“Can you keep afloat on your back like this without paddling or moving at all?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’m not really a good swimmer.”

“I’m not either. Just a good floater.”

Kimmy kicked up her feet. Her silver one-piece filled with water and bubbled up over her belly and chest.

Ryan said, “It’s easier if you get a big lungful of air.”

Kimmy did this and found that she was able to float if she kept the slightest current going with her fingers.

Ryan said, “That’s good. But now you can’t laugh. If you laugh, you’ll let all that good air out and your muscles will tense up and you’ll sink right away. Don’t laugh, OK?”

When Kimmy looked over at him, he was making a ridiculous face, eyes crossed, lips in a snarl, and tongue sagged out to the side, and she could not help laughing. She sank right away, then she stood up, laughed more, and splashed water at him. “Funny, funny, funny!” she said. She dove under and did a somersault while Ryan continued to float easily on his back. Kimmy came up, shook out her hair, and said, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Ryan maintained his position, flat on his back, chin to the air, and he didn’t turn to face her. “Why do you ask?”

“I asked my teacher in catechism a few weeks ago if ghosts were real, and he said it was unrighteous and ungodly to believe in ghosts except for the Holy Ghost, and so then I had to go to confession, and the priest made me do one Hail Mary.”

“Did that make you stop believing in ghosts?”

“No.” Kimmy drew small circles in the water with her index fingers. “I wanted it to, but it didn’t. There are lots of times when I want to stop thinking a thought and I can’t seem to.”

“Mm.”

“Well, anyway,” Kimmy continued, “my friend Marti lives in a creepy old house where a little girl died a long time ago, and sometimes Marti sees a little girl in the hallway at night, and she doesn’t have a sister, so it could only be a ghost.”

“Do you believe her?”

Kimmy nodded very seriously. “Marti doesn’t lie. So even though I want to stop believing in ghosts, I can’t seem to make myself. It’s weird.”

Ryan said, “I guess I wonder . . . if ghosts are real, why do they spend so much time sulking around the old houses where they died?”

“What do you mean?”

“You always hear about people seeing ghosts in creepy old houses where they died. Like your friend Marti’s ghost. Wouldn’t you think, if you were a ghost, that you’d want to go zooming around to all the places you didn’t get to see when you were alive? Instead of walking up and down the same old hallways like some broken toy?” Ryan did a zombie imitation and Kimmy giggled.

She was quiet for a bit, then said, “My grandma’s got cancer, bad. So we’ll probably be coming to Wheeling for more visits soon. I like going to the train museum.”