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He glared back at her and then glanced at me. I wasn't going to help him. Let her see how much he knows on his own, I thought. Maybe she wouldn't still say he has her heart.

"I don't remember." he said petulantly. "Why didn't Daddy come into the house?"

"I want you to remember. Noble," Mommy insisted. "What did I tell you?"

He looked down, and then he raised his head slowly and said. "Daddy's body is a cup, and his spirit is all over the place."

"Yes." she said. nodding. "Only, his body isn't exactly a cup. It's like the cup. I just used the cup as a way of explaining it. Do you understand?"

Stubborn, he wouldn't respond.

"If you don't tell me you understand, I won't tell you about Daddy," she threatened.

He softened his shoulders and looked at her again.

"I know," he said. "Daddy died, and his body isn't here."

"Okay. Noble. Very soon you'll understand everything," she said, "I'm sure you will."

She looked at me and nodded. I knew she meant. "and you will help him. Celeste."

"Daddy came to me a little while ago. It's not that easy for a spirit to return to talk to the people he or she loves. When you go over to the other side, there are so many changes, so many different things to understand about yourself and about what you were," she said.

Even Noble was paying attention now. Of course. I was barely breathing. I didn't want to miss a word,

"For a while you can't help thinking like a living person. You can't get used to not having to touch the ground, to seeing everything at once as if you were looking down from a cloud, to hearing people's thoughts." she continued, raising her eyebrows. "Yes, the dead can hear your thoughts, children, so be careful about that, be careful you don't think something terrible or evil and then face your father or your ancestors, for they will know and be upset."

Noble began to chew on the inside of his left cheek. And Mommy told him to stop.

"Anyway, it takes a while for someone to understand and get used to being on the other side. He or she loves those left behind just as much, but its frustrating."

"What's frustrating?" Noble asked immediately. He wanted to understand all this because it involved Daddy.

"Annoying," she said quickly and flicked her right hand as if to chase away a fly.

The spirit can't take direct action. If you are about to cut yourself or fall into a hole or get hit by a car, anything, he or she can't stop it from happening. What they can try to do is warn you if you'll listen."

"I'll listen," Noble said with his eyes wide,

"Will you? I hope so. Noble." Mommy said with a sigh. She glanced at me. I was staring at her impatiently. and I saw that annoyed her. But I didn't need all this preliminary information about what spirits could do and couldn't do. I wanted to hear about Daddy. She was doing this for Noble: only, and she and I knew it.

To listen, to really hear," she continued, looking only at him. You have to believe and concentrate, Noble. You cannot flit about when I tell you things."

"Okay," he said in a small voice. "I won't."

"Well. I hope you will remember what you've just promised," she said. "Now then. I was walking in the meadow

"Which meadow? Where?" Noble asked quickly.

Mommy raised her eyes toward the ceiling and then, after a moment, looked at him.

"Let me talk without any interruptions. Noble," she said sternly.

He pressed his lips together.

"I was walking in the meadow near the old well. I had my head down and I was thinking very hard about Daddy, picturing him in my mind. Its how you make contact," she explained. wouldn't let any other thought enter my head. He never said good-bye to me, you see. He went off to work and never came home."

"Me neither," Noble said, nodding at me. "He never said good-bye to me."