After Mrs. Haslam left the kitchen, I took the envelope out of my apron to see if she’d opened it. The seal was intact. She must be regretting that decision, I thought. I put the envelope with my coat and purse and went back to my work.

Yes, I was surprised, Miss.

But supper for eight boarders and one Mrs. Haslam didn’t care if a Mr. Hearn, dead for how many years, had sent me a letter. Also, there wasn’t a thing that I could do about it until I gave that letter to Bill to read. It wasn’t going to say a thing to me until his eyes saw it.

If Miss Caroline were still at Mrs. Haslam’s, I might have asked her to read the letter to me, but she, Mr. Bean, and even Mr. Wheeler were all gone. Her two rooms were now occupied by two women again, a set of second cousins, a department store clerk and a typist at one of the railroad companies. In the early mornings when the heavy curtains were still closed, I would see Miss Caroline sitting at the breakfast table, but it couldn’t have been her because she was with Miss Beryl. Ghost-people, if beloved, were conjured by the living, Aunt Sweetie had taught me. If despised, they conjured themselves to ask the living why.

The return address says Martinique; it’s an island in the West Indies, Bill told me later that night.

The letter writer must have been Lafcadio, as his words were nearly foreign to me. Even Bill struggled with a few, as he read the letter aloud to me.

Mr. Pat was writing as if he were someone living in the past, Bill said.

No, I don’t have that letter, Miss.

When Bill saw that I was feeding its pages to the coal stove, he had the same face that you have on now. The same sound came from his throat that just came from yours, Miss.

I’ll tell you the same thing I told Bill. I don’t know that letter writer. Why would I keep something sent from a stranger?

Yes, I can recall some of it, Miss.

The letter writer, I believed, was drunk. There were long descriptions of the island and its plants and flowers and its sunrises and sunsets. Bill blushed as he read what then followed about the writer’s lonesomeness and regrets. Bill’s voice rose with excitement when the writer then boasted that he had five books to his name and aimed to publish more. The writer even claimed that one of them was a cookbook.

Yes, that was the title, Miss.