I couldn't stop myself, the situation was suddenly too ridiculous for me to not find it funny, and the sight of the mischievous sparkle in her eyes turned my chortle into full-blown laughter, laughter that she merrily joined in with. “Okay, okay,” I conceded around my mirth. “My life has become a spoof, I admit it.” I frowned suddenly. “I think I'd prefer it was a tragedy though.”

“That does sound like you,” she observed with a smile that took the sting out of her words.

I thought about that, chuckled, this time without mirth, and shook my head. “It really does, doesn't it?” I asked, intending the question to be rhetorical.

“Instead of answering that, may I ask you a question instead?” she softly ventured. “I haven't wished to pry, but since you never remember me or our conversations anyway . . .”

Sensing where this was going, I didn't make her finish. “Go for it,” I told her, hopefully not nearly as brusquely as it felt like I said it.

If there was any brusqueness in my tone, she didn't acknowledge it. “Why is it that you never remember me or our conversations?”

That was one heck of a good question, and I really didn't want to answer it, but if I could easily deny a pretty girl something she wanted, my life wouldn't even be half the mess that it currently was.

“Let me put it like this,” I said with a sigh. “Being able to see ghosts these days is passe, something that went out of fashion with seances and black silk hats. These days people want their ghosts on movies and television, but not mucking up their tidy day-to-day lives.”

“I see,” she said softly.

“That's the problem,” I sighed. “I do too. Always have, but when you're a kid, being able to see dead people is something that can be laughed off as an overactive imagination and maybe just a touch too many 'imaginary' playmates, but as you get older . . .” I shrugged. “You start to figure out that not everybody can or wants to see the things you can. In a painfully literally backhanded way, you might say I was lucky that my father helped me realize that when I was so young."

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