprised.  "Yes, he's a seer," he confirmed.  "I didn't know myself, but after you left the other day, I went to go check on him and he, he could see me.  He told me to get away and that he didn't want to see 'us' anymore."  William sighed.  "If your unfinished business is with him, it may take some time to be it resolved."

I glanced at Adam who looked positively mortified, and I placed a hand on his shoulder.  "That's okay," I said, looking back at William.  I gave Adam's shoulder a squeeze.  "We'll get through it together."

William looked us over for just a moment and then gave a nod of confirmation.  "Very well," he said, "This way."  And he led us past the main office and down some back stairs to what would have been a dungeon in days gone by but in this modern age, was in fact a holding area for criminals.

"He had been out on bail," William said, as we walked past some empty cells.  "But just days before you came to me, he came back to the police, begging to be locked up again.  I guess, I guess he was seeing spirits everywhere, and couldn't stand it.  He just wanted to get away."  William sighed and looked up at me.  "He is not going to be happy to see you."

"Probably not at first," I said.  "But this is necessary - for all of us."

William nodded and pointed further down the hall.  "He's at the very end," he said.  "I, I don't think I can bear to go the rest of the way."

"That's okay," I said.  "We'll take it from here."  So William parted ways and Adam and I continued on, with me in the lead, glancing back every so often just to make sure Adam was still there.

We passed some men and women in cells, sleeping or fidgeting.  None of them saw us, but when we got to the very end of the hall, to the final cell, we saw someone who would.

He was looking down when we walked up, but I saw him shiver, and then start to tremble.  "Hello, Philip," I said, trying to sound kind and nonthreatening.  Adam was hiding behind me.

He slowly looked up at me.  His hands were folded but twitching.  His hair was a oily mess, and this eyes were sunken and empty looking.  Shadows fell across his face from the dim yellow light in the cell.  "Please," he whispered in a raspy voice.  And then he said something else that I couldn't quite make out.

"What is it, Philip?" I asked, feeling an overwhelming sense of sorrow for the supposed monster who had killed me.  I stepped up close to the cell door and grasped the cold metal bars.

He stood up, shakily, and walked up to me, weakly holding up a trembling hand and grasping a bar himself, seemingly for balance so that he didn't fall over.  "Please, make it stop," he whispered in that same raspy voice.  "I don't want to see them anymore."

I didn't have to ask what he meant.  I knew he meant the ghosts.  "I'm sorry, Philip," I said.  "I don't know how to do that."

"I thought you could help me," he muttered.  "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Then I hear a meek voice behind me.  "Philip?"

I glanced back and saw Adam stepping out from his hiding place, coming to stand at my left side.  Philip's eyes grew wide.  He let go of the iron cell door bar and stumbled backwards, falling back to a sitting position on the cot in his cell.  "No," he said a bit more loudly than before, shaking his head wildly.  "No, no no.  I didn't want you to die."  He looked up at both of us.  "I didn't want either of you to die.  I just wanted it to stop."

A realization swept over me.  Philip had been awakened or chosen as a seer not after I died, but long before.  Had he...?  "Philip, what happened that night?" I asked tenderly.

He gripped his mattress and looked down as he shook his head.  "I'm sorry," he muttered.  "I'm so sorry.  I just wanted it to stop."

"The visions?" I asked.  "Of the people?"

He looked up and nodded, his eyes wide in terror.  "I didn't, I didn't know what they were," he muttered, "until... until I saw that girl."

"Her?" Adam asked, pointing at me.

He shook his head.  "No," he said.  "That girl on the news... before... who drowned.  I saw her back alive, but not alive.  And then I started to see them more and more."  He looked at me again, begging, "Please make it stop."

"I, I can't," I told him.

He closed his eyes and shook his head.  "Then no one can," he said.  His voice was starting to sound a little bit less raspy, as if he was regaining a small bit of his composure.  "No one can."

"Philip, how long has this been going on?" I asked delicately.

He looked up at me.  "A year," he said.  I knew then for sure that he had been seeing these ghosts for months before I was killed.

"And, and no one talked to you?  No one told you what you were seeing?" I asked.

He shook his head.  "I, sometimes, before, I would see someone and talk to them and a friend would say, 'Who are you talking to?' and then the other person, would be gone.  It was, I don't know, I didn't know what to do.  I just... I started to keep it to myself."

"Philip," Adam said his eyes growing wide in realization, "I remember, that once at the coffee shop."

Philip nodded and looked down at his feet again.  I saw his shoulders trembling.  "I learned to keep it to myself," he muttered.

I watched as Adam approached his friend at that, right through the bars, he went up and sat right next to him, and placed his hand on Philip's shoulder.  I watched Philip shutter and start to move away, but then he leaned back over and let Adam try to comfort me.  "Phil, I'm so sorry," Adam said.   "You should have told me."

"Wouldn't have believed me," Philip muttered.

Adam sighed and frowned.  "No, I suppose I wouldn't have," he said as he looked down at his feet.  Then he looked back up at me.  "What do we do now?" he asked.  All his anger and fear seemed to have faded, replaced just with sorrow.

I shook my head.  "I still don't know," I said.  "All I can think to do..."  I sighed and closed my eyes.  Then I stepped forward into the cell as well and opened my eyes again.  I knelt down in front of Philip, trying to look him in the eyes, but he avoided my gaze.  "Philip," I said gently.  "Please, what can you tell me about that night?"

Philip shook his head.  "I was trying," he said.  "Trying to act normal.  All those months, just trying.  But I, I couldn't..."  He sighed and glanced sideways at Adam.  "I wanted to tell someone, but I couldn't... I couldn't..."

I frowned and let out a deep sigh myself.  "You couldn't do it sober," I said.

Philip hung his head and just nodded.  There was silence for a moment, and then he just muttered again, "I am so, so sorry."

I paused for a moment, collecting my thoughts, and then, looking right at Philip, I said, "Philip, I forgive you."

He looked up at me, a look of shock on his face.  "B-but how?" he asked.

I smiled and shrugged.  "I just do," I said.

"I-I forgive you, too," Adam said.  And I looked over at him and saw tears streaming down his face.  "And I, I'm sorry, too.  I should have been a better friend."

Phil shook his head.  "Not possible," he muttered.  Then he looked over at Adam and said in a nearly normal voice, "You were a great friend."

I scooted back on the floor and watched as the two of them embraced.  It was a beautiful moment, even though one of them was dead and the other would be thought to be crazy.  When they pulled back apart, they were both wiping tears from their eyes.  "I wish I could help you, buddy," Adam said.  "But I don't know how."

"Make it stop," Philip said, simply.

"Yeah, I know," Adam said.  "But I don't know how."

I sighed.  "Yeah, neither of us do," I said.  "But maybe there's someone who does."  I stood back up.  "Wait here," I said.  "I'll be back."

And I left the two friends in the cell together as I ran back up the stairs to find William.


When I got back upstairs, William was again kneeling by the little girl with the teddy bear, just looking at her, as she looked off into the distance.  "William," I said.

He turned to look at me and stood up.  "Yes?"

"We need your help," I said.

"How so?" he asked.

"Philip," I said.  "Making him a seer - I think it was a mistake."

William shook his head.  "That's way above my pay grade," he said.  "I have nothing to do with choosing seers.  I don't even know how they're chosen exactly.  I think it's just... dormant in them since birth."

"Isn't there a way to unseer a seer?" I asked.

William again shook his head and pursed his lips.  "Not that I know of," he said.  "I've never seen it happen."

"But it's not fair," I protested, "that some people would just start seeing the spirits.  What if they can't handle it?  What if they go insane?"

William shrugged.  "I can't help you with that," he said.  "Life isn't fair."  He glanced back at the little girl.  "And death isn't either."  He looked back at me and sighed.  "Besides," he said, "I'm here to help the dead, not the living."

"The living are just dead in waiting," I protested.

He smiled, just a little.  "Very poetic," he said.  "But it doesn't change the fact that I can't help."

As he turned away from me, I followed his gaze back to the little girl, and saw that she was looking not at him, but at me.

"I'm sorry," I said.  I saw William turn back, out of the corner of my eye, but I wasn't looking at or talking to him anymore.  I was addressing her, the girl.  I took a step towards her.  "I didn't mean to frighten you."

She clasped her teddy bear tight to her chest and stared down at it.  I slowly walked up to her and knelt beside her as William silently stepped aside.  "I used to have a bear a lot like that when I was a little girl," I said.  "I named mine 'Teddy'."

She looked up at me and I saw just the flicker of a smile.  "Mine is 'Teddy', too," she said.

I smiled big and wide.  "Well how about that!" I exclaimed in a gentle done.  I held my hand out towards the bear.  "It's very nice to meet you, Teddy.  I'm Anna."

The girl smiled a bit more and held out one of the bear's paws so I could shake it.  After that, I glanced up at the girl and said, "Do you think 'Teddy' could tell me how you ended up here."

The girl shook her head.  "He doesn't know," she said.  "We were sleeping and then we woke up and we were coughing and it was hot and there was smoke and I tried to call for mommy and daddy, but I couldn't and there was smoke and then I fell asleep again and I woke up outside this building so I came in and Teddy and I don't know where mommy and daddy are."  And then she started crying.  I felt so bad, but I felt a little tinge of pride, too, at having gotten her to reveal so much.  I held out my arms to her and she graciously accepted my hug.  After she calmed down a little bit, I released her.  She took a step back and rubbed her eyes with the hand that wasn't holding the bear.  She looked at me and asked, "Can you help me find my mommy and daddy?"

I smiled.  "Of course we can," I said.  And I glanced back at William who was standing a few steps back in stunned silence.  "Do you see that man?" I asked, pointing at him.  I looked back at her and saw her nod and I went on, "He's a police officer, and he's here to help people like you.  Not everyone can see you right now, but he can.  And he's going to help."  I looked back at William again, and gave a bit of a glare.  "Right, William?" I asked.

"Y-yes of course," he said stumbling forward.

I looked back and saw the girl looking a little frightened again, so I reached out and held her hand.  She let me.  "It's okay," I said.  "I promise he's here to help."

"But he's not dressed like a normal policeman," she said.  "My daddy doesn't dress like that."

"Your daddy is a cop?" I asked.

She nodded.  "For the..." and she recited the name of the police force, which she had clearly memorized.

My eyes grew wide in surprise.  "Well that's a long ways away from here," I said.  "The policemen might dress differently way over there.  And William is from a long ways away, too.  That's why he looks so different."

"It is?" the little girl asked.

I nodded.  "It is," I said.  "But William can help you, I promise."

She let go of my hand and held out just her pinky.  "Pinky promise?" she asked.

I smiled and wrapped my little finger around hers.  "Pinky promise," I confirmed.

She smiled and looked up at William.  "You'll help me find my mommy and daddy?" she asked.

"Yes of course I will, sweetheart," he said.  And I saw he was starting to tear up just a little.  He looked over at me and whispered, "Thank-you."

I returned his thanks with a straight face and a nod.  "That's how it's done," I whispered.  "And I help the dead AND the living."  And before he had a chance to say anything more, I looked down at the little girl, smiled and said, "Officer William's going to help you now.  I need to go help someone else."

"Okay," she said with a cute little nod, hugging her bear again.  And I turned and marched off downstairs, realizing that it was up to me and Adam to make a difference in Philip's life.  And with the adrenaline pulsing through my body from having just helped that little girl, I really felt like a direct approach was in order.

As I marched back down through the cells, I cried out before I even got to the end of the hall, "Philip!"  When I got there, I saw that Adam and Philip were both just sitting on the cot, both looking up at me, seemingly stunned.

I decided to glance at Adam before I continued.  He just frowned and shook his head, so I turned back to Philip and said, "Philip, you need to shape up."

"Wha-" he began.

I didn't let him finish.  "People are depending on you," I said.  "You've been given a gift.  You're able to help them.  You shouldn't be trying to make it stop.  You should be trying to use it."

Then I let him talk, but he was just stunned into silence at first.  Then he said, "But how?"

I glided into the cell at sat down on his other side opposite Adam.  He turned to look at me as I spoke.  "The people you're seeing, the ghosts?  They're all lost.  They need help finding their way out of this plane.  They're looking for keys to unlock their way out.  They have unfinished business or something else they have to do before they can pass on.  Other living people can't see them, but you can.  They can't talk to other living people, but you can.  You can talk to both sides.  It's an amazing gift.  Don't you see?  You can help people."  I sighed.  "What do you do for a living?" I asked.

"You mean before I ruined my life?" he asked.

I shook my head.  "You didn't ruin it," I said.  "You just... you started a transition to something better.  What did you do?"

"I was just a office grunt," he said.  "I worked for a law firm, but I was just an assistant."

"That's perfect!" I exclaimed.

He eyed me suspiciously.  "It is?" he asked.

"Can you imagine being able to help the dead get justice or find answers?  Wouldn't having connections to a law firm help with that?"

"I suppose," he skeptically admitted.  "But it doesn't matter.  I'm going to jail, for at least a year.  My trial is next week and of course I'm going to plead guilty, admit I had been drinking and all that.  It's stupid that it took this long just to get time to have a judge hear me say I'm guilty."

"But maybe this all happened for a reason," I said.

He smirked a little and eyed me suspiciously.  "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean, it's terrible what you did," I assured him, "don't get me wrong.  But I, I want to make the most of the situation.  I want to help you so you can help others.  And so you go to jail for a while.  Who knows?  Maybe you'll see spirits in there that you can help."

"That sounds terrifying," he said, eyes growing wide.

"I know," I said.  "It does.  But this is your chance to help people.  Clean up your act.  Use your time away from it all to get your mind right.  Then you can really get down to business."

"And what about you?" he asked.  "And Adam?  Will you be around to help me out."

"I don't know," I truthfully answered.  "We're trying to find our own keys.  To move on.  So really, it would be better if we weren't.  But you can do this.  You can sober up, learn how to handle talking to spirits no one can see and the people the spirits can't talk to, and you can really make a difference."

He thought about it for a moment and then he smiled and gave a nod.  "Okay," he said.  "You're right.  I can do this.  I mean, it won't be easy, but... But I think I can start right now.  I think I know part of Adam's unfinished business."

"Philip!" I heard Adam exclaim.

Philip ignored that and just smiled at me.  "My buddy Adam is in love with you," he said.

"Phil!" I heard Adam shout again and he jumped up off the cot.

Philip continued.  "When you left," he said.  "I made some comment about how determined you seemed and he said you were amazing and then we just talked about you until right before you came back."  He shook his head.  "I've seen this before, with other girls, but this seems different.  He really, really wants to be with you."  And Philip looked up at his buddy.  "Sorry, man," he said.  "I had to tell her."

I looked up at Adam myself and saw that he was positively mortified.  I stood up and looked at him.  I didn't say a word, and he just started talking.  "Well yeah, I mean I like you," he began.  "But you already knew that.  I mean, you know, we kissed that one time, but that was wrong and you know, we really should just be friends because you know we're dead and all, but I don't know, I do really like you and I wish, I just wish we could explore it more, but we don't know, we don't know how long we'll be here and if we stick around to be together it will mean trouble, and I don't know, I just can't."

I didn't know what to say to any of that.  But I heard Phil's voice behind me say, "Of course you can, buddy.  If I can overcome the sights and the voices and help people, the least you can do is give it a shot with this girl.  Who says death has to be the death of love and romance?  No one.  That's who."

I felt my pulse racing as I couldn't take my gaze off of Adam.  He looked nervous and I saw him sweating, which was another bodily function I would have thought was impossible for a ghost.  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, the fear seemed to have faded, or at least calmed a bit.  He smiled at me and said, "Screw it."

And the next thing I knew, we were caught up in an embrace and he was kissing me passionately, way beyond what I had done to him just a couple days again.  It was so amazing.  Not to speak ill of the living, but the thought flitted through my mind that he was an even better kisser than Todd, and then something happened that threatened to ruin it all.

When we finally pulled apart, Adam was grinning ear to ear, but my happiness had been overcome with the reality of what was about to happen.  He surely saw the dismay on my face, and his countenance fell as well.  "What is it?" he asked, sounding really concerned.

I sighed and pulled my hand out from behind his back.  I uncurled my fingers from the fist they had made to reveal a small brass key.

"Is that?" he asked.

I nodded.  "It's your key," I said.  "Apparently giving me the greatest kiss of my life and afterlife was your unfinished business."

"But I don't want to go," he protested.  He glanced at Philip.  "Not when Phil finally convinced me to give us a shot."

I shook my head and frowned.  "I don't want you to go either," I said.  "But apparently that willingness to give us a shot was also the thing that will let you move on away from me."

"But you should be moving on, too," Adam argued.  "We should be moving on together.  It's not fair."

I took a deep breath and let it out.  I glanced down at my feet.  "Life isn't fair," I said.  "And death isn't either.  But I don't want to hold you back.  I can't hold you back.  Love doesn't do that."  And then I looked back up at him and pressed the key to his heart just like I had with my father.

He looked shocked at first, but then his face softened.  He closed his eyes for a moment, and opened them again.  He seemed to be filled with peace and calm.  "Thank-you," he said, and he reached out to stroke my hair affectionately.  "I hope you get this soon, too."  He looked at Philip and nodded.  "Thanks, buddy," he said.  Then he looked back at me, and pressed his hand firmly over mine where the key was.  "See you on the other side," he said with a bittersweet smile.  And then there was a bright flash of light, blindingly bright, and when it faded away, Adam was gone with it.

"Holy-" I heard Philip exclaim behind him.

I looked back at him with tears in my eyes.  He was standing now, jaw dropped, eyes wide.

"Is that what it's like?" Philip asked.  "Is that what happened when they cross over or move on or whatever?"

"With the two I've seen so far," I said.

"There was such..."  He sighed and looked directly at me.  "It was good," he said.  "You were right.  I can do good."

I smiled as the tears welled up and started to spill over.  "Yes, you can."  I said.

Then he frowned and looked down.  He seemed to be thinking and then he looked back up at me.  "But what about you?" he asked.  "Adam was right.  It's not fair.  If his unfinished business was to admit he could be with you, then he should be with you."

I sighed and shook my head.  "I don't know," I said.  "I've done all I thought I should do.  I've said good-bye to my old boyfriend, seen my family, all my family.  I helped Adam.  Heck, I even helped a little girl up there."  I pointed through the ceiling to the precinct above. "I don't know what else there is."

"Is there anyone else you need to talk to?" he asked.

I shook my head.  "I thought, a little while ago, that maybe I needed to say good-bye to my friends, but after seeing my family..."  I shook my head again.  "I know they'll all be fine."

"Well there has to be something," Philip protested.

I thought for a moment.  "Well there was...."  I trailed off.

"What?" he asked.

I didn't answer him, but I was thinking back to the bus, to the woman who had handed me the note.  I realized I had stuffed it into my pocket and still had there, so I pulled it out and read it again, silently, to myself.  It said the same thing it had said before:  "You need him, but he doesn't need you."

"What is that?" Philip asked.

I looked over at him.  "It's a note, from someone I thought was trying to help me.  I'm just trying to figure out what it means," I said.  I thought about it.  I had thought it meant Adam before, but clearly that was wrong.  It was completely backwards with Adam.  He had needed me to move on, but apparently I hadn't needed him to move on.  Had the woman on the bus gotten it reversed?  She was only human.  She could have messed up.  But the way she talked to me... I shook my head.  "You need him, but he doesn't need you," I muttered.

"Him who?" Philip asked, echoing my million dollar question.  "Me?"

At that, I looked up from the note to him in total surprise.  "I mean, I did need you," Philip was saying.  "You woke me up from my stupor, just now, but..."

"But you don't need me anymore," I said, completing the thought.  He nodded.

"So I read this note right now," I mused.  "'You need him, but he doesn't need you.'  I need you to... to what?"

"To help you find your key, I assume," Philip said.  "To move on?  To remind you of something else you're supposed to do?"

To remind me of something else I'm supposed to do.  I reflected on that for a moment.  Then my eyes grew wide in sudden realization.  "Oh my gosh!" I exclaimed.

"What?" Philip asked.

"Christine!" I exclaimed, throwing my arms up in the air.

"Who?" Philip asked.

"Another seer," I said, "like you, but she doesn't know she's a seer yet.  Can you imagine, if someone had been able to help you come to terms with being a seer before..."

Philip smirked.  "Before I ended up here?" he asked.  "Yeah, I wouldn't be here."

I nodded.  "And I'm sorry about that, but you, you've helped multiple people today.  Adam, me, and Christine, because I'm going to find her and do what I should have done before:  explain to her what's going on."

"You think she'll be able to handle it?" Philip asked.

"I don't know," I said.  "But I have to at least try.  Just like I did with you."

"Except maybe not so harsh," Philip suggested.

I laughed.  "Yeah," I agreed, smiling despite the tears that still lingered on my face from the loss of Adam.  "Yeah, it will be different with her.  I agree."

"Well then what are you waiting for?" Philip asked.  "Go on and help her.  Get your unfinished business done, and I hope to never see you again."

I laughed.  "Yeah, me, too," I said.  I held out my hand.  "Good luck, Philip," I said.

He took my hand and shook it.  I knew he would look like a total loon to anyone watching, but I don't think either of us cared in that moment.  "You, too," he said.  "And thank you."

"It won't be easy," I reminded him.

"I know," he said.  "It's up to me now."

"Oh, and if you do need help," I added, "that old timey police ghost, William?  He'll be around.  He's special, tasked with helping the dead.  He thinks he's not here for the living, but I think he'll come around when he realizes helping you is helping the dead as well."

Philip laughed.  "Okay," he said.  "Whatever you think is best.  Good-bye, Anna."

I smiled.  "Good-bye, Philip," I said, and I turned and walked away, though my walk quickly quickened and turned to a run as I rushed up the stairs, all too eager to get to Christine before something bad might happen as she discovered what she had become.


The problem with my plan was that I didn't know where to find Christine.  I knew that she lived somewhere in the wide vicinity of my mother's house and I knew that she had cause to be driving on the interstate outside the city where she and my mother lived.  I tried to think back to all the talking she had done while I was in the car with her.  I really should have paid more attention.

I remembered she said something about a specific park she really enjoyed.  I could go look for her there.  I remembered she said her mother lived on a little homestead out in the country, which was why she had been driving on the interstate that day, it must have been Sunday, that I saw her.  I remembered that she was married and lived with her husband but he was away on business, had left for a trip the morning of the day she picked us up, and was going to be gone the whole week.  I remembered that she had four brothers and sisters scattered across the country, though I was sure that wouldn't help me find her.  I remembered she had a dog.  That might help a little... I could at least run around in circles looking for a dog.  I wished she had shared her last name, though of course it makes sense for someone picking up hitchhikers not to do that.  I wished she had said where she worked or even what she did for a living, but I didn't remember her saying that either.  She did talk about some of her co-workers, but the names all ran together and I couldn't remember anything that would give me a hint as to where she worked.

I sighed as a bus pulled up and I hopped on.  I figured I would take the bus as close as I could to the interstate and then just walk and ghost-hike the rest of the way, keeping a lookout for Christine or her car, if I could at least remember what it looked like.  When I got into the bus, I felt a thrill and a sense of reassurance to see a familiar face sitting in the back of the bus.

"Come here, dear," Martha called out excitedly.

I blushed in embarrassment, even though no one else could see me.  Other people could see, Martha though, because I heard her say, "No, not you, dear."

I glanced back and saw a rather confused woman pointing to herself, who then just lowered her arm, shook her head and found a seat on the bus.  Martha nodded to me and I, still feeling embarrassed enough for the both of us, but also still glad to see her, walked back and sat down on the seat next to her.

"So how are you doing?" Martha asked in a much more discrete whisper.  "Did you find what you were looking for?  I mean, surely not all of it, since you're still here and all."  She chuckled to herself at what she must have thought was her own cleverness.

"I've found quite a lot, actually," I told her.  "But there's at least one more thing I still need to do.  I need to find a particular seer."

She held out her hands and announced, "Well, here I am."

I smiled.  "Well, a different particular seer."

"Oh, I see, dear, I see," she said, face serious, nodding emphatically.  "Yes, yes.  I see."

I wasn't sure that Martha really did see, but I went on anyway.  "The problem is I don't know exactly where to find her."

Martha nodded some more.  "Yes, that is a problem," she agreed.  She let out a little sigh followed by a slight hick-up.  "Oh, pardon me," she said, bringing her hand up to her mouth to excuse herself.  She sighed one more and when no hick-up followed, she gave a pleased little nod.  "Well, you've had a long day," she said looking over at me.  "Why don't you just take a little rest."  And she patted her shoulder.

I felt a bit odd, but I felt like a little rest would be nice.  "Yeah, okay," I agreed.  And I closed my eyes and leaned my head against Martha's welcoming shoulder.

When I opened my eyes again, there was a thick fog all around me, but as I looked from side to side and then up and down, I saw I was standing on a sidewalk near an intersection.  It wasn't the intersection I'd seen in these visions before, though.  It wasn't the intersection where I died.  This intersection was in a residential neighborhood.  I looked up and saw the street signs, right where they crossed.  118th and Elm, I saw the signs said.  Then I turned away from the street, where I had been facing, and looked at the house on the corner.  It was painted a pale blue with yellow trim.  I tried to figure out where or even if I had seen this house before, when a car pulled into the driveway, a familiar car, and my heart skipped a beat.

Sure enough, as the car door opened, a familiar woman from my very recent past stepped out.  She reached back in to grab some bags of groceries and carried them towards the front door of the house.  She didn't look my way, didn't give any hint of noticing me at all, but I noticed her, and if this vision was to be trusted, that was enough.

I felt myself jolted awake and I sat bolt upright back on the bus.  I looked over at Martha as I reoriented myself.  She smiled at me.  "So, what did you see?" she asked pleasantly.

"Where I need to go," I said.

She nodded.  "Isn't it nice when that happens?" she said.  Then she looked towards the front of the bus.  "I believe this is your stop, dear.  After this the bus turns and goes back downtown."

I simply nodded back, still a bit dazed from what had just happened, but stood and walked, feeling a bit in a fog, towards the front of the bus.  I glanced back at Martha and she gave a little wave of her fingers and a big grin.  I smiled back and gave her a thankful nod in return and then turned and hopped off the bus.


From there, I went back to the ghost-hiking, walking by the side of the road for a bit, waiting for a car I could hop into, mostly by the on ramps where they weren't up to full speed yet.  This time, though, I tried something a little different.  I actually did the whole hitch-hikers thumb thing, looking for anyone who might be able to see me, who was a seer I could possibly help, but no one saw me this time.

After a few hours of hopping in and out of cars (just a couple to get to the city and a few to get closer to the neighborhood I was headed to), I found myself standing on the corner of 116th and Cedar, just a few blocks away from my destination.  I felt nervous and scared, yet also excited.  I walked towards the blue house with yellow trim where I was quite sure I would find Christine.

When I got there, I stood right where I had in my vision, looking up at the street signs crossing.  I looked at the house.  It looked dark inside.  Maybe Christine wasn't home from work yet.  I looked up at the sky, trying to judge the time, but I wasn't really sure if it was 4pm or 6pm or something in between.  Well, I figured, might as well see if anyone's home.  So I walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell.

No human answered, but I did hear a dog barking.  Should I go in, have a look around? I wondered to myself.  Or should I just wait here for Christine to get home.  I decided to risk it and pop in, just for a little while, to see what I could see.


When I entered through the locked front door, the first thing I saw was a happy medium sized dog, some sort of collie mix it appeared, wagging its tail wildly at the front door.  He didn't notice when I entered the house, just kept staring at the door.  I kept an eye on him as I went further into the house, and eventually, his tail slowed, and he walked away from the door and went to lay on a pillow situated near a hallway leading off to the left and a couch sitting in the living room area.  I proceeded on past the couch to find what opened up into a large living space with one of those look-through counter things that led to the kitchen.  Opposite the kitchen were large sliding glass doors that led out to the deck with a nice view of the yard below, and the backyards of several other nearby houses.

As I was peering out, I heard a car pull up and nearly ran right out sliding glass back door to come around the other side and greet Christine on the street like a normal person.  But then I though, you know what, I'll just stay here.  Two thoughts crossed my mind regarding this:  first, if she made any sort of scene or simply started talking to me even though I wasn't there, her neighbors wouldn't notice.  Second, it might lend some credibility to my story if she found me inside her locked house.  It also might freak her the heck out, but in the few seconds that I mulled it over, I decided it was worth the risk.

So I sat at that bar area, at the look-through counter, and waited for her to come inside.

I heard the lock of the front door click open and the dog ran to the front door, wagging it's tail wildly once more.  "Hi, Champion," I heard a familiar voice, from all the talking it had done before, say.  "How's it going?"

Then she walked straight back towards the kitchen, apparently unable to see me around her bags, which made sense since I couldn't quite see her face, and entered through a side door I had avoided.  Then she set her bags down on the median in the kitchen with a slight grunt and looked up to see me sitting there.  A look of shock came over her face.  "Who the..." she began.

"Hello, Christine," I interrupted.  "I was hoping to talk to you."

Here eyes grew wide and she pointed at me.  "You, I remember you.  I gave you a ride a couple days ago, you and your brother.  What are you doing here?"

"I had to tell you something," I said.

She walked up close to me, but still on the other side, the kitchen side of the bar.  "How did you get into my house?" she asked.

"That's part of what I wanted to tell you," I said.

"You're a robber?" she asked.  I saw her hand move and followed it with my gaze to see her slowly starting to reach into her purse.  I made no move to stop her.  Whatever she was getting couldn't hurt me anyway.

"No," I said, looking back up at her face.  "I'm a ghost."

"What the-" she exclaimed.  "I-"  She stumbled back away from me.  I just sat there as she pulled out her cellphone and appeared to dial 911.  I remained calm as she spoke into the receiver.  "Yes, I need the police," I heard her say into the cell phone, clasping it and trembling slightly.  "There's a crazy woman in my house."  There was a pause as the dispatcher must have been saying something, and I saw Christine shake her head.  "No, she isn't threatening me," she said.  "She just, she says she's a ghost."  Another pause.  "Well I haven't asked her..."  Pause again.  "I've met her before, but only briefly."  Pause and then a nod.  "Yes, you can talk to her."

Christine held out the phone towards me.  "My name is Anna," I shouted towards the microphone.  "And I'm a ghost."

Christine pulled the phone back to her own ear and said, "You hear that?"  Then her face wrinkled up into confusion.  "Just static?" she asked.  She looked a bit weirded out.  "Okay," she said, "hold on."

Christine walked over to me, shakily and held out the phone again.  "Take it," she said, trying to sound confident.  "Talk right into it."

I shrugged and reached out for the phone, but my hand passed directly through it.  I saw Christine's eyes grow even wider and she trembled as she stumbled backwards.  "Sorry," I said.  "I often can't interact with physical objects when the living are nearby."

Christine's hands were shaking as she pulled the phone back up to her own face. "H-hello," she mumbled into it.  Then she looked even more confused, if that was possible, and pulled the phone away from her face to look at it.  She poked at it, tried pressing the power button, and then looked up at me.  "What did you do?" she asked.

I frowned.  "Sorry," I said.  "Sometimes that happens when I touch electronics."

"Wh-what are you?" she stammered, cautious walking back towards me.

"I'm a ghost," I said.  "When I got out of your car so quickly without you noticing, that's because I walked through the door.  Because I'm a ghost."

"Y-you're a ghost?"

I nodded.  "Unfortunately, yeah," I said.

She looked down at her phone and back up at me.  "But how..."

"You're a seer," I said, trying to anticipate her question.  "You can see and talk to me, but other people, and even animals," I glanced briefly at Champion, "can't."

"The dispatcher?"

"Really just heard static when I was talking," I said.  "The same thing happened when I tried to call my boyfriend."

"But what, who are you?"

"I'm Anna Hancock," I said.  "I tied in April of this year."

"That was..."

I nodded.  "Yeah, months ago, I know.  I spent a lot of time getting to a point where I could say good-bye to my boyfriend, Todd."

"And your brother?"

"Not actually my brother, sorry I lied about that, but he was a ghost, too."

She glanced nervously around the kitchen.  "Is he here too?" she asked.

"If he were, you'd be able to see him," I said.  "But no, he moved on, past this plane.  He found his key."

"His key?" Christine asked.

I wondered if she was in shock or just trying to take it all in with these short questions.  This was actually going about as well as I could have expected, all things considered.  "Yes, his key," I confirmed.  "Ghosts have to find a key related to their unfinished business to pass to the real afterlife."  Geeze, I thought to myself, how did I become such a ghost expert?

"So he... and you...."

"He found his key.  I haven't yet."  I sighed.  "I think you're part of my key, Christine."  I said.

She looked nervous, her eyes darting around. "Wh-what does that mean?" she asked nervously.

I tried to give her a reassuring look, wasn't sure if I succeeded because she didn't look any more reassured.  "It means that I think I'm supposed to help you come to terms with being a seer, with being able to see spirits like me."

I watched her slowly back away again.  I noticed she was moving towards the kitchen door.  "And what if I don't want to see spirits like you?" she asked.

"I don't think you have much of a choice," I said.

Just then she bolted for the kitchen door.  I stood up off the stool I had been sitting on calmly walked around the corner to watch her as she exited the kitchen and went running for the front door.  Just then, there was a knock at the door and I heard someone call out, "Police, open up if you can."

Christine rushed to the front door and with trembling hands, turned the handle.  I walked up calmly behind her.

"Oh thank goodness!" I heard her exclaim, and I peeked around her to see the police officer standing there.  "There's a crazy woman in my house claiming she's a ghost."

"Okay, ma'am," the officer said with a straight face.  "Is she still in there?"

"Yes!" Christine exclaimed.  She moved to exit the house and the officer stepped aside to let her.  "She's right there!" Christine exclaimed, pointing directly at me.

I shrugged and waved at the officer.  "Right where, ma'am?" he asked.

Christine seemed puzzled.  "Right..." she kept pointing at me.  I gave jazz hands, but the officer did not react.  "Don't you?" Christine asked.  She looked up at him, and he looked back down at her.

"Would you like me to search the house, ma'am?" he asked.

"N-no," Christine stammered out.  She must have gone out the back."  She sighed, seeming defeated and surely not wanting to look crazy.  "If you could just... if you see her around the neighborhood, she was about average height and weight, maybe in her 30s, blonde hair."

The officer nodded.  "Of course ma'am.  Are you sure you're alright?" He positioned himself to try to block her off from a view of inside the house.  I crept up close behind him and heard him practically whisper.  "If you're in danger of being threatened..."

Christine shook her head.  "No, nothing like that," she assured him.  "I was just freaked out, but I think you scared her off and I'm glad.  Sorry for the bother."

"Safety is no bother, ma'am," the officer said.  He reached into his shirt pocket and handed her a business card.  "If you are in trouble, ma'am, please call our hotline.  We're here to help."

She took the card and nodded, clearly trying to appear calm.  "Yes, I will," she agreed.  "Thank-you."

The officer nodded, and walked past Christine back to his cop car.  She watched him go, still trembling a little, and then turned back to face me as I stood in the doorway.  I took a step back to let her come back inside and slam the door.

"Who exactly are you?" she demanded, seeming more enbolded now.

"I'm exactly who and what I said I am," I said.  "If you still don't believe me.  You can look up my obituary."

Christine gave a determined nod.  "I think I'll do that," she said.  "And since you killed my phone, I'll have to get out my laptop.  Don't you move!"

"I wouldn't think of it," I said.

As Christine rushed upstairs, I hoped she wasn't thinking of getting a weapon or something.  That would only end up hurting her, I thought.  Fortunately, when she came back downstairs, glaring at me all the way, it was just her laptop that she held.  She rushed past me, plopped down on the far side of the couch, and glanced up at me as I walked into the living room and sat down again on one of the bar stools near the kitchen window.  Then she looked back down at her computer and started to type.  A few minutes later, her eyes grew wide.  She spun the screen around and looked up at me.  "Is that you?" she asked.

I hopped down off the stool and looked down at the screen.  I nodded.  "Yup, that's me," I confirmed, looking at a surprisingly flattering black and white picture of me from what appeared to be a scanned in copy of my obituary in my local newspaper.  "When I was still in the flesh."

Christine quickly spun the laptop back around.  "You, you died so young," she said.  She looked up at me.  "You're no older than I am."

I nodded.  "That's what happens when people drive drunk and/or tired," I said.

"Did you...?"

"I was tired," I said.  "The other guy was drunk.  And he's why I'm here."

"You mean, he's why you're dead?" Christine asked.

"Well, I guess, yeah," I agreed.  "But that's not quite what I meant."  I gestured towards the couch, trying to ask if I could sit, and Christine nodded.  "You see," I said as I sat beside her.  "He was a seer, too, only he didn't have someone to explain it to him so he tried to drink the voices away."

"And, and he created another spirit?" she asked.

I nodded.  "Two actually," I said.  "Me and the guy who was with me before, Adam."

"Geeze!" Christine exclaimed shaking her head.  "That's awful!"

"Yeah, maybe," I consented.  "But some good things have come out of it."

Christine looked up at me, clearly amazed.  "Like what?" she asked.

"Well," I said.  "Like I got to meet Adam.  I got to see my dead father one last time.  I got to help a little girl.  And now, now I'm trying to help you."

"But how can you help me?" Christine asked.

"I guess I don't know exactly," I admitted.  "I just thought that maybe if I could explain to you what you had become, a seer, you might not take it as hard as Philip did."

"Philip?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said.  "The guy who killed me."

"What happened to..."

"I helped him," I said.  "He's going to be okay, but not as okay if he could have been if someone, some spirit or other seer, had talked to him first about what was happening to him."

"And you think that's you for me?" Christine asked.  It wasn't an accusation, though it could have been taken that way.  It seemed like a genuine question.

I nodded.  "I hope so," I said.  "I want to help you, Christine, in whatever way I can."

"Well, you started by scaring the crap out of me," she pointed out.

"I'm sorry about that," I said.  "I've never done this before.  I was just trying to do it in the least public way I could."

"Is that why you didn't tell me before?" she asked.  "When we were in the car together?"

"No, I didn't tell you before because I thought it was best not to," I said.  "But after I realized what had happened to Philip..."

"You had to tell me," Christine finished.  I nodded.  She nervously reached out and placed her hand on my knee.  She chuckled nervously.  "I wasn't sure if that was going to work," she said.  "But you're a good person."

I smiled and placed my hand on her shoulder.  "Thanks, Christine," I said.  "You are, too."

We each awkwardly pulled our hands back and sat in silence for a moment and then Christine broke the silence.  "So what am I supposed to do now?" she asked.

"Near as I can tell, help spirits like me," I said.

"How?" she asked.

"Well, it can vary," I said.  "Tell them they have to find their keys.  Direct them to way stations where there are other ghosts who can help them.  Sometimes, I imagine, you'll even have to convince them they're dead, like I convinced you that you could see the dead."

"But, but what if I can't do this?" she asked.

I smiled.  "I think you can," I said.  "You care about people.  You know people.  I saw that on the car ride we shared together."

"So, so where is the way station I can direct people to?" she asked.  "The more someone else can help me with this, the better."

I cocked my head to the side in thought.  "You know," I said.  "I don't really know, but I'll bet we can figure that out together."

"How?" she asked.

I smiled.  "I don't know exactly," I admitted.  "Maybe we can just go for a drive and try to find a place where spirits congregate."

"Like a church or something?" she asked.

"Maybe," I said.  "Back where I live, the way station I found was a police station."

"Well, there is one of those a few miles north of here," Christine noted.

"I suppose that's as good a place as any to start," I said.  "Are you ready to go?"

Christine shook her head.  "No not really," she said, looking down.  But then she looked up at me and asked, "But when would I ever be?"

I gave her a nod of understanding and with a heavy sigh, she stood up, set her laptop back down, and led the way back towards the front door.  "Oh wait," I called out.  "Should you put your groceries away first?"

Christine turned around, shaking her head with a small little smiled.  "Yeah, I suppose I might as well," she said.  She smiled a bit more.  "I guess you are helping me," she said, "sort-of."

I laughed and nodded as Christine went back into the kitchen, put her groceries away, and then headed back out the front door with me following behind.


We got in Christine's car and started to drive.  I sat in the front seat this time, but we mostly remained silent.  I didn't want anyone to see Christine talking to someone who wasn't there and she, strange as it seemed, didn't seem to want to talk.  It was after we had driven about a mile that I felt this strange twinge, sort of like a crick in my neck, but it seemed to be urging me to the right.

"Pull over," I ordered, perhaps a bit too harshly.

Christine remained remarkably calm given my outburst and pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store.

"What's that way?" I asked, pointing straight ahead, which had been to the right before we turned off.

Christine seemed puzzled.  "The grocery store?" she asked.

"No, beyond it."

She shook her head slowly, thoughtfully.  "I don't know," she said.  "Another neighborhood.  I think there might be an elementary school and a library in that general direction."

"Can we go check those out?" I asked.

"What about the police station?  The way station?" she questioned.

"I don't know," I admitted, "I'm just getting this vibe, some sense that we should go that way."

Christine laughed uneasily.  "Well," she said with a shrug.  "Who am I to argue with a ghostly vibe.  Let's go."  And she pulled back out onto the street and headed to the right.

After we had gone a little ways further, the pull I was feeling got stronger and I started directing Christine where to turn.  A few minutes later, we were pulling up at our destination:  the public library.

"I'm not used to seeing libraries quite this big," I said staring up at it.  "And I certainly don't come from a small town."

"Well, I think it's the historical branch, or something like that," Christine said, opening her door and turning away so I could glide out of my door without her watching.  "They have all kinds of old historical records and newspapers and microfilm and stuff in there."

I smiled.  "That's perfect," I said.  "Sounds like a great place for a way station."

"If you're a history buff, yeah," Christine said sounding skeptical.

"Well, not all ghosts are as fresh as me," I noted.  "And I'll bet some really benefit from the papers.  They have more recent ones there, too, right?"  I glanced over at Christine.

"I would assume so," Christine said.

"Well, then that sounds like an opportunity for ghosts to see what happened to them."

"And maybe even read their own obituaries if they don't yet realize they're dead," Christine observed.

"Exactly," I said.  I looked over at her and gave a little smile and a nod as we walked towards the front door.  "You see," I said.  "You're already thinking like a seer."

She raised her eyebrows questioningly at that, but she didn't say anything.  As we approached the front door, I stopped and said, "Listen, if this really is a way station, which I think it is, there will probably be a lot of ghosts in there.  For some of them, I'm not entirely sure you'll be able to tell which are ghosts and which are people.  For others, they'll be pretty deteriorated."

"Deteriorated?" Christine questioned, raising her eyebrows again.

"Okay, maybe deteriorated is the wrong word... more like faded.  They might be fading in and out or look like they have limbs missing.  That's what I saw at the police station way station."  I sighed.  "Just try not to be alarmed.  I'll do the talking at least initially, and you can..."

"I'll just pretend I'm looking for a book," Christine said.  "That's what libraries are for, after all.  When they aren't overrun with ghosts at least."

I nodded.  "Okay," I said.  And then I felt compelled to say, "Christine, I'm sorry this is happening to you."

She shook her head.  "Don't be.  If I'm really meant to help people, then I'll help people, alive or dead.  It's just a lot to take in, you know?"

I smiled softly.  "Yeah, I do know," I said.  "Ready?"

Christine nodded.  "As I'll ever be," she said.

"Okay," I said.  "After you.  I think I'll need you to open the doors anyway."


When we walked into the library, it was the most crowded I had ever seen such a place.  Spirits were sitting on the shelves, peeking over shoulders at computers, one even seemed to be trying, and failing, to stack books.  I saw Christine's eyes grow wide at first, but she seemed to recover quickly, and walked over to the nearest shelf and started to browse, though I still noticed her eyes flitting about, taking in the spirits, though none of them seemed to pay her any heed.  They must not have realized she was a spirit, or else they didn't care.

"Hello!" I cried out.  "Who is in charge of this way station?"

The ghost who had been trying to stake books glared at me and made a shooshing motion with her finger to her lips.  I sure hoped she wasn't in charge, but fortunately, I then saw two spirits step out from behind the living librarian, walk through the circulation desk, and come to greet me.  One was an older male, appearing to be in his 60s or 70s, and the other was a younger in comparison female, appearing to be about 50 or so.  "Hello," the female said.  "I'm Rachel and this is my brother, Isaac.  We're the keepers here."

I eyed them suspiciously remembering my own lie about Adam being my brother.  "Your brother?" I questioned.

She laughed.  "Yes, we were actually twins when we were living, but we died a couple decades apart, so you see..."

I blushed.  "Oh yes, of course," I said, embarrassed.  "I wasn't thinking of that."

"Oh, it's quite alright," Isaac said in a grandfatherly, comforting tone, stepping forward and placing his hand on my shoulder.  "Think nothing of it.  Now, what can we do for you child."

"Well, there's someone I'd like you to meet," I said.

Rachel tilted her head a bit to the side, taking me in.  "Oh?  You aren't here about you?" she asked.

"Well, not directly," I said.  "I think part of my unfinished business is to set you up with a new seer."

Isaac chuckled.  "Well, that would certainly be nice," he said, "considering that I was the previous seer for this immediate area and I haven't met a new one since I passed on two weeks ago."

That really caught me off guard.  "You just died two weeks ago?" I asked.  He smiled and nodded.  "And you were a seer?"

He chuckled a bit at that.  "Why is that so hard to believe?" he asked.  "Just cuz my natural eyesight was failing doesn't mean I wasn't still equipped to see and help the spirits."  He held his hands out and gestured throughout the library.  "And now I get to keep helping them even when I'm gone."  He lowered his arms and nodded towards Rachel.  "Plus, I got to keep visiting with my sister even after she was gone."

"Yes, and people thought you were loony," Rachel noted, "coming to the library, muttering to yourself."

"Talking to you," Isaac corrected.

"Yes, I know that," Rachel said.  "But other people didn't."

"I was discreet out in other public places," Isaac countered.  "I just couldn't stand to be discrete around you."

"Aww, sweet," Rachel said, teasingly.  Then she turned back to me.  "Well of course we'll help your friend, sweetie.  Like you just heard Isaac was a very good seer, though the library staff around here did think him a bit odd.  I'm sure he can help the new seer get up to speed and not appear crazy to everyone."  She gave a sideways, playful glance Isaac's way.

"Oh of course," he agreed.  "I choose to let people see me as a little nutty here, but it doesn't have to be that way if the new seer doesn't want it to be."

"Well that's great news," I said.  "Because she's young, about my age, and I don't want to see her committed or anything like that."

"Oh, child," Isaac chuckled, and he placed his hand on my shoulder.  "We wouldn't let that happen.  We look after out own."

I did feel strangely calmed by his presence, and by Rachel smiling sweetly at me.  "Well good," I said with a nod.

"Would you like us to introduce ourselves, dear?" Rachel asked.  "Is she around?"

"Yes, she's over there," I said, nodding back towards the shelves where Christine had gone.  It wasn't hard to spot her, I saw her peeking out around the corner, probably wondering what we were saying.

Isaac chuckled.  "Well, she certainly does seem to be new to this," he said.

I nodded.  "Yes, she just found out she was a seer today," I said.

"Oh my," Rachel said, bringing her hand up to her chest in an expression of surprise.  "Well, she certainly is lucky to have you to help her dear."  She reached out and touched my elbow with a smile.  "Come on," she said.  "We can go into the restroom, if she's okay with that, and have a little chat.  It only seats one, but it's plenty big for all four of us and it will give some nice privacy."

I nodded.  "Okay," I said.  "If she's okay with it."  So I walked over to Christine and told her the plan.  She gave a slight nod, placed the book back on the shelf, and walked off towards the ladies room, with me, Isaac, and Rachel following behind.


When we got into the restroom, Christine let out a deep sigh.  "I just, I don't know how to do this," she exclaimed.

"Well first off, keep your voice down a bit," Rachel suggested kindly.

"Oh, Rachel, give her a break," Isaac said a bit harshly.  But then he turned back to Christine and smiled.  "I know it can be tough," he said.  "I've been there."

Christine's eyes darted among us nervously and she asked, "You have?"

Isaac nodded.  "Uh-huh," he said.  "You see, I was a seer myself, until I passed on about two weeks ago."

"You, you were?" Christine asked, seeming to calm down a bit, and talking more quietly.

"Yes," Isaac confirmed.  "I can help you learn how to be discrete, to help the spirits when you can and direct them to us when you can't."

"Really?" Christine asked.

Isaac nodded.  "You bet," he said.  "I was a seer for nearly 40 years before I passed.  I'll admit, the job does have a risk to drive you a bit bonkers, but you don't have to let it."

"Isaac is my brother," Rachel said.  "He and I were very close when we were both alive, and he had been a seer for nearly twenty years before I died.  I never knew a thing until after I was dead and I realized he could still see me."

That seemed to calm Christine down a bit, but then she asked, "So, you've been dead for twenty years?"

"That's right," Rachel said with a smile, a nod, and an odd sense of pride, as if she was talking about years of service with a company.

"But, but if Isaac was a seer and he was supposed to help ghosts like you move on..."

"Oh, I did move on, dear," Rachel assured her.  "And Isaac was a great help.  But then, then I felt called to something more, so I returned, to be a keeper of this way station."

"And when I passed, I just couldn't stand the thought of not helping people any longer," Isaac said.  "So after I got my key, I also came back to help my sister."

"Most way stations do have two spirits supporting them, after all," Rachel said.  "I had a fine partner before, but when Isaac passed, well, it made sense for my old partner and I to part ways and for Isaac to come help out."

"Privileged to help 5 spirits pass over already," Isaac said with a smile.

"It was a joint effort," Rachel noted.

Isaac smiled.  "Yes of course," he said.  He gave me a sly little wink that made me blush slightly.

"Well, I do want to help," Christine said.  She looked over at me and smiled.  "Thank-you, Anna," she said.  "I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't brought me here."

I smiled.  "Just doing what I thought was the right thing," I said.

"So tell me more about how I can help," Christine said, turning her attention back to Isaac and Rachel.  "What's the deal with these keys."

"Well," Isaac said with a chuckle, glancing downwards.  "I think you're about to find out."

Christine followed his gaze and I did to, down to the fist she held at her side.  She seemed a bit startled as she lifted her hand up and uncurled her fingers to reveal a small silver key.  "Is this..." she began.

Rachel nodded and then she looked at me.  "It's Anna's key," she said.  "You must have been her final unfinished business, helping her find us."

"So what now?" Christine asked.

"Press it to my chest," I said, stepping forward.  "Right where my heart is."

"And then?" Christine asked.

I smiled.  "You'll see," I said.  "But first, I'll just say, good-bye, Christine."

Christine took a deep breath and turned so she was fully facing me.  "Good-bye, Anna," she said, "and thanks again."

Then she pressed the key to my chest and I felt such a warmth and joy come over me that I don't think I could even begin to adequately describe it.  I smiled what must have been the biggest smile of my life and laughed joyously as happiness filled me.  I could feel the white light swelling up around me and as that warm brightness filled me, I looked up to the ceiling, and then closed my eyes.


When I opened my eyes again, I knew that what I was seeing was real:  not a vision or a fog or a connection through a dream.  It was as real as the day I had been born.

I saw a line of people standing in front of me:  my grandma who had died when I was seventeen, my great uncle who had died when I was twenty, my father, and in the thick of it all, was Adam.  "I knew you would make it," he said, stepping forward with a smile.

I rushed to him and allowed myself to be caught up in his arms.  We embraced and kissed and when we pulled apart there were tears in my eyes and I refused to wipe away.  I glanced down and saw I was wearing the same white dress I had been wearing in the previous visions and he was wearing a suit and tie.  "Are we supposed to get married or something?" I asked.

He shrugged.  "If we want to," he said.  "But there's no need to rush it.  We have all of eternity, after all."

I laughed, and then I did reach up and start to wipe the tears from my eyes.  When I stopped, he reached up and wiped away one that I had missed.

"Come on," he said, offering me my hand.  "There's some other people I want you to meet."  He led me past my family, who all smiled, nodded, and waved at me.  I waved back.  My father mouthed the words, "I love you."  And I mouthed them in return.  Then I turned my attention back ahead of me to where Adam was leading me.

Before us stood a young couple and a young little girl in a nightgown clutching a teddy bear.  "Anna, I want you to meet the Williamsons.  Deb and Roger and their daughter-"

The little girl's face lit up and she rushed to me.  "Anna!" she exclaimed.  I knelt down and allowed her to give me a big hug, which I happily returned with tears welling up in my eyes once again.

Adam laughed.  "Well, I was going to tell you her name was Zoey, but I guess the two of you are already on a first name basis."

"Well actually," I said, pulling away and looking Zoey over.  "I never got Zoey's name.  I just met Teddy."

As I pointed towards the teddy bear, the little girl giggled and held him up.

"Well, we just wanted to thank you personally," Deb said, stepping forward.  I stood up as Zoey ran back to her father.  "You see, we were all killed in a house fire," Deb went on, "but Zoey," her eyes started to well up, "she was closest to the flames, to the smoke, so she went first, and she..."  Deb's voice caught in her throat a little bit.  She held out her hand to indicate she would be okay, then took a few deep breaths and managed to continue.  "She got separated from us, her spirit, I mean, and we couldn't find her."

"So your unfinished business was to find your daughter's spirit," I noted.

Deb nodded.  "And hers was to find us," she said.

"Well, I'm glad I could help," I said.

Deb closed her eyes and shook her head.  She opened her eyes again and said, "Oh you did so much more than help.  We had no idea where our daughter was.  We were separated for weeks, and when that nice station master, William, when he found us, he told us it was you who got Zoey to talk."

"So thanks," Roger spoke up, taking a step forward, now carrying Zoey in his arms.  "We all would have been lost without you."

"I was really just doing what seemed right," I said.

"But not everyone could have done it," Deb noted.

Roger spoke up to add, "And it's usually the work of seers and way station keepers, or so William told us."

"I think it can be anyone's work," I said.

"It takes a special person to not only want to do what you did, but to be able to do it," Deb said.

"William couldn't do it," Roger said.  "He needed you."

That sentiment echoed in my head.  William needed me.  Way stations usually had two keepers.  William was alone.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped a bit.  I turned to see Adam still standing there, but now looking concerned.  "Anna, what is it?" he asked.

"Nothing," I lied.

He eyed me suspiciously and I knew I couldn't lie to him.

"Okay, it's not nothing," I admitted.  "I was just thinking... since you got your key and came here, I learned that way stations work best with two keepers and William, he's all alone..."

"And you think you should go back and help him," Adam completed my thought.

I hung my head, feeling ashamed, and nodded.  Then I felt Adam's fingers under my chin, lifting my face back up to look at him.  "Hey, there's no need to feel bad," he said.  "I wish you would stay here with me, selfishly, I wish it more than anything, but I understand.  You're special, Anna.  You're meant for something more."

"I never did that much in my life," I said.  "Benjamin, I didn't know all that he was doing, but seeing it, it made me realize how much more I could have done."

"And you still can," Adam said.  "You can go back and help."

"But what about you?" I asked.

Adam smiled.  "I'll be fine," he said.  "I hear that way station keepers do get to retire, eventually, and what's a few decades of waiting when we'll have eternity."

I smiled back and leaned forward to kiss him once more.  When we parted, I looked up at him and asked, "Okay, so how do I do this."

"Well actually," I heard a voice to the side and looked over to see Roger holding out a black key.  "We thought you might want to go back, so William gave me the hook-up."

My mouth twisted into a half smile.  "So William orchestrated this all, huh?" I asked.

Deb shrugged, and Roger said, "Well, kind-of."

"But it had to be up to you," Adam added, giving my hand a squeeze.  "None of us were supposed to say a thing unless you decided on your own that you wanted to help."

"And if I hadn't decided?" I asked.

"I would have gotten to keep you here, and William would have had to find someone else," Adam said.

I laughed at that.  "Keep me here, huh?" I questioned, eyeing him suspiciously.

Adam shrugged.  "I knew you weren't someone I could just keep here," he admitted.  "I knew I'd have to say good-bye again.  Part of my unfinished business was admitting the truth about how I feel, but then being able to part with those I love."

I reached up my hand and stroked his face.  "I'll see you again," I said.

He nodded.  "I know you will," he said.  "Now go do some good."

I gave him one last affectionate look, and then with a determined nod, and I turned to Roger and said, "Okay, hit me."

He laughed and held out the key.  I stepped forward into it, pressing it to my chest, once again feeling a warmth and white light filling me, somehow even more satisfying that what I had felt just before, and I again closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, I was back, back in the police station, much as I had seen it before, except there was no longer a little girl in a nightgown clutching her teddy bear in silence in the middle of the room.

William was there, talking to the ghost of the mother of the officer at one of the front desks, that ghost that had refused to leave for so long, but when I appeared, he seemed to sense me, and looked over at me and smiled.  "Anna!" he exclaimed.  "I'm so glad you chose to come back.  I know it must have been a hard choice..."

I glanced around at the station, at all the lost souls that needed help and answered truthfully, "No, it really wasn't."

He smiled and nodded.  "Well good," he said.  "Maybe you can help me with this one."

"I'll do my best," I said stepping forward.

"I appreciate it," I said.

As I approached, I asked him, "So why didn't you tell me before that way stations usually have two people working them?"

He shrugged.  "It didn't seem relevant at the time," he said.  "My first priority was helping you."

"And now our first priority is helping everyone," I said.  "Starting with you, ma'am."  The ghost seemed surprised I was addressing her as she glanced up at me.

William laughed and smiled.  "Alright, Anna," he said.  "Show me how it's done."  As I started to talk with the woman, to try to help her tell her son good-bye, to convince her she could still be proud of him if she let him go, I felt a warm energy rush over me, and I realized I was so alive, even though I was dead, and I had never been less tired in my life.