Shelly doesn’t think to wonder how Joseph will know it’s her mother until after she finds Grandma and the rest of the funeral party getting ready to head back home, where there’s lots of food and more people waiting to say how sorry they are—her mom’s coworkers and Grandma’s clients, their other neighbors. Shelly hadn’t realized her mom knew this many people. Jenny Potts opens the door to the back seat of her Prius and Shelly crawls in. Shelly lays her head in Grandma’s lap and closes her eyes.

Nobody talks as Jenny starts the car. She pulls out of the parking lot and even though Shelly doesn’t have a seatbelt on, Jenny doesn’t say anything to her about sitting up straight or buckling up. Shelly’s mom would have said something.

Shelly watches the telephone wires through the window, black against the mottled gray sky, and thinks about seeing her mother again. “Do ghosts know things?” she asks.

“They know lots of things,” Grandma says. “Things they knew when they were alive. All the things they’ve learned since they died. Ghosts have a lot of time on their hands.”

Shelly shakes her head. That’s not what she means. “Do they know things about other ghosts? Would a ghost know who another ghost was, before they became a ghost?”

“Ghosts are just like people, Shelly,” Grandma says, undoing Shelly’s bun and stroking her hair. “They don’t have a special connection to other ghosts just because they’re all dead.”

Grandma cradles Shelly to her chest the way her mom used to when Shelly was small and rubs her back when Shelly starts to cry. “It hurts now, but it’s going to be okay,” she promises. “I’m here and you’re here, and I’m going to take care of you. We’re going to be okay.”

Okay feels like it’s years and years away right now, so far away it might as well be the moon, might as well not exist, but the car keeps driving toward the house and Grandma keeps holding Shelly close. The world keeps moving.

“Your mom loved you very much,” Grandma says. “Remember that, Shelly. You were her world. We’ll do right by her memory, you and I. You’re going to make her so proud.”

Maybe she will—maybe she’ll get a chance to hear her mother tell her she’s proud of her. She hasn’t come to the house and she wasn’t at the cemetery, but that doesn’t mean her mother isn’t coming. She might be taking her time or caught up in the transition, but Grandma is right. Her mom loves her. She’ll come.