I quickly assembled a plate of food for Wil: olives, arugula dressed with lemon and oil, a slice of fresh asiago, smoked almonds, and raspberries. I took a bottle of zin out and he said, “White wine would be nice,” so I found a bottle of crisp French white.

I had a glass and watched him while he ate. When he leaned back from the table, I said, “We’ve both been in limbo. I’m so sorry, Wil, for what happened to you.”

He looked more serious than I had ever seen him. “Milagro, I can go out in the sun now without any protection. It’s fucking amazing. I think I don’t mind being dead.”

I remembered Don Pedro’s words and said, “You’re in the realm of the middle place, ‘life after life and before deathly death.’ I wrapped you in that cloth, which was woven with herbal remedies, and you came back.”

“I’m a zombie, then?”

“It’s more positive to think of you as life-impaired. Or pre-dead.”

He laughed. “Whatever turns your engine, Mil. I’ll tell you what happened with me, and then you tell me what happened with you.”

“Deal. Let’s start with Matthews.”

“He just said ‘Useless bastard,’ and he stabbed me. If I knew he felt that way, I would have fired him earlier.”

“You fired him?”

“Yes, he took me to the airport and I said, ‘Now see here, Matthews, I can’t have you about because my new lady says that it perpetuates class divisions, et cetera.”

“I never said you should fire him!”

“Didn’t you? Oh, well.”

“He must have taken my house key when he came by your flat to get your laundry. He left you, your body, at my loft on my bed,” I said. “You’re in love with Nettie, aren’t you? You came to see her, not me.”

Wil shrugged his bony shoulders. “Sorry, Mil, but Nettie knows how to put a lad like me in my place. I hoped to convince her to come back home with me.”

“Wil, the bad news is that you’re a zombie. The good news is that I think Nettie loves you, too.”

My friend Nancy had been quoting a lot of Sun Tzu to me recently, so I followed his advice to appear in places the enemy doesn’t expect, i.e., Nettie’s house at three in the morning.

Wil asked, “Why not let the Council handle it?”

“I’d like to truss up Matthews and deliver him to the Council personally to clear my name.”

“You really are a hot, sexy bitch. If not for Nettie …”

I gave Wil a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that were in the maid’s closet. As he changed clothes, he said, “Look, none of my body parts fell off and all are in perfect working order. Allow me to demonstrate.”