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“John’s trying to help,” she continues. “Let him.”

“So where are you going?” Ruben says to John, changing the subject.

“To meet Mabel. At some rock on the Palisades Parkway. Why won’t you accept the money? I don’t—”

“I don’t want pity.” Ruben’s words came fast, and there lingers in the air an emotional remnant, a brittle vibration.

“It’s not pity, Ruben,” says John. “It’s friendship.”

Ruben stares back at John for several moments. And then, finally, Ruben gives the slightest of nods. John can see Persephone

wants to pat Ruben on the back or something, but instead she simply smiles to herself.

Ruben looks down at his feet. “I’m sorry we never found the Grey House. Is that why you’re still fading?”

John doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s discovered the horrible truth about what he did to Persephone ten years ago, and he’s certain it’s somehow tied to his purpose, what he is meant, in this world, to face, so he isn’t sure why he’s still fading, either.

Perhaps it’s because feeling sorry isn’t enough.

Knowing isn’t enough. Perhaps he is doomed to a quasi-karmic fate of eternal, invisible existence in the living world, after all.

There might be, though, an inkling of a chance that he’ll stop fading altogether and remain here as a barely there smudge of a man.

A better fate than being alone in the Grey House, which cannot ever again be what it was to him because he suspects he understands what it is; but perhaps it’s not better than the alternative he’d belatedly realized might have been best of all, which is to remain in this living world as opaque as he’d ever been, enjoying his friends and all the world has to offer, both bitter and sweet, messy and serene.

And yet another thought, a new thought, intrudes, quiet and insistent: You must return to the Grey House.

He recognizes the voice as his own, though the idea of going back there is anathema to him. He’ll ask Mabel about this later.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I know I’m fading, but I don’t know if I won’t be back,” John says carefully. “It’s

anyone’s guess what’s going to happen.”

Persephone says, “Christine would say that’s all you need to know. Being in the Now or something.” Her tone makes it obvious

she isn’t quite sold.

“From what I’ve heard from Hannah,” John says, using a Ruben tactic and changing the subject, “your calendar is going to be

quite full these next several weeks.”

There have been new opportunities, one of which may be even bigger than the previous, thanks to Liza Worthington, the wife

of an eccentric media mogul known for swallowing fifty-two supplements with breakfast and sleeping in head-to-toe sunscreen.

In any case, Persephone has seemed to take everything that’s happened, both in LA and in Corpus Christi, in stride. But then,

life—and death—can do that.

He says to her, “This is the beginning for you,” because he believes it. “Ruben, what say your spidey senses?”

“Affirmative.” Ruben sighs. “Maybe for everybody.”

“You know, understanding Cross-Planing, the Overlays, figuring various connections, the Power of Three... Requisite Showdown.”

He leaves out the part about seeing the so-called iceberg, Persephone beneath the white sheet. “I think you may actually be

psychic. A bit.”

Ruben laughs. “No, dude. I just really, really know stories.”

Persephone continues to sit quietly, and then says, “I don’t know.”

“About?” John asks.

“About the acting thing.”

It should be a shock to John, this giving up, but somehow it isn’t. Maybe because he doesn’t believe she’d give up anything

she truly wanted.

“It’s just... there was this moment.” And Persephone describes a night after a photo shoot, of seeing in the building across the street a woman teaching young girls ballet.

“There was just something so... It’s like, I feel like I could live in that moment and be happy, you know?

Like I wouldn’t be looking forward to something and thinking then I’ll be happy, later, then I’ll be satisfied.

With acting, it’s always been like that.

I like it, I do, but it’s like I’m waiting for the big payoff,

which for so long was being...” Her voice lowers, as if embarrassed. “When I looked through that window, it was like looking

at a place, a version of myself where I didn’t need to prove to anyone that I’m more. Than myself.”

John thinks of Persephone’s grace, the way she holds her shoulders, the quiet dignity he’s always recognized in her.

“I know you’re thinking, How is she going to teach with that hip?”

“It hasn’t crossed my mind.”

“But teaching girls that age or maybe a little younger, I can manage it. I know I can. I will.”

“I hope it makes you happy,” he says. It sounds so simple but he thinks, Isn’t this the best one can hope for someone else, when it comes down to it: I hope you are happy.

“I hope you find that, too,” Persephone says.

Finding it. Probably he has more places to look than most. But being here with Persephone and Ruben, imagining her before

a cluster of tiny girls in tutus, infusing the air with passion too long tamped, picturing Ruben sitting rapt in some graphic

novel class, long legs splayed to either side of his desk because of course they don’t quite fit underneath...

John says, “I think I’m happy right now.”

3

“Seriously?” Hannah says. “You want me to clean out your account and give it all to Persephone and Ruben.”

Hannah, clad in white, her slacks so voluminous they look like a long skirt, stands before the glass wall of the beach house, hands on her hips as she is silhouetted by the bright blue sky and expanse of ocean beyond.

William and Jin Mi sit together on the sofa.

William has just landed Persephone the Rihanna conversation for Interview magazine—which, he says in a surprisingly graceful admission, Jin Mi helped to secure through a dancer friend of a choreographer

friend of a makeup artist. William’s status as junior publicist appears secure, as does Jin Mi’s move into the newly vacated

position of Assistant Numero Uno.

Hannah says, “How much do you want me to leave in the account? You don’t want me to clean you out...?”

John thinks about this a moment. “Just enough to keep the account open?”

Hannah shakes her head in disbelief. “So you and Mabel are going off the grid?”

It’s not exactly that, but he only smiles. “I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch, not knowing what to tell people and all.”

She waves a hand. “You’re a ghost, John, the symbol of humanity. A Black man. There will be all kinds of theories, better

than any I can concoct, and the mystery will continue forever. Until you come back.” She laughs. “Actually, you come back

too soon and I might have to hide you for a while. To keep the story going. Everyone’s worth more when they’re dead—even ghosts.

But yours isn’t really a ghost story, is it?”

John doesn’t answer, because it’s hard to know what kind of story his is, or if he’s in the middle, end, or beginning of it.

Finishing one thing almost always means beginning something else, which can be as frightening as it can be exciting. And perhaps

there are no beginnings or endings at all, but rather a series of connecting Befores and Afters that are all essentially Now.

Hannah’s mouth twists a little, a hint of wistfulness. “I’ll see you on the Other Side, John.”

He nods. “I like the sound of that. There’s potential in it.”

“ Potential . So I rubbed off on you a little. I’m a proud mama bear.”

It’s here that John realizes that in her own way, Hannah, like Mabel, has been protecting him, too. She’s had her own reasons, of course, but she’s helped him in ways he wouldn’t have thought he needed. He could tell her that, but he thinks she already knows this.

John looks to William and Jin Mi. “Take care of her?”

Hannah raises a brow. “Do I look like I’m licking my wounds?”

John puts up his hands. “I’m sure you’ll get on just fine without me.”

“No, I—so you don’t know.”

“Know?”

“The divorce. It’s been in the tabs but I forget, you don’t read that slush.”

John can’t tell whether or not Hannah is glad or relieved or hiding distress. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

Hannah gives a languid shrug. “I’m not. It’s been a long time coming. If spending time with you has taught me anything, it’s

that life is too short for bullshit. And the afterlife might be too long for it. I don’t know. Tell me next time I see you.”

John smiles and walks to the front door. Bean, as always, follows.

“You don’t have to come, Bean. Wayne’s driving me up the Palisades, and after that...” John doesn’t finish because he doesn’t

yet have the answer.

Bean nods and opens the door. It appears John won’t ever hear the man’s voice. But then, perhaps some of life’s mysteries

aren’t meant ever to be answered.

4

John and Mabel stand side by side on white boulders, staring out at the Pacific Ocean as it rolls in and out. He imagines

what it’d be like to feel the salty spray, watching enviously as Mabel’s brown arms are spotted with tiny droplets.

He says, “Who are you?”

“ Who ? Or what ?”

John nods toward Mabel’s ocean-misted arms. “You can’t possibly be a ghost. You’re clearly physical.” He thinks about her running to his aid at the orphanage and how she appears to be the same age now as she was then. “How long have you been here?”

“Me trying to figure out when I began to exist is like a person trying to pinpoint the exact beginning of a dream.”

There’s something buried in what she’s saying, another way to understand her words, but he can’t quite manage it at the moment.

“I’ve been here since the Dawn,” she says. “Of everything. Man. Nature. The division between light and dark. I can’t say I

remember.”

John tries to imagine the enormity of that: a soul being here, almost always. “How could you never have been born? It isn’t

possible.”

“We’re still questioning possibilities?”