I was thirty. I’d purposely left my bathroom light on, with the door ajar. There was a path of light on the floor by my bed, and it was a starry night. A silvery glow of starlight descended from the skylight. I was worrying about Nana’s presentiments—specifically, that a sudden sighting of Granddaddy’s ghost could cause Jasmine to become unhinged. I was seeing Jasmine anew, through my grandmother’s eyes. I’d not been critical of the negligee Jasmine wore to bed, until now. She always wore one, something sheer but not fully revealing. Thus partially concealed, Jasmine got into bed, taking the garment off just before we had sex, if we were having sex.

Because we were in my attic bedroom for the express purpose of seeing a dead man, I saw no prospect of having sex—the negligee remained on. I was relieved for that, but not by Jasmine’s recurring bedtime recitations—her incessant repeating of what she’d said on the phone to this or that ex-husband or former boyfriend.

I began to understand my folly. When I dumped Jasmine, only her death would free me from her; she was fifty, old to me, but she likely had a few years to go. Jasmine would never stop phoning me. Only now did I see what Jasmine saw as her station in life, not only because her dead ex-husband had been a wealthy one. While Jasmine generally maintained an erect posture—she did not round her shoulders, nor did her upper back show any signs of her developing a dowager’s hump—she definitely had a dowager’s air of social position. Nana tried to warn me.

“Adam, dear,” my grandmother had said, “those restaurants in New York, where Jasmine is always seeing her dead ex-husband—well, those restaurants speak to me of how inseparable Jasmine is from what she sees as her station in life.”

Whoever the more recent ex-somebody was, Jasmine told me he’d been given an earful. It was clear Jasmine didn’t move on; she continued to keep score. I foresaw that it would be all uphill—to prepare Jasmine for the always-sudden visitation of Granddaddy’s ghost.

“He’s usually well dressed,” I began.

“Who is?” Jasmine asked.

“My grandfather’s ghost,” I reminded her.

“Oh, him,” she said. In her perfunctory fashion, Jasmine took my hand and put it under her negligee, where she held it to her bare (only slightly sagging) breast. With her other hand, Jasmine pushed my face into her fragrant (not noticeably wrinkled) neck. How many men before me had been similarly guided, and how many of them were still changing and unlisting their phone numbers?