“Yeah,” he said, but he stared out the window, expressionless, until it was time for math. He opened his textbook. I let him work on his own while I reviewed our art textbooks for what we’d study next. Though I was grateful for my time with Lee, I looked forward to having three students instead of only one. Across the schoolhouse, Liz led Emma and Jackson and Hunter in a discussion of some kind. And farther still, the little ones sprawled on the floor listening to Billy read. When I glanced at Lee’s paper to see how he was doing, I saw more blacked-out squares than ever before.

“I just can’t get it right,” he said. “I’m so stupid.”

“Let’s go outside,” I told him. “Why don’t we race?”

He shut the textbook, rested his head atop its cover. “I’m too tired for racing,” he said.

___

“Has it been . . . hard for you here, Lee?” I asked him later on in the living room. We were on the sofa, the fire crackling in the hearth. “Have you been lonely?”

“Not lonely,” he said. “Just scared.”

“Scared about what?”

“My ghost.”

“Oh,” I said. “I see. Is he still making mean faces?”

Lee nodded.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said. “You know how, that day when we were drawing, we talked about how it’s good to look at what scares us? That it makes the fear go away?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe,” I said, taking in a breath. “Maybe the fear doesn’t ever actually go away. Maybe we have to keep on working. We thought it would be simple, but it isn’t. We thought we could be finished, but maybe . . . maybe we’ll never be entirely finished.”

His face crumpled in sadness. “But I want it to be over.”

“I know, Lee,” I said. I put my arm around him. “I want that, too. But do you think we could ever—do you think it might be possible—to be happy anyway?”

“I can try,” he said.

“I’ll try too,” I told him. People were in the kitchen, in the upstairs room. I wanted to tell Lee more but I didn’t want anyone else to hear me. I scooted closer to him and whispered, “I’m scared too. I’m scared all the time. I keep having these memories that turn real. There was a shell in a memory—a shell used to trick me—I stepped on it—I found real blood on my foot. Blood from just the memory of it. And I don’t like the ghosts, especially the one who dances. She hurts my eyes.”

At first, he didn’t respond, but then he looked at me. He blinked back tears. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going to split in half,” he said. “It hurts that much.”

“Oh no,” I said. “Oh, Lee. Come here.”