Jasmine would end up being my second-most unmarriageable girlfriend. When I was ready to break up with her, I took her to the Front Street house, where my grandmother (who was eighty-nine) tried to warn me that Jasmine might be “especially susceptible” to seeing ghosts.

“It’s not just that Jasmine is as old as your mother, dear,” Nana began.

“Jasmine is older than Ray, ya know, Adam,” Dottie said.

“I know,” I told her. I’m not sure how old Dottie was—I never really knew. If Nana was eighty-nine, I’m guessing Dottie was in her seventies.

“Furthermore—Adam, dear—I don’t believe Jasmine knows you think she’s unmarriageable,” my grandmother pointed out. “Jasmine still thinks of herself as marriageable.”

“Jasmine just keeps marryin’ and marryin’, don’t she?” Dottie asked me.

“I know,” I said. The three of us were in the kitchen of the Front Street house, where we were washing the supper dishes. Dottie had already pointed out that Jasmine was the first of my unmarriageable girlfriends to have cleaned her plate of one of Nana’s gloppy casseroles. We could hear Jasmine talking on the phone, all the way from the living room. She was unloading her bitter feelings on a former boyfriend, or one of her ex-husbands—not the ex-husband who had died, I hoped. Jasmine hadn’t told me that she’d seen her ex-husband who’d died, but Jasmine had confided this to Dottie and my grandmother.

“In those restaurants in New York, where they used to go together—that’s where Jasmine has seen him,” Nana told me.

“Jasmine said he’s usually with another dead person—so she sees other ghosts, ya know,” Dottie added.

“And this is what makes you think Jasmine might be ‘especially susceptible’ to seeing ghosts?” I asked my grandmother. Dottie just rolled her eyes. “Granddaddy’s ghost just talks about punctuation—he’s never scary,” I pointed out to them.

“It’s nothin’ special, I suppose—seein’ your dead husband, with a bunch of dead fellas ya used to know,” Dottie said, shrugging.

“Adam, dear,” Nana began, “I think Jasmine believes in eternity.” I had no idea why Jasmine’s belief in eternity—her own immortality, most of all—should concern me, but my grandmother had given more consideration to Jasmine’s spirituality than I had. “I don’t think a woman like Jasmine will necessarily find this kind of encounter with a ghost soothing, dear.”

“Soothin’!” Dottie exclaimed. “When she calls them ex-husbands and old boyfriends, she tells ’em how much sex she’s havin’ with you—ya know, Adam,” Dottie said.

“I know,” I said. We were aware of Jasmine’s voice growing louder in the living room.

“A woman as old as your mother, Adam, dear, should not see the deluded, departed infant man in the bedroom of a much younger man she’s sleeping with!” my grandmother declared. “This could cause Jasmine to become unhinged,” she added.