“Thank God we found her,” John said. “If you hadn’t insisted, we’d still be looking.”

“She doesn’t look well,” she said.

“No.”

Linnea turned her head to look at him. “John, that sandwich,” she said with disgust just remembering it. “My God, do you think she ate it?”

“Yeah. I could smell it on her breath.”

“Oh God,” Linnea moaned. “It looked rotten.”

“I’m more worried about contagion.”

“Covid? You don’t think she’ll catch it?”

“It’s possible. She was out with all those people, not wearing a mask,” he said, his fatigue cutting his voice. “She’s so fragile… she weighed next to nothing. When I think of Florence Prescott, I think of this strong, invincible woman. She’d challenge Peter at the Pearly Gates.” He wiped his nose. “I held her in my arms like she was a child.”

A car passed them on the road, splashing them with water. They were so wet already, neither of them cared.

Linnea had to ask. “Did you hear her calling Lovie?”

John walked a few steps. “Yeah.”

“She was waving to her. Like she was seeing her.”

“I saw it myself, or I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Do you… do you think she really saw her?”

“I don’t know…” he said with sincerity.

After the night they’d had, walking together under the shelter of the blanket, hip to hip, step in step, there was a raw honesty in the air.

“She seemed so happy. Like… like she was letting her know she was coming.” Linnea turned her head. “Do you think it’s possible that Lovie was coming for her?”

John sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe. Yeah.”

“I think she was,” Linnea confessed. “You know,” she added, “Cara has seen Lovie a couple of times.”

“Her ghost?”

“Yes,” she replied fervently. “And you know Cara’s not the kind of woman who’d make that up. She swears by it. And my father saw her too.”

“That I find hard to believe.”

“Which is why I believe it. If Cara and Daddy saw Lovie…”

“This is giving me the creeps,” John said as they turned down the street toward the beach house.

“Not me,” Linnea said. “It makes me feel less afraid. Hopeful. To think that Lovie came to Flo when she needed her.” She looked up at him. “Don’t you find that comforting? It gives me hope.”

John walked a few paces before replying. “Do you want to know how it makes me feel?”

“Of course.”

“No. Forget it.”

There was something in his voice. A breaking point. “John, tell me,” she urged.

They’d reached the corner before Linnea’s house. John stopped walking and dropped his arm, letting the blanket slip from their heads. The fine mist seemed to glisten under the light from the lamppost. She looked at him, his clothes as soaked as hers. His hair clinging wet to his head. But the light in John’s eyes burned like a flame.

“All this talk of life and death,” he began. “Ghosts…” He ran his hand through his hair, pushing the locks from his forehead. “A damn pandemic is haunting us every bit as much as any ghost. It’s the goddamn Grim Reaper. None of us knows if it’s going to get us. We could all die tomorrow.”