The cops wait until Shelly and Grandma leave to pull the body from the water, but the ghost comes home with them, wet and shivery even after the bus ride back to the house. He doesn’t seem to notice the change of scenery much, just stares into the middle distance and lets Grandma pull him along.

“Do you want me to turn on the heater?” Shelly asks, when they get to the house.

The ghost jumps and looks down at her. “Where did you come from?”

“Leave him alone, Shelly,” Grandma says, unlocking the door. “We’ll feed him and send him off. He doesn’t need us confusing him even more.”

“I don’t understand what happened,” the ghost says, bobbing into the kitchen in Grandma’s wake. “I was just standing by the water. I was just thinking.”

Grandma pours the ghost a mug of milk and warms it in the microwave as he drifts around their kitchen, flickering in and out of focus. Shelly watches, fascinated. A ghost who is still deciding if he wants to stick around or not, a ghost this freshly formed, is new for her.

“What’s your name?” Shelly asks because the cops hadn’t said.

The ghost turns to face Shelly and gives her a distressed look. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know what happened. Do you know who I am? Do you know my name?”

Grandma sets the mug of warm milk down on the kitchen table. “Here you go,” she says. “This will warm you up and then we’ll make sure you get where you’re going. We’ll help you get to where you’re supposed to be. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? Shelly, would you get the scissors from my sewing kit?”

Shelly goes and gets the pair of small silver scissors.

The ghost drinks from his mug of milk. His wet hair drips real water on the floor. He looks like he’ll never be fully dry, like if you tried to wring him out he’d twist and twist and the water would just keep coming. It’s probably why Grandma doesn’t want to keep him around long. Having a damp ghost haunting their house would be troublesome. Mom’s definitely going to notice the river water all over the kitchen.

Grandma wraps a strand of hair around her ring finger and clips it off. By the time the milk is finished, the ghost is nearly gone, just a faint smudge in the air where once there was a man.