“Grampy?” you call from the bed.

“Yes?”

“Will you tell me about Grandma?”

For a second I have trouble catching my breath. I am still looking out the window. “What would you like to know?” I manage to ask.

“Was she like me?”

“In what way, Pearl?”

“You know. Did she see stuff no one else saw?”

I think of the silver-haired woman she saw in the field that dark night, and again in the cabin that first summer. “Sometimes she did. She had an imagination, I guess. Like you.”

“But I’m not imagining things, Grampy. These things are real.”

I pull my eyes away from the window and look over at you, so small in the bed made for Shirley. I reach up and tenderly touch the knot on my head. For a moment I do not hate the lump. For a moment it feels as much a part of me as my heart or nose or kneecap.

“I know, Pearl,” I say. “I know. But when you see things no one else can see, you have to accept that it might be hard for people to believe you.”

“Do you believe me, Grampy?” you ask.

“About what?”

“About everything.”

I sigh, walk over to your bed, bend over, and kiss your forehead. “I love you, Pearl. Good night.”

“Did you believe Grandma?”

I pause.

“You know,” you continue, “when she saw stuff?”

I take a deep breath, staring at the long rows of books. I wonder where they all came from and how many of them Shirley read before she died.

“For a long time, yes, I did,” I say.

“’Night, Grampy,” you say, but the light in your eyes has dimmed.

I turn to walk out. I turn off the light, and darkness fills the room with a kind of warmth. I begin drawing the door closed behind me when you call, “Grampy?”

“Yes, Pearl?”

“I didn’t find anything in the cabin today. I didn’t find the door.”

“It’s okay, Pearl.” I turn to go again, and again your voice stops me.

“I know you’re very sick.” You pause. “I know you’re dying.”

Your words leave me blinking, my mouth hanging open.

“And we’re going to help you get better,” you insist. “The silver-haired lady can help us.”

I wander through the house, distracted by your latest proclamation.

I know you’re dying. And we’re going to help you get better.

I’m so taken by your words that I lose track of where I am, get lost again, and find myself somewhere in the basement. The ceilings are lower here, the hallway long and straight with a sprinkling of doors on either side. I look over my shoulder, debating if I should go back the way I came, but at the far end of the hallway I can see stairs leading back up. They head up into the middle part of the house, maybe the kitchen. I head in that direction.