I sigh. He’s right. There is something in my mother’s past, something major, that I am only just catching wind of. Something that might explain all the crazy—not just the mental illness, but the absolutely maddening idiosyncrasies that are Mary—and maybe, indirectly, the collisions with weirdos I keep having, asleep and otherwise. Because I’m starting to get the sense that there is more Mary in me than Moony or I ever wanted to admit. If I can understand her, maybe I can understand what’s happening to me.

“You know what my mawmaw Barb says about secrets?”

I shake my head.

He hunches over, points a finger at me, and screws up his face. “Daniel, keeping a secret is like swallowing gasoline and expecting it not to burn. Even if you manage to hold it in for a time, one of these days, it will light you up from the inside.”

We both crack up.

“She does not say that,” I challenge him when I can finally breathe again.

“She absolutely does,” he insists.

“About the gasoline and everything?”

“Yep. My mawmaw dispenses wisdom the way candy machines dispense cavities.”

“Oh my god. Does she say that too?”

He nods and we both crack up again. “She’s got a saying for everything,” he admits, shaking his head. “But there’s always some truth in them. Anyway, I’m glad I could at least make you laugh.”

I smile at him with just the corner of my mouth as a couple walks in the door. I escort them to a table near the back and return to my station, where Daniel is waiting. He is just about to head over to the couple with their menus when I stop him.

“A sister,” I tell him suddenly, as if I can’t hold it in another second. “That’s the secret.” It’s at least one of them.

He looks at me and his eyes widen.

“She died.”

His eyebrows raise even higher. “Yup, that’s big.”

“That’s not all.”

“There’s more?” he says in disbelief.

“There’s more. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

Daniel places a hand on my arm. “Then we’ll figure it out.”

The café closes at seven, but our tables don’t clear until eight or so. Daniel helps me bus the final tables, and we lock up behind the last customers, sending the other server home. We count the register together, sweep the floors, refill all the saltshakers and ketchup bottles. I’m moving on to the pepper shakers when Daniel pops the question.

“So more, huh? Like what?”

I eye him over the funnel I’m using to fill the shakers up. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”

“A needle, you mean.”

“A what?”

“That’s what my mawmaw Barb calls those feelings—like a needle under the skin. She says it’s the spirits pinching you.”