When had Abigail and Martha last visited my grandmother at River Bend? Why, it was just the other day, Nana would have answered, although Dottie had moved back to Maine, and my aunts had been dead for four or five years. The Front Street house kept changing hands; in four or five years, that house had seen as many new owners. The Realtor would keep lowering the asking price, following the repeated renovations to the attic.

It didn’t matter what the Realtor renovated. The problem in the attic didn’t stay in the attic. Granddaddy’s ghost knew how to keep quiet. Principal Brewster had always known how to bide his time. Not even my aunts could boss the diaper man around, though those two would try. After Aunt Abigail and Aunt Martha managed to move my grandmother to River Bend, those two harassers went after the ghost in the attic.

Realtors hear everything. A ghost in the Front Street house was big news in the town. Even Rose, who no longer limped, said someone had told her there was a ghost in my grandmother’s attic. “Yeah, I’ve already heard about it,” Rose had replied, but my aunts were dead set on doing something about the ghost of the enfant terrible. Ghosts were bad for the real estate business, my aunts were told; in an old New England house with a history, a ghost will bring down the asking price. Aunt Abigail and Aunt Martha wouldn’t hear of it. My aunts were determined to give this ghost a talking-to.

“Daddy will listen to us,” Aunt Abigail told my mother.

“This is all your fault, Rachel—Daddy stopped talking because of you,” Aunt Martha added, rubbing it in.

“Daddy stopped listening before he stopped talking—Daddy went batshit crazy before I was born!” my mom told her sisters.

“Them two aunts of yours were born batshit crazy, Adam,” Dottie would tell me later. Dottie didn’t encourage my aunts’ plan; wisely, Dottie wanted nothing to do with it. In Dottie’s opinion, the idea of those two sleeping in my attic bedroom was just asking for trouble. Ghost or no ghost, this sure as shit constituted “messin’ with it,” as Dottie had said.

“You didn’t say anything about Jasmine?” I’d asked Dottie.

“Not to them two,” Dottie said. “Them two have made their beds, haven’t they?” Dottie asked me.

“You didn’t tell them what happened to Jasmine?” I would ask my mother later.

“I don’t tell tales out of school about you, sweetie—you’re my one and only,” my mom reminded me.

After the fact, even Nora would ask me the same thing—in her fashion. “I don’t suppose you said something to my mom or Martha, regarding Jasmine’s encounter with Granddaddy’s ghost—or whatever you want to call it. Did you, kiddo?”