“It’s just that . . . that woman, the person you just talked to, that snappy excited lady . . . who told you a bunch of stories and laughed a lot? I haven’t seen her in a long time. She’s not like that anymore, fun and awake.”

“It sure looked like she was today,” said Jasper.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Watching her today, it was almost like the end of a fairy tale. Like there was a curse and you somehow broke it. Like the prince kissing Sleeping Beauty. You woke her up.”

Jasper laughed. “I promise I didn’t kiss your mom.”

“No, seriously,” I said. “I think it’s you. It’s like she met you, and now she doesn’t seem to care about meeting your mom, and you’re invited for dinner, and she’s all cheerful and normal. What’s that all about? How’d you do that? And can you fix my dad too?”

Jasper shrugged. “If your ghost dad is anything like your ghost mom, he’ll turn out to be some fascinating and hilarious rock star.”

I thought about Dad, crying in the garage. His sad back. His peanut butter sandwich. “Not likely.”

“Anyway,” said Jasper, “what do you think she’s making for dinner?”

I laughed and tossed the pillow in my hands at Jasper. “If I had to guess, I’d say something with garlic. One thing to know about my mom is that when she actually does cook, the house smells like garlic. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed since Sam died.”

“Hey, better than stale peanut butter crackers,” said Jasper wistfully. “I really do wish I could stay for dinner tonight, but it seemed smarter to go home. Things were going so well. I didn’t want to mess it all up.”

“How about this? Whatever dinner turns out to be, I’ll bring you some tomorrow,” I said. “Or you can come back over and have leftovers for lunch.”

“Sure!” She tossed the pillow back, right at my head, got up, and headed in the direction of the bathroom.

Watching her, I felt grateful that it was so easy to be okay. That we’d been able to tell each other these terrible stories, and fight, and make up, just like that. It was like Jasper was more like family than a friend. Or, more like family than family. It was like I’d known her my entire life. Like we belonged together.

Except that deep inside me, somewhere underneath the relief, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jasper’s sister, about Jasper’s mom, about Jasper having no home. How did she do it? How did she walk around all day, laughing and being normal, tossing pillows and drinking coffee like a regular person, when such a terrible and heavy thing was looming over her, always? I wished I could fix it for her. I wanted to take that worry away.