Page 47 of Ghost in the Night

How could Dad do this to us?

My chest caves in at the thought. I take my camera out, clicking a couple of photos just to keep myself from crying in front of people.

Myah, wearing a green bathing suit and sunglasses, runs out of the water, laughing, while her two friends from school play in the waves. They packed sodas, sandwiches,chips, and cookies, just like my girls would back home. We listened to Lil Baby in the car on the way to the beach, just like I would with my girls. We even laughed about Mr. Horton’s funny driving, just like my friends and I did about Kiki’s mom’s driving. It all seems so familiar. But these aren’t my friends. They’re Myah’s. And I’m not entirely sure whether Myah’s my real friend or not.

“You okay?” Myah asks me, drying off with a towel. “You seem … off.”

I don’t want to tell Myah what happened with Dad. I don’t want her to think he’s some jerk or like other parents who don’t care what their kids think. He just … didn’t have a choice. At least that’s what I try to tell myself. I also didn’t want Myah to think that I hate Savannah. I mean, it’s pretty cool. But I miss Harlem. I miss home. The thought of  being stuck down here without even the chance of saying goodbye …

“Why wouldn’t I be, after learning about you?” I shoot back.

Myah bites her lip and sits next to me on the towel. “I guess I get that.”

“But nah, I’m good,” I say with a sigh. It’s not like I totally trust her to tell her what I’m really feeling or nothing.

Myah stares at me. “Okay. So, who died?”

I reel away. “What!”

“Back with that Maverick guy. He had you thinking real hard about somebody who died. Somebody who maybe had you thinking you were seeing things. So. Who was it?”

I’m a little floored at how Myah can read people like a book. Maybe she is some kind of psychic after all.

“My grandma,” I admit, a frog in my throat. “And I guess my mom.”

“Oh. Wow. I’m sorry. Was … seeing my grandmama … hard for you?”

“No. Your grandma’s mad cool.” I sniff. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m acting like this. She’s been gone a little while now.”

“Girl. That was your grandma! What other way you supposed to act? If  I lost my grandmama, I don’t know how I’d act.”

I bite my quivering lip, gripping the towel tight.

“I miss her,” I say. “She was, like, my best friend. Nothing feels the same without her. House don’t feel the same. Food don’t taste the same. Holidays. Birthdays. Nothing. And I guess I’m just trying to figure out how I’m supposed to go on when I don’t know how to move on from all that I know.”

Myah nods. “My uncle Clay died two years ago. Real sudden. It hit everyone hard ’cause he was, like, the funny one. You couldn’t have a cookout or party without him. He used to pick me up from school every Friday with a hot pickle.”

“A hot pickle?”

She holds her hand up. “You wouldn’t understand. Them things are good! Anyway, now Fridays don’t feel the same without him. But one day, I started talking to him. Telling him how I miss him and our pickles. When I got home that day, there was a pickle waiting for me. Just sitting there right on the table. I took it as a sign.”

“Is … that how you figured out you could talk to spirits?” I whisper.

She shrugs. “Sorta. My mom said something just toldher to go get me a pickle that day. But I figured that’s how it worked, right? Just start talking to the people we be missing and maybe they start talking back, in some ways. And you know what, they did! At least with me, that is.”

I raise an eyebrow. “So how you go from that to scamming people out they money?”

Her eyes fall on the sand, lips twitching. The sign of someone who’s feeling guilty, which she should.

“It sort of … happened. I guess I kinda got carried away. My girl Latoya’s dad passed away and she kept saying she wished she could talk to him one last time. So, I just … tried to help her. Told her what he would have said. Then … more people started coming. My cousin Dale said people gotta start paying for my services. So … that’s what I did.”

“Ummm … wow?”

“I know, it’s messed up,” she huffs. “But the thing is, every time I did a reading, I could see I was really helping people feel better. And that made me feel better.”

I want to ask her more, but her friends are running up the beach.

“Hey, New York,” one girl says, already giving me a nickname. “What y’all talking about over here? Myah telling you she sees dead people again?”