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  Meanwhile, Mr. Burkett was rehashing the whole thing. He told my mother how he sat on the floor beside the couch and held his wife’s hand till that doctor guy came and again till the mortician guy came to take her away. “Conveyed her hence” was what he actually said, which I didn’t understand until Mom explained it to me. And at first I thought he said beautician, maybe because of the smell when he burned Mom’s hair. His crying had tapered off, but now it ramped up again. “Her rings are gone,” he said through his tears. “Both her wedding ring and her engagement ring, that big diamond. I looked on the night table by her side of the bed, where she puts them when she rubs that awful-smelling arthritis cream into her hands—”

  “It does smell bad,” Mrs. Burkett admitted. “Lanolin is basically sheep dip, but it really helps.”

  I nodded to show I understood but didn’t say anything.

  “—and on the bathroom sink, because sometimes she leaves them there…I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “They’ll turn up,” my mother soothed, and now that her hair was safe, she took Mr. Burkett in her arms again. “They’ll turn up, Marty, don’t you worry about that.”

  “I miss her so much! I miss her already!”

  Mrs. Burkett flapped a hand in front of her face. “I give him six weeks before he’s asking Dolores Magowan out to lunch.”

  Mr. Burkett was blubbing, and my mother was doing her soothing thing like she did to me whenever I scraped my knee or this one time when I tried to make her a cup of tea and slopped hot water on my hand. Lots of noise, in other words, so I took a chance but kept my voice low.

  “Where are your rings, Mrs. Burkett? Do you know?”

  They have to tell you the truth when they’re dead. I didn’t know that at the age of six; I just assumed all grownups told the truth, living or dead. Of course back then I also believed Goldilocks was a real girl. Call me stupid if you want to. At least I didn’t believe the three bears actually talked.

  “Top shelf of the hall closet,” she said. “Way in the back, behind the scrapbooks.”

  “Why there?” I asked, and my mother gave me a strange look. As far as she could see, I was talking to the empty doorway…although by then she knew I wasn’t quite the same as other kids. After a thing that happened in Central Park, not a nice thing—I’ll get to it—I overheard her telling one of her editor friends on the phone that I was “fey.” That scared the shit out of me, because I thought she meant she was changing my name to Fay, which is a girl’s name.

  “I don’t have the slightest idea,” Mrs. Burkett said. “By then I suppose I was having the stroke. My thoughts would have been drowning in blood.”

  Thoughts drowning in blood. I never forgot that.

  Mom asked Mr. Burkett if he wanted to come down to our apartment for a cup of tea (“or something stronger”), but he said no, he was going to have another hunt for his wife’s missing rings. She asked him if he would like us to bring him some Chinese take-out, which my mother was planning for dinner, and he said that would be good, thank you Tia.

  My mother said de nada (which she used almost as much as yeah yeah yeah and right right right), then said we’d bring it to his apartment around six, unless he wanted to eat with us in ours, which he was welcome to do. He said no, he’d like to eat in his place but he would like us to eat with him. Except what he actually said was our place, like Mrs. Burkett was still alive. Which she wasn’t, even though she was there.

  “By then you’ll have found her rings,” Mom said. She took my hand. “Come on, Jamie. We’ll see Mr. Burkett later, but for now let’s leave him alone.”

  Mrs. Burkett said, “Turkeys aren’t green, Jamie, and that doesn’t look like a turkey anyway. It looks like a blob with fingers sticking out of it. You’re no Rembrandt.”

  Dead people have to tell the truth, which is okay when you want to know the answer to a question, but as I said, the truth can really suck. I started to be mad at her, but just then she started to cry and I couldn’t be. She turned to Mr. Burkett and said, “Who’ll make sure you don’t miss the belt loop in the back of your pants now? Dolores Magowan? I should smile and kiss a pig.” She kissed his cheek…or kissed at it, I couldn’t really tell which. “I loved you, Marty. Still do.”

  Mr. Burkett raised his hand and scratched the spot where her lips had touched him, as if he had an itch. I suppose that’s what he thought it was.

  2

  So yeah, I see dead people. As far as I can remember, I always have. But it’s not like in that movie with Bruce Willis. It can be interesting, it can be scary sometimes (the Central Park dude), it can be a pain in the ass, but mostly it just is. Like being left-handed, or being able to play classical music when you’re like three years old, or getting early-onset Alzheimer’s, which is what happened to Uncle Harry when he was only forty-two. At age six, forty-two seemed old to me, but even then I understood it’s young to wind up not knowing who you are. Or what the names of things are—for some reason that’s what always scared me the most when we went to see Uncle Harry. His thoughts didn’t drown in blood from a busted brain vessel, but they drowned, just the same.

  Mom and me trucked on down to 3C, and Mom let us in. Which took some time, because there are three locks on the door. She said that’s the price you pay for living in style. We had a six-room apartment with a view of the avenue. Mom called it the Palace on Park. We had a cleaning woman who came in twice a week. Mom had a Range Rover in the parking garage on Second Avenue, and sometimes we went up to Uncle Harry’s place in Speonk. Thanks to Regis Thomas and a few other writers (but mostly good old Regis), we were living high on the hog. It didn’t last, a depressing development I will discuss all too soon. Looking back on it, I sometimes think my life was like a Dickens novel, only with swearing.

  Mom tossed her manuscript bag and purse on the sofa and sat down. The sofa made a farting noise that usually made us laugh, but not that day. “Jesus-fuck,” Mom said, then raised a hand in a stop gesture. “You—”

  “I didn’t hear it, nope,” I said.

  “Good. I need to have an electric shock collar or something that buzzes every time I swear around you. That’d teach me.” She stuck out her lower lip and blew back her bangs. “I’ve got another two hundred pages of Regis’s latest to read—”

  “What’s this one called?” I asked, knowing the title would have of Roanoke in it. They always did.

  “Ghost Maiden of Roanoke,” she said. “It’s one of his better ones, lots of se…lots of kissing and hugging.”

  I wrinkled my nose.

  “Sorry, kiddo, but the ladies love those pounding hearts and torrid thighs.” She looked at the bag with Ghost Maiden of Roanoke inside, secured with the usual six or eight rubber bands, one of which always snapped and made Mom give out some of her best swears. Many of which I still use. “Now I feel like I don’t want to do anything but have a glass of wine. Maybe the whole bottle. Mona Burkett was a prize pain the ass, he might actually be better off without her, but right now he’s gutted. I hope to God he’s got relatives, because I don’t relish the idea of being Comforter in Chief.”

  “She loved him, too,” I said.

  Mom gave me a strange look. “Yeah? You think?”

  “I know. She said something mean about my turkey, but then she cried and kissed him on the cheek.”

  “You imagined that, James,” she said, but half-heartedly. She knew better by then, I’m sure she did, but grownups have a tough time believing, and I’ll tell you why. When they find out as kids that Santa Claus is a fake and Goldilocks isn’t a real girl and the Easter Bunny is bullshit—just three examples, I could give more—it makes a complex and they stop believing anything they can’t see for themselves.

  “Nope, didn’t imagine it. She said I’d never be Rembrandt. Who is that?”

  “An artist,” she said, and blew her bangs back again. I don’t know why she didn’t just cut them or wear her hair a different way. Which she could, because she was really pretty.


  “When we go down there to eat, don’t you dare say anything to Mr. Burkett about what you think you saw.”

  “I won’t,” I said, “but she was right. My turkey sucks.” I felt bad about that.

  I guess it showed, because she held out her arms. “Come here, kiddo.”

  I came and hugged her.

  “Your turkey is beautiful. It’s the most beautiful turkey I ever saw. I’m going to put it up on the refrigerator and it will stay there forever.”

  I hugged as tight as I could and put my face in the hollow of her shoulder so I could smell her perfume. “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, Jamie, a million bunches. Now go play or watch TV. I need to roll some calls before ordering the Chinese.”

  “Okay.” I started for my room, then stopped. “She put her rings on the top shelf of the hall closet, behind some scrap-books.”

  My mother stared at me with her mouth open. “Why would she do that?”

  “I asked her and she said she didn’t know. She said by then her thoughts were drownding in blood.”

  “Oh my God,” Mom whispered, and put her hand to her neck.

  “You should figure out a way to tell him when we have the Chinese. Then he won’t worry about it. Can I have General Tso’s?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And brown rice, not white.”

  “Right right right,” I said, and went to play with my Legos. I was making a robot.

  3

  The Burketts’ apartment was smaller than ours, but nice. After dinner, while we were having our fortune cookies (mine said A feather in the hand is better than a bird in the air, which makes no sense at all), Mom said, “Have you checked the closets, Marty? For her rings, I mean?”

  “Why would she put her rings in a closet?” A sensible enough question.

  “Well, if she was having a stroke, she might not have been thinking too clearly.”

  We were eating at the little round table in the kitchen nook. Mrs. Burkett was sitting on one of the stools at the counter and nodded vigorously when Mom said that.

  “Maybe I’ll check,” Mr. Burkett said. He sounded pretty vague. “Right now I’m too tired and upset.”

  “You check the bedroom closet when you get around to it,” Mom said. “I’ll check the one in the hall right now. A little stretching will do me good after all that sweet and sour pork.”

  Mrs. Burkett said, “Did she think that up all by herself? I didn’t know she was that smart.” Already she was getting hard to hear. After awhile I wouldn’t be able to hear her at all, just see her mouth moving, like she was behind a thick pane of glass. Pretty soon after that she’d be gone.

  “My mom’s plenty smart,” I said.

  “Never said she wasn’t,” Mr. Burkett said, “but if she finds those rings in the front hall closet, I’ll eat my hat.”

  Just then my mother said “Bingo!” and came in with the rings on the palm of one outstretched hand. The wedding ring was pretty ordinary, but the engagement ring was as big as an eyeball. A real sparkler.

  “Oh my God!” Mr. Burkett cried. “How in God’s name…?”

  “I prayed to St. Anthony,” Mom said, but cast a quick glance my way. And a smile. “‘Tony, Tony, come around! Something’s lost that must be found!’ And as you see, it worked.”

  I thought about asking Mr. Burkett if he wanted salt and pepper on his hat, but didn’t. It wasn’t the right time to be funny, and besides, it’s like my mother always says—nobody loves a smartass.

  4

  The funeral was three days later. It was my first one, and interesting, but not what you’d call fun. At least my mother didn’t have to be Comforter in Chief. Mr. Burkett had a sister and brother to take care of that. They were old, but not as old as he was. Mr. Burkett cried all the way through the service and the sister kept handing him Kleenex. Her purse seemed to be full of them. I’m surprised she had room for anything else.

  That night mom and I had pizza from Domino’s. She had wine and I had Kool-Aid as a special treat for being good at the funeral. When we were down to the last piece of the pie, she asked me if I thought Mrs. Burkett had been there.

  “Yeah. She was sitting on the steps leading up to the place where the minister and her friends talked.”

  “The pulpit. Could you…” She picked up the last slice, looked at it, then put it down and looked at me. “Could you see through her?”

  “Like a movie ghost, you mean?”

  “Yes. I suppose that is what I mean.”

  “Nope. She was all there, but still in her nightgown. I was surprised to see her, because she died three days ago. They don’t usually last that long.”

  “They just disappear?” Like she was trying to get it straight in her mind. I could tell she didn’t like talking about it, but I was glad she was. It was a relief.

  “Yeah.”

  “What was she doing, Jamie?”

  “Just sitting there. Once or twice she looked at her coffin, but mostly she looked at him.”

  “At Mr. Burkett. Marty.”

  “Right. She said something once, but I couldn’t hear. Pretty soon after they die, their voices start to fade away, like turning down the music on the car radio. After awhile you can’t hear them at all.”

  “And then they’re gone.”

  “Yes,” I said. There was a lump in my throat, so I drank the rest of my Kool-Aid to make it go away. “Gone.”

  “Help me clean up,” she said. “Then we can watch an episode of Torchwood, if you want.”

  “Yeah, cool!” In my opinion Torchwood wasn’t really cool, but getting to stay up an hour after my usual bedtime was way cool.

  “Fine. Just as long as you understand we’re not going to make a practice of it. But I need to tell you something first, and it’s very serious, so I want you to pay attention. Close attention.”

  “Okay.”

  She got down on one knee, so our faces were more or less level and took hold of me by the shoulders, gently but firmly. “Never tell anyone about seeing dead people, James. Never.”

  “They wouldn’t believe me anyway. You never used to.”

  “I believed something,” she said. “Ever since that day in Central Park. Do you remember that?” She blew back her bangs. “Of course you do. How could you forget?”

  “I remember.” I only wished I didn’t.

  She was still on her knee, looking into my eyes. “So here it is. People not believing is a good thing. But someday somebody might. And that might get the wrong kind of talk going, or put you in actual danger.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s an old saying that dead men tell no tales, Jamie. But they can talk to you, can’t they? Dead men and women. You say they have to answer questions, and give truthful answers. As if dying is like a dose of sodium pentothal.”

  I had no clue what that was and she must have seen it on my face because she said to never mind that, but to remember what Mrs. Burkett had told me when I asked about her rings.

  “So?” I said. I liked being close to my mom, but I didn’t like her looking at me in that intense way.

  “Those rings were valuable, especially the engagement ring. People die with secrets, Jamie, and there are always people who want to know those secrets. I don’t mean to scare you, but sometimes a scare is the only lesson that works.”

  Like the man in Central Park was a lesson about being careful in traffic and always wearing your helmet when you were on your bike, I thought…but didn’t say.

  “I won’t talk about it,” I said.

  “Not ever. Except to me. If you need to.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. We have an understanding.”

  She got up and we went in the living room and watched TV. When the show was over, I brushed my teeth and peed and washed my hands. Mom tucked me in and kissed me and said what she always said: “Sweet dreams, pleasant repose, all the bed and all the clothes.”

  Most nights that was the last time I saw her until mor
ning. I’d hear the clink of glass as she poured herself a second glass of wine (or a third), then jazz turned way down low as she started reading some manuscript. Only I guess moms must have an extra sense, because that night she came back in and sat on my bed. Or maybe she just heard me crying, although I was trying my best to keep it on the down-low. Because, as she also always said, it’s better to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

  “What’s wrong, Jamie?” she asked, brushing back my hair. “Are you thinking about the funeral? Or Mrs. Burkett being there?”

  “What would happen to me if you died, Mom? Would I have to go live in an orphanage home?” Because it sure as shit wouldn’t be with Uncle Harry.

  “Of course not,” Mom said, still brushing my hair. “And it’s what we call a moot point, Jamie, because I’m not going to die for a long time. I’m thirty-five years old, and that means I still have over half my life ahead of me.”

  “What if you get what Uncle Harry’s got, and have to live in that place with him?” The tears were streaming down my face. Having her stroke my forehead made me feel better, but it also made me cry more, who knows why. “That place smells bad. It smells like pee!”

  “The chance of that happening is so teensy that if you put it next to an ant, the ant would look like Godzilla,” she said. That made me smile and feel better. Now that I’m older I know she was either lying or misinformed, but the gene that triggers what Uncle Harry had—early-onset Alzheimer’s—swerved around her, thank God.

  “I’m not going to die, you’re not going to die, and I think there’s a good chance that this peculiar ability of yours will fade when you get older. So…are we good?”