Like I said, I’m not ashamed of my gift, but I don’t often volunteer the information. I know Alison doesn’t care to broadcast her abilities, and especially not Melissa’s. But this time, I thought directness was the best solution to the problem. I looked up at Paul, who nodded his agreement. “Go for it,” he said.

“Mac, I have something to tell you that must remain a secret between us,” I said. Alison’s brow knitted and Melissa looked at me with a mixture of concern and wonder, no doubt puzzling over what her grandmother must be plotting now. I took a breath. “I can see ghosts.”

Alison grunted. Melissa suppressed a smile. Maxine, watching near Barbara, possibly in an attempt to keep her from fleeing, said, “Uh-oh.”

But Mac seemed unfazed. “Far out,” he said in a normal tone of voice. “What’s that like?”

“It’s a great gift and I cherish it,” I told him honestly. “But I’m wondering what you’d think if I said it might be a greater sign of respect to Sergeant Elliot if you were to take the bracelet off.”

“Very good,” Paul said. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“Do you think he’ll go for that?” Sergeant Elliot said quietly.

Barbara Litton, suddenly, looked focused and interested. “Watch him,” she told the sergeant. “I think he means it.”

“Means what?” Maxine asked, but no one answered.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Mac told me. His right hand went to cover the bracelet in a protective gesture. “I’m keeping his memory alive. Taking if off would be a betrayal. With all due respect, I think I know Sergeant Elliot a little better than you do, Loretta. Can you understand that?”

“Certainly I can,” I answered. “But I’m asking you to trust me on this.”

“Man, I get where you’re coming from, I do,” he said. “But you’re not getting me. A lot of people took their bracelets off. You did, too, and that’s cool. But I think I’m entitled to my point of view, and I think the sergeant wouldn’t want me to forget him. Why should I take off mine?”

It was time, as Jack once told me when he was trying to teach me to play poker, to go all in. “Because Sergeant Elliot is right there and he wants you to,” I said, pointing to the sergeant himself, a foot to Mac’s left.

Probably without thinking, Mac looked where I had pointed, though of course he saw no one. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Very.”

“How do you know that’s what he wants?” Mac seemed suspicious, though that was certainly understandable.

“Because that’s what he told me,” I said, although technically the sergeant had been speaking to Paul. “He says that he needs you to take off the bracelet so he can move on to the next plane of existence.”

“Wild,” Mac responded.

Encouraged by his apparent interest, I continued. “You see, in the afterlife, Sergeant Elliot has reconnected with the one woman he loved before he went to Vietnam, and she’s moving on. The sergeant wants to go with her, and time is running out.”

Barbara Litton bit her lower lip. Mac looked at the hand he’d placed over his bracelet, just like Sergeant Elliot put his hand over Barbara’s.

“How do I know you’re right?” he asked. “How do I know the sergeant is actually here?”

“This little hippie is questioning me?” Sergeant Elliot asked. He looked at Alison. “Can I borrow a meat cleaver? I’ll show him I’m here!”

Alison shook her head with some urgency.

“Why not just take it off for a day or two?” Melissa suggested. “We can tell you when the sergeant moves on, and you could put it back if you want.”

“That’s not a bad idea—” Alison’s guest began. “Wait a minute. You can see the ghost, too, Melissa?”

Melissa looked at Alison, suddenly concerned that she might have done something wrong. Alison gave her a little smile and mouthed, “Okay.”

“Yes, I can,” Melissa told Mac.

“I don’t like the way this is going,” Sergeant Elliot said.

“The sergeant and his fiancée, Barbara, are both here, and they both hope you’ll take off the bracelet. Just for a little bit,” Alison said.

This seemed to be moving a little too fast for Mac. “You, too?” he asked Alison. Before she could acknowledge her ability, he put his hands up defensively and stood. “I’m sorry. I can believe in a lot of things—trust me—but all three of you seeing ghosts? That’s too much.” He took a step toward the door. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop him!” Sergeant Elliot shouted. “We’ve got to get that bracelet!”

“Mac,” I started.

But his gaze was clearly fixed elsewhere. Like in midair, a few feet in front of him, directly at his eye level. It was as if he had been hypnotized. He stared.

He had good reason to do so. Two roast chicken legs were, to his eyes, performing a very vivid cancan directly in front of him. This continued, Mac’s eyes almost rotating as he watched the motion, for almost a full minute before the legs did a final leap into the air and landed, in a split, on an imaginary stage somewhere three feet off the floor.

Barbara Litton held the legs there for a few moments, then brought them back up where each did a “bow,” and then she made them “walk” back to the island and lie back down on the platter from which she’d snatched them. Mac watched them all the way back, mouth agape.

Then, smiling, he walked to the counter and took off the bracelet, which he placed on the center island. He said nothing else as he picked up the plate holding what was left of his sandwich and walked out of the room.

Sergeant Elliot looked at his former—and for all I knew, current—fiancée with awe. He moved to her side and embraced her, and then something seemed to startle them; their whole bodies twitched.

“Is this it?” the sergeant asked Barbara.

She shrugged. “How would I know?”

They started to rise to the ceiling. Barbara looked down at me directly and said, “We don’t have much time. Thank you.” She seemed to evaporate.

Sergeant Elliot vanished in the same moment. But as he left, I could hear his voice saying, “I’m eternally grateful.” And they were gone.

The group of us, living and not, looked up into the ceiling. Alison’s eyes and Melissa’s were a little damp, and if I were to be subjected to a polygraph test, it might prove that mine were as well.

Paul and Maxine stared for a while, then looked at each other. Their expressions were full of wonder but something else—envy?—might have mixed in. Suddenly, they were all looking at me.

“That was amazing,” Alison said.

“I’m just relieved nobody in our family prefers the dark meat,” I said.

Chapter 10

Mac stayed for two more days, talking with us about our abilities and promising not to spread the word of his experiences, before it was safe for him to drive home. After one day, Melissa suggested he could put the bracelet back on, but he chose to go without it, saying he didn’t “want to mess with the karma.”

I went back home the same day he did, and I was relieved to see that there was no damage to the interior of my town house and that the exterior damage was minimal. Jack, of course, was unharmed but relieved I was home safe. The power stayed off for six days. I drove back to Alison’s a day later, after she called to say her power had returned as well. Melissa still wasn’t back in school, as the basement and lower floor of her school building had been seriously flooded. Life was coming back to the area, but slowly.

We cleared most of the downed branches from her front yard, and Alison asked Murray Feldner, a man she’s known since grade school who made his living as a tow truck driver and snow removal service, to bring a chain saw when he could to cut up the huge branch in the back of her property.