“Would you… like some… tea?”Ace cringes. He didn’t mean for his voice to sound so unsure. And why am I asking a ghost if he wants tea? He tries to think of another way to start the conversation again. “Sorry I - you can’t-”.

Mr. Wilson lets out a noise making Ace stop before he embarrasses himself further. Ace looks at him. The older man’s head is down and his shoulders are shaking, he even reaches for the wall to hold himself up. Then he sucks in a breath and lets out a loud laugh and Ace doesn’t know how to feel.

Is he laughing at me? Because I’m dumb enough to offer a ghost a drink?

Ace’s hands fall to his sides, watching the old man laugh. 

When Mr. Wilson is finished, he wipes his eyes and straightens himself standing to his full height.

“I’m sorry Ace. I just- you don’t have to feel bad son, for offering me something to drink”, his face falls, “you were just doing the right thing… like what you did for Allison.”

Mr. Wilson placed a hand on Ace’s shoulder. 

Ace’s flinches, his eyes know Mr Wilson is a ghost but he can feel something land on his shoulder and that freaks him out more than he would like to admit.

“Thank you for your help with Allison. I don’t …”, the old man seems to deflate , “ I don’t know what I would have done. I was reaching for her and my hands just kept touching nothing.” Mr. Wilson shakes his head. “You made sure she didn’t see anything. Thank you young man”.

Ace looks away when Mr. Wilson tries to make eye contact. He nods, keeping his eyes elsewhere. 

Mr. Wilson removes his hand from Ace’s shoulders and backs up. 

“I’m glad I could see you.  And I could help”. Ace keeps his eyes down. 

“You could see. … you can still see me…”, he pauses to find the right words,  “How long have you been able to see ghosts Ace?”

Ace remains silent for a while. Thinking about what he can say. He taps his thigh. 

A dog barks outside the front door in the hallway, attracting their attention. Someone walks by talking on their phone. 

“------- i’m not sleeping in my room after my dad let my brother store his clothes in there. I go away for one college semester and my parents act like I’m leaving for good. It’s fucking ridiculous! Stop barking Stanley!”.

Ace feels his stomach tightening.

Parents? Right. My parents–

“I could see ghosts since I was young”.

Mr. Wilson looks at him and this time it doesn’t phase him that he’s holding a conversation with a ghost. 

“I don’t remember when it started exactly. It just happened. There were people around that I could see and no one else could see them. I haven’t really talked to them -”, he looks up at the man, “my father would get mad if I talked to people he couldn’t see. And some of them were too scary to talk to so if you want to ask, I don’t know if there’s a bathroom to use after death”.

He smiles. 

Mr. Wilson takes a little too long to laugh and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“So you can’t tell me where I’m going? After this”, he waves his hand between them. 

Ace looks at a cross hanging in the living room, plastered on the wall.

“... I grew up going to church. I heard many stories about heaven and hell. But I don’t know about this.” 

“Did your dad ever ask anyone?”.

Ace flinches at the question. 

Mr. Wilson goes on, “since he knew and he got mad. Or did you ever ask anyone? Your pastor maybe?”.

Ace smoothes out his shirt.

“Maybe… you have some words you might want me to give to your family?”.

Mr. Wilson’s face turns from hope into resignation. He nods and then smiles but Ace can tell it’s not from happiness. 

“My family knows I love them but if you can tell them again.” Mr. Wilson walks over to the couch and sits down. His back hunches over, he clasps his hands together and stares at them in his lap.

Ace turns to face him.

“Mr. Wilson?".

The old man smiles.

“My son Jensen. He - he did this- to me,” he chokes back a sob, “ he didn’t mean to it’s just. He hasn’t been okay for a long time”. He bows his head as the tears come pouring out. “He’s a good boy at heart. Lord knows it. But those drugs have turned him into someone he’s not. He doesn’t recognize us half the time. He doesn’t come over. He even has a daughter that he won’t see!”.

Ace steps back.

“He has a family that is waiting for him to come home and he just won’t. He came by that night looking for drugs that he hid in Allie’s bag. I don’t know why- what kind of man puts his own child in danger like that? She could’ve ate them for Christ’s sake! And he’s yelling at me while I’m trying to tell him he can’t do that! And Allison!”, he smiles through tears, “Allie was with me. That gentle soul. Spending the night with her grandpa. We made cookies. I fixed her bike for her. We even watched movies. … and then my son comes over and shoots me because I won’t let him ransack the house over drugs while his daughter is trying to sing ‘My Little Pony’”.

Ace lifts his hand to wipe away the tear that fell down his cheek. He goes to sit next to Mr. Wilson. The room is quiet for a long while.

“The police are going to be looking for him”.

Both men look at each other. Mr. Wilson’s face stained with tears and bloodshot eyes. Ace with his own tears silently falling. 

“He is going to be high out of his mind. And if he doesn’t listen to them… they might shoot him”.

Mr. Wilson fell back onto the couch. He stared at the ceiling.  “I can’t lose my son Ace.I know we didn’t talk much when I was alive and I,” he sits up reaching a hand out to Ace, “- you don’t know me well enough for me to ask but you are the only person I can ask right now. Please don’t let them kill my son. Don’t let my son kill himself”.

Ace stares at Mr. Wilson for a while before he nods. He looks at the tv in front of them and stares at their reflections. Sitting with Mr. Wilson reminds him of his mother. 

“My Mama- my mother always told me - Jesus came to us to serve. Not to be served. And we would always spend time with our church giving out food and clothes to people. It made her happy to help people. I want to do things that would make my Maman smile. I’ll help your son. I think that’s what she would want me to do”.

Mr. Wilson smiled at him, wiping away his tears, “Parents always want for their kids to do great things in life”. 

Ace nodded. 

They remain on the couch in silence, both in their own worlds. The sound of crickets filled the night air. 

Ace’s mind drifts to what his mother looked like. Before she was taken from him. He always struggled to remember her face before everything went bad. Before she was dragged away and fear was all she had in her eyes as she tried so desperately to reach him. Then his mind drifts to Jensen and what he looked like that night. Covered in blood and talking to himself. Walking away through the gate into the night. 

Ace looks up at the black tv screen again, thinking about Jensen walking away becoming a small figure in the distance. Darkness had seemed to swallow him whole. The more he thought about it, the more it became clear in his head. Darkness. Jensen being swallowed by it. Ace went still, remembering for a brief moment seeing two dots of white that had moved in the dark with Jensen. He had dismissed it before but after the night in the hospital. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The hooded figure had visited them both.