“You think I don’t know every single thought that passes through that little noggin of yours?” Her voice was quiet and slithery. She put her hand on top of my head and bobbled it around. “Why’d you ask Telly if he went out to the bridge?”

I swallowed all the spit and the piece of fingernail.

“If you’re lying to Gloria, miss…” When she said miss, it had a lot of s’s.

She was reading my mind and I tried not to think about Carl and Rowan.

“Don’t you love your mother?” she whispered. “Don’t you love me?”

Even though I tried hard, I couldn’t stop stuff squeaking into my brain. I was going to break my promise.

ROWAN

Carl cooked dinner over the fire in his frying pan. Spaghetti and meatballs from a large can. Hand digging inside his coat pocket, he pulled out a plastic bag with two dinner rolls. Marion had given them to him as we were leaving. “You need to finish it all,” he said. “Clean your plate. Then brush your, your, urh, teeth. Except the bottom one. Leave that one alone.”

I didn’t have any trouble cleaning the plate. I shoveled food in past my swollen lip, my loose tooth, and chomped with my molars. Would have licked each drip from the plate, but Carl was following the movements of my spoon. He ate with a fork and knife. Fancy-looking silverware. Drops of liquid landed on his newly trimmed beard, but he was still a polite dinner companion. I tried my best to be the same.

“It’s the best ever. Thanks, Carl.”

“Thanks, Carl.” He put his plate on the ground, his cutlery side by side, fork turned downward. Then he said, “She always wanted to be a mother. She says that. Would take whatever kind she could find.”

I knew it was the lady talking inside Carl’s head. Dot. One time I asked Carl if they’d told him their names. He said no, but that they didn’t complain when he offered suggestions.

“She’d love anything, she would.”

“No, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t love Gloria.” I’d already told him a lot about Gloria. A million shitty things she’d done.

Carl nodded. “Oh yes, she would. Everyone gets stressed, urh, stressed. Signals get crossed and tangled back and they’re just wrong messages she’s reading.”

Even though it was an odd way to explain it, I sort of understood what he meant. I thought about that for a second. But only a second.

“What about your mother?” I asked. “How long ago did she, um, did she become a ghost?”

I rubbed the last bit of the dinner roll through the tomato sauce and glanced at Carl. But he was mumbling, raking at his beard. Hairs came away and he twitched them loose. The strands went into the fire, and I could smell burning hair.