Saint Louis of France, my wife read, was a very religious king. Due to his piety or simply because he was nice, he donated a manor near Paris to monks from the Order of Saint Bruno. The monks were not resentful in the slightest that right next door was the Palace of Vauvert, a residence of superior majesty. Vauvert didn’t have a reputation for ghosts, yet after the monks arrived, reports circulated that it was home to the ghost of a bearded man in robes who shrieked obscenities. When word of these goings-on reached the king, he was appalled and inquired if the monks had heard about the phantom neckbeard. The monks expressed their sympathetic shock and disgust and promised the king that, in exchange for taking up residence, they would exorcise the ghost. Relieved, Louis had a deed drawn up that designated the Palace of Vauvert the official abode of the monks of Saint Bruno. The devoted monks, if they ever did encounter the ghost, at least did not complain.

“Pretending to be ghosts could be our side hustle,” I said to my wife.

“I’m not sure anyone will believe we’re a couple of thirteenth century monks,” she replied.

Hurricane Frida made landfall while my wife continued to read, and I offered her my senses if not my interest. The tides were rising and rising—I was convinced that we would drown in that condo, though in my mind the dialysis machine floated peacefully out the front door and into the canals. Ultimately, the storm spared the condo of the Reluctant Gambler, but the rest of the block was the picture of a haunting. I kept quiet and didn’t mention again how it was lucky we didn’t have children, how the world was getting worse, the floods hotter, the summers higher. My wife was a cheerful person until confronted with the suffering of the vulnerable or crushing desire, at which point she became cheerful beyond comfort. She would probably bring up Lewes Lavater’s lament, in 1572, in Of Ghostes and Spirites Walking by Nyght: “The world waxeth worse and worse. Men are now more impudent, more dould, more couetous, and more wicked, than euer they were in times past, and their ghostes doe but followe in deede.”

At Denny’s in Siesta Key, I wore a rose in my lapel like an idiot, requested a booth, and drank a cup of coffee. I drank another cup of coffee, and I got the jitters. The woman who had my dead wife’s phone number didn’t appear, and I wished my wife were there to read me ghost stories while I waited for the woman who had her number.

I’m in a booth at Denny’s, and I’m wearing a rose in my lapel like an idiot, I texted.

I’m sorry, she texted back. I’ve been gathering up my courage to leave my bed and come to Denny’s. The truth is that I moved here to get away from someone, someone who hurt me very badly. I just can’t meet a strange man right now, I’m sorry.