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It was still a good idea.
    She’d also brought a large Thermos jug of
coffee. It was a bit stewed but it was hot and strong. She poured two cups and
added creamer. “Do you take sugar?”
    “Three please.”
    “Three?” She raised her eyebrows then cut
off any further remark. In the 1920s few people had been worried about
overindulgence in sweets.
    There were some assorted muffins in a box
and she offered them to him. She took one and bit into it. They were getting
stale but thank God they were crammed full of sugar and fat. She needed a boost
to her metabolism.
    By her second cup of coffee she was
thinking more clearly. She took a deep breath and smiled at Pierce. “We need to
try to figure out what you want to do.”
    “I know what I want to do. I want to be
with you so I can make love to you every night and most of the day.” He crammed
the last of the muffin in his mouth. “Can I have another one of those?”
    She passed him the box.
    “There’s more to life than that.”
    “Is there?” He gave her that shit-eating
grin again and then his face grew serious. “I know there’s more to life than
that. It’s just that I enjoyed making love to you so much that I can’t imagine
not being with you.”
    “You don’t know anything about me.”
    He poured himself more coffee and added
four sugars. “So tell me. Why aren’t you married?” He paused, the cup halfway
to his mouth. “Oh God, you aren’t, are you? Tell me you’re not married.”
    “I’m not married. I’m a teacher. I’ve
taught fifth grade for five years and I think it’s about time I thought of
changing… She sipped her coffee. “After I graduated I had a mountain of student
debt. I knew I’d never get on my feet on a teacher’s salary without some help.
So I went back to my old room, packed away the dolls and school prizes,
repainted and bought new linen. It’s a big room with space for my computer in the
corner and Dad’s old desk where I can grade papers.”
    He listened intently until she finished,
“So I accepted to spend two nights in this house because I want the money. It’s
like winning the lottery.”
    He put down his cup and brushed crumbs from
his hands. “I was thinking before you woke up. I want you to fill me in on what
has happened in the world since I died. I know there must have been a lot.”
    “You could say that.”
    “I want to know just enough to let me go
talk to my cousin, who has to be over ninety now.”
    “When was he born?”
    “1918. But our family has good genes. I can
remember a couple of uncles into their nineties. That’s why they didn’t believe
I’d died so young. My cousin was a few years younger than me but he kind of
followed me around.”
    “If he’s still alive.”
    “I never saw him on the other side.”
    For a second she didn’t understand what he
meant. For some reason she’d never thought of the dead meeting up in family
groups but it made sense.
    “But even if he’s dead,” Pierce said,
“maybe he has a son or a daughter with instructions from him. Someone made the
contract with you to stay in the house and someone is planning to sell it. You
said my cousin refused to sell years ago in the hope I would come home.”
    “Tell me about him. Why would he insist on
waiting so long for you to return?”
    Pierce shrugged. “He was a funny little
sprout. Not at all athletic, which upset his dad no end. But he couldn’t get
enough of baseball. I used to take him to the games every weekend. Once, we
even went to Boston.” He smiled. “He got some autographs and said it was the
best day of his whole life.”
    That went some way to explaining the
cousin’s devotion. He must have hero-worshipped his manly relative who took the
trouble to spend time with him.
    “I’ll arrive on his doorstep,” Pierce
continued, “and tell him I’m Pierce’s grandson. You’re a teacher. If you teach
me enough I can do it.”
    He took her hands in his. “Then maybe I can
inherit this