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stunted?" he said, only half joking.
    Dan's face drooped as he poked a piece sheepishly into his own mouth.
    " I don't know how I'm going to tell Jenna. Things are already tense between us, she's been dropping hints about marriage and kids and stuff. I'm just not ready for that."
    " Have you been down to the job center?"
    " Yeah. I grabbed a business card with their website on it. I guess you can file online now."
    " Do you want to do that right now?"
    " No. I need more time to process.” He shook his head. "This has been the weirdest day ever."
    " What do you mean, weird?"
    " I mean like Twilight Zone, weird."
    " Is this before or after you lost your job?"
    " I'm not having a psychological break, if that's what you're implying."
    " No. I'm just saying, stress does crazy things to the mind."
    " I don't know why I'm even telling you this."
    " Look," he said, jutting his hands out toward Jake, "just tell me what happened. I'll shut my mouth and listen. I promise."
    This was possibly the biggest mistake in the history of mistakes, but Jake didn't know who else he could tell. Dan was the closest friend he had, besides Jenna, and there was no way he was telling Jenna.
    " All right, I'll tell you. But if you breathe a word of this to Jenna, or anyone else for that matter, it will be open season on all the skeletons in your closest."
    " My lips are Fort Knox," Dan said, pretending to lock his lips with a key.
    Jake took a deep breath, then let it all out. He told about the old woman and the flower, his encounters with the children on his way to work, and ended with the boy on the elevator. Dan listened intently, making no reaction. When Jake finished, he leaned back in his chair, and said, "Now tell me that's not weird."
    Dan rubbed his unshaven chin. "It's weird. I'll give you that."
    " So you believe me?"
    His face soured. "Are you kidding? Mr. Goody Two-Shoes? I think you're genetically incapable of doing wrong. Heck, you can't even indulge in a tasty loaf of bread without feeling guilty."
    " Cut it out. I'm far from perfect."
    " You're like a nun trapped in a man's body."
    " Look, this is serious. Something really freaky is going on."
    " I'm sorry, you're right, I shouldn't joke. Clearly, this whole thing is rattling you. I'd be messed up too if some old woman visited me and then ghost-children started showing up.”
    " You think they could be ghosts?"
    " Well, I don’t know why I said that. I've never heard of ghosts walking around outside in broad daylight. I would think that kind of thing would draw some media attention."
    " But they didn't look like ghosts. They looked real."
    " Did you touch any of them?”
    " No.”
    " Did anyone else see any of this stuff?"
    " No- I don’t know. It seemed like just me, I think."
    " Maybe you’re hallucinating. What have you had to eat today? Or maybe someone slipped something in your drink?"
    " No. It's not drugs. I don't feel any different than I normally do."
    Dan brought a web browser up onto his projected screen.
    " What are you doing?"
    " I'm Googling it."
    " Googling what?"
    " I don't know, phantom children, daytime ghosts, creepy old ladies with flowers."
    " Seriously?"
    " Why not? This is the digital age. If you had this experience, maybe someone else had it too."
    Jake's phone buzzed in his pocket. He slid it out and looked at the caller I.D.
    " It’s my mom. I have to take it."
    Dan acknowledged him and went back to his search.
    Jake took the phone into the kitchen and flipped it open. "Hello?"
    There was silence on the other end.
    " Mom?"
    " Jacob." His mother's voice sounded frail and vulnerable. He had heard this tone before, many times, usually when she was about to shatter his world—again.
    Jake was the older of two unwanted children, the product of a drug-addict mom who was too wasted most of the time to remember to use protection. His little sister Holly was the other, but not the second. The second had died during child-birth in the cellar of some guy his mother