When we got home, Lona spent four hours organizing our bed so that all of her plushies could fit properly and so that she could fit reasonably easily. She kind of forgot to make room for me. I thought she might have been mad at me when I realized this and kept my distance. I planned to sleep on the couch. I was kind of exhausted from the day anyway. I must have fallen asleep on the couch because I was awakened by Lona tugging me off of it and me falling on my face. I slammed to the floor and Lona bent down and tugged me up.

“John! Oh! I'm sorry!” Lona said, peeling me off of the floor. I sat up and rubbed my face. Both because it was sore and because I was not fully awake yet. She leaned over. “Like, why didn't you come to bed? I've totally been waiting for you for like ever.”

“Oh, there wasn't room. I figured you wanted to . . . Be alone with your toys.” I said absently. There was not any heat in my voice, but Lona looked hurt.

“But . . . Jizzle . . . You are my favorite toy. And there's plenty of room.” She tugged on my arm and pulled me to my feet. I let her lead me to the bed and she gestured. “See? Plenty of . . .”

I watched her go through a couple of adjustments. I had a twin. It was enough space for me. It was even enough space for both Lona and I. If we scrunched up a bit, it was even enough room for the doll, Lona, and I. But there was no room for three large plushies, Lona, the doll, and I. She tried for several minutes, squashing them down and trying to get them to fit in a way where I could squeeze. She pouted and sat on the bed and looked up at me.

“John!” She whined.

“Yes, Lona?” I asked, nonplussed.

“There's not enough room.”

“I know. I said that.” I responded simply.

“So? Like what should we do?”

“I . . . I don't know.”

“Ooh! Like, I know. We could get a new bed! A super big one. And new bedding. And new curtains. Maybe a new couch. Definitely a new coffee table!” I stared at her as she went through her list, my eyes narrowing with each piece.

“How long have you been thinking about this?” I asked, skeptically.

“Since . . . Well, since I first moved in. Your . . . Your taste is so plain. And this bed isn't comfy. How long have you had it?”

“I don't know. Since I moved out of the dorm in college, I guess,” I said, thoughtfully.

“Have you ever brought a girl back here?”

“A-a few.” I retorted, defensively.

“Oh? And they didn't have a problem with this?”

“I-uh. Don't know?” It came out as a question. “I never dated anyone for long. A few dates. A little bit of fun. You're . . . You're my longest girlfriend since . . . Well, high school, honestly.”

“Oh. Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“Well, you're good looking. You're nice.”

“I'm also quiet and like anime and am not particularly fit.” Lona considered this for a moment.

“Well, you just needed to put yourself out there more.”

“Too late now. I'm in a committed relationship with what my parents would insist is a delusion.”

“Hah! Committed! I get it!”

“Wha- . . . Oh.” Puns are funnier when they are unintentional.

“Anyways. We'll put them on the chair for now,” Lona said, choosing a few of her new friends. She made her way to the chair, arms full of an Elsa, a Dragon, and Santa Claus. She put them all down on the chair carefully, adjusting them to have the maximum amount of comfort. “But I want to get a new bed. And couch. And stuff.”

“Okay . . . That seems reasonable to me. You li- . . . It's you're space, too.” I said. Lona stuck her tongue out at me when I almost said she lived here too. We finally got to bed after that. I woke up with the doll's arms around me on one side and Lona's on the other. A homeostasis of temperatures meeting in the middle. It was weird. My parents did not ask to visit on Sunday. My mother said she wanted to see some sights and that she would rather do it with just her and my father. I accepted this. We were not exactly what anyone could even stretch to being close. The next day we went out and picked out a new bed. We did this with her body. I was starting to relent on the idea that maybe I did charge her up somehow and that it was safe for her to go out like that as long as I was either there or it was just for a few hours and she did not stress herself too much.

Bed shopping with her turned out to be basically impossible. She was literally two people. She wanted the softest possible mattress as a ghost and the firmest possible one when she was in the body. And yeah, she did pop out of the doll to try it. I was nervous that someone might notice the vague body shape pressed into the memory foam mattress, but the dead eyes of retail workers either were not paying attention or paid enough to care about this. After trying every mattress in three separate stores, we settled on a queen-sized adjustable mattress. It used some form of black magic and/or science to change its firmness. It was still a pillow-top, so it started off a little softer than I would have ordinarily liked, but it was what it was. Lona wanted a king-sized so that she could fit more plushes and dolls on the bed, but I pointed out that my apartment was not big enough to manage that. I could not possibly get this there myself in my little coupé, so I hired a delivery service.

While we were at it, we found a new set of bedding with three different blankets to make sure that even if she stole two blankets, I would still have a spare. She picked out a nice, heavy couch and a matching table. She insisted that it would be more comfortable for watching stuff. And doing things. She would not specify what things she was referring to, but I had a fairly good idea, given that Lona seemed to have an on switch and little in the way of an off switch. We spent the rest of the day getting odds and ends to match our new décor. She seemed to have an idea of what she wanted. Which was good, because I sure as hell did not.

On Monday, Victor visited me first thing in the morning. “John, how are things?”

“They're fine.” I looked him over. He had shaved and had his goatee back in full swing. He looked a little better rested. Not enough, but grief is a tough thing to get through. He walked in and shut the door behind him. “How about for you? You're looking a bit better.”

“Yeah,” he nodded absently. “What about that situation? Is your girlfriend okay?”

It seemed to me that he was only asking because he was trying to be a nice guy and did not necessarily care. I nodded. It was fair. He was going through something and it was not as though he knew her personally. “She's fine. Just a bit of an accident. Everything is cool.”

“Good, that's good,” He nodded again. “So, can you still help me with my . . . Situation?”

This made sense. He did the social nicety thing. He asked how I was if everything was okay with my emergency, but the reason he was here was because he needed something. Fair enough. I sat a bit straighter in my chair. “Yeah. But I wanted to talk to you about it. We need to establish a few things.”

“Oh? Okay, I guess,” he did not sound pleased. He sat across from me.

“Firstly, I want to say, it is entirely possible that you are not being haunted. It could be that your grief-stricken mind is processing things to make it seem as though there is something when there's nothing.”

“Fuck you, John.” He started to stand up. “I'm not crazy and I'm not here to be called crazy by some lunatic who recorded a bunch of empty space and claimed it was a ghost.”

“Sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up!” I growled through gritted teeth. He froze, half between his standing and sitting position. Eventually, he sat back down. “Do you want me to lie to you, Victor? Do you want me to tell you that every bump in the night and every sound you've ever heard is a god-damned ghost? Because I'm not going to do that. Ghosts exist. The ghost on my tape is real. But not every little fucking thing is a ghost, you arrogant prick.”

Victor leaned further and further back as I ranted at him. “If I do this, I'm not going to tell you something is there when it's not. I'm not Miss fucking Cleo. I need you to understand that it's possible that there's no ghost. Not that there necessarily isn't one, but that there might not be one.”

The man across from me took a moment to process my words. I might have been a little too harsh with him. “Look, I'm sorry. But I've been called crazy before. I'm not calling you crazy. I'm not saying you're making it all up. But I'm also saying that not every sound is a ghost.”

“Okay,” he managed somberly. “So, what do we do? How do we know?”

“I-uh . . .” All of my confidence evaporated from me with my anger. “I can go to the place where your . . . Where you think the ghost is. I'll bring a friend.” I reconsidered my position a little. “I'll bring two friends. One can hear ghosts and the other can see and hear ghosts, just like me. That way we'll have the best chance of catching something, if it's there, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said hesitantly. Then he repeated himself a little more confident “Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks. But what do we do if she's . . . if there is a ghost? How do we . . . exorcise her?”

“I . . . don't know,” I said. I could not lie to him at this point.

“What do you mean you don't know? I thought you were a medium! Doesn't that kind of thing come with the job?”

“I don't know because it's not that simple. There's no rule book for this kind of thing. I have theories and hypotheses, but they're just that. I have never actually exorcised a ghost. They just kind of leave on their own.”

“Oh . . . Well, I guess that's better than nothing.” We set up a date to do this. I texted Lona and Karen in our group chat, which was mostly just stupid memes that we shared with one another. We found a day and time that worked for everyone.

A couple of days later, we met at the address Victor gave us. He had a nice house. It was not huge, but it was pleasant. Two stories, a basement. A place to build a life together. I struggled to not picture Lona and I living together in a place like this. What if . . . In another world, another life, we could have lived together. Actually lived together. Grown old together. The thought alone was almost enough to bring a tear to my eye. I took a deep breath and Karen got out of her car and walked over to the porch. I got out. As I got closer, I noticed she had one of those iron-on patches of the Ghostbusters logo on the sleeve of her leather jacket. “And you call me a nerd.”

“Hey, we're here to find a ghost. They need to know.”

“Need to know what?” Lona asked.

“That I ain't afraid of no ghosts.”

“Ugh. You're such a fucking dork.” I said, dramatically, before hitting the doorbell. After a few moments, Victor opened the door. He looked like he had not slept well, but he was clean-shaven. “Hey, Victor.”

“Hey, John. Come on in, guys.” Lona and Karen passed me and I entered in after them, into the living room. I looked around. Victor took the lead that I had not and introduced myself. “Hi, I'm Vic. I . . . uh . . . Might have a ghost in the house.”

“Vic, not Victor?” Lona asked, smiling and signing with her gloved hand. I translated for her.

“Yeah, only John, here, calls me Victor. And my mom.”

“Yeah, he's kind of socially stunted. I'm Karen. The quiet one is Lona” Karen said, walking around the room. She emphasized the word quiet. Lona was a lot of things, but quiet was not one thing I think anyone who could hear her would ever say. There were pizza boxes and containers of Chinese take-out strewn about. Beers and bottles of harder liquors littered the floor.

“Oh. Sorry. Vic, then.” I managed. “I just didn't want to be . . . presumptuous.”

“And yet, you ended up presuming what he would prefer anyway. Alanis Morrissette would call that irony, Jizzle.” Karen put in, grinning at me. “How do you want to handle this?”

“Uh, I guess we just split up. Vict- . . . Vic can stay here and we'll search the house and listen for her and see what we can see. Or hear. Or otherwise, experience.”

We did the Scooby-Doo thing and took different areas. Lona took the kitchen and the backyard. Vic said he heard it in a lot of places, so he could not help us narrow it down. Karen took the basement. I took the upstairs. He figured it was Sara, so I could hear them both calling out her name like this was some kind of game of Marco Polo. I looked through the house. The living room was actually the cleanest part of it. The rest of the house had the smell of mold and rotting food. It looked all pretty recent, too. Vic always seemed so together. I did not realize he was cracking this much. What was worse was there were no signs of ghosts. No cold spots, no weird sounds, no feelings of not being alone. Just empty bottles and an unkempt bed.

I circuited the upstairs a few times. There was a bedroom that was half painted. It had a crib in a box. Toys in a box. They . . . They had been expecting a child. I took a deep breath and suppressed another set of tears. I did not really ever picture myself as a father. But Vic . . . Vic seemed like he would make a great dad. Kind, good-looking, attentive. Well, maybe not as attentive as I thought. There were empty bottles in here too. I completed my tour and shook my head. There was no ghost. I was certain of it, now.

At the bottom of the stairs, I met Lona and Karen. “Anything?”

“No. You?”

“Nada.”

“I don't think there's anythin-”

“John!” Vic shouted from the living room. We all just about tripped over each other as we got to the room.

“What is it?” I said, looking around. Vic pointed in front of him.

“G-g-ghost!” I followed his finger and did not see anything. Lona and Karen made their way into the room but I just looked confused.

“There's no one here, Vic. You're ju-”

“John,” Karen managed. “I can see her. I can see her, John! What the fuck?”

I stepped further into the room and I saw a short woman with a stomach just beginning to show the signs of pregnancy. She had dark skin and beautiful, brown eyes. All and all, there was nothing out of the ordinary about her. Well, she was floating three feet above the ground and a little translucent, but you get used to that kind of thing. She was trying to pick something up and was muttering to herself angrily. “Guests. He brought over guests when the house looks like this! That man, I swear.”

Her hands passed straight through the item. But I could hear her. And see her. And Vic and Karen could see her. I looked to Lona who shrugged. I took a few steps forward and tentatively asked “Sara?”

She froze in the mid-air and her gaze slowly swept up to meet mine. She shook her head and went back to what she was doing. “I'm dead. No one can see dead people. By god, though. That man bringing over a bunch of crazy white people to the house. They'll start talking.”

“Sara, I can see you,” I said. Then after a thought, I added “I can also hear you. Everyone can, I think.”

She looked up again and closed the distance between us, floating a few inches above my face. “And you're not scared at all? I'm a ghost. Fucking white people are never scared of what they should be.”

“Well, I think any other white person might be. But she can hear ghosts,” I gestured to Karen, then to Lona, “she is a ghost, and I've been able to talk to ghosts since I learned to talk, basically.”

“She's a ghost!?” Vic and Sara interjected at the same time, both of them staring at Lona.

“Yeah, I'm a ghost,” Lona said, signing it. I looked back and translated. Her voice was quiet and kind of shy. I should have probably asked before I outed her.

“B-but she looks so . . . Solid.” Vic managed. Karen stifled a laugh.

“Yeah, I . . . We bought her a body.”

“A body?” Sara asked. “Like a corpse?”

“Thank you! That's what I said!” Karen all but shouted.

“No, not a body. It's a . . . doll,” I said, softly.

“A doll? What kind of doll is . . . That's a sex doll. John, you bought a ghost a sex doll? Really? And a really nice sex . . . Lona . . . Lona's your girlfriend, isn't she?”

I felt myself flush red and closed my eyes, trying to retain any amount of dignity when I heard Sara say “You really are a freaky little man.”

Karen burst out laughing and bent over. Once she caught herself, she managed to say “You have no idea.”

Both Lona and I glared at Karen, but that only rekindled her laughter. She had to sit down in one of the chairs to stop herself from falling over. Vic walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “John, you're dating a ghost.”

“W-well, you're married to a ghost!” The words came blurting out of my mouth before I realized that I had just used No, U as a legitimate argument as a thirty-year-old. Everyone laughed at me and I felt my face heat up even further. Sara's image distorted for a moment and she tried to say something but it was cut out. She flickered out of existence for a moment before reappearing. Victor looked around, confused.

“Where'd she go?”

“What do you mean? She's right here!” I gestured at her. Her husband looked at where I was pointing and through it. I looked to Karen who just shrugged.

“I can still see her.” Lona nodded to me. I looked back at her. She was a little more see-through than she had been before she flickered out.

“What's happening? Can they not see me? Can they hear me still?” Sara asked. Karen jumped and stared at the apparently empty spot. Her eyes did not focus on anything.

“Did you hear that?” I asked, meeting Vic's eyes. He slowly shook his head. Sara sighed, despondently. I walked over to her and tried to put my hands on her, figuring it would be just like Lona. My hands passed straight through her but she jolted. “Lona, come here. Leave the body behind. Karen, make sure it doesn't fall over.”

Karen and Lona both listened to my requests. Lona shoulder-bumped me affectionately as she passed. “What's up?”

“Try to touch her.” I thought about it for a moment and retracted my hand. She shuddered again. “I-if that's okay with you, Sara.”

“I think we're a bit past that, honey,” Sara said. She nodded to Lona. So, Lona and Sara could see each other now. Not a surprise, but something to note. Good to know. Lona stretched her hand out and rested it on her shoulder. Sara looked at it. I set my hand on top of Lona's and it did not sink through. I put my other hand on Sara's other shoulder and it went straight through. She jumped again. “What in God's good name? Touching you is like . . . Touching an open socket.”

“Kare, set Lona . . . Lona's body down. C'mere. You, too, Vic.” They did as I requested. When they were all surrounding Sara like this was a multicultural version of the Piper Perri Surrounded porn meme. Especially when she sank back down to the ground. “Try to touch her.”

“We can't see her, moron,” Karen helpfully pointed out.

“Right,” I said, closing my eyes. I am really dumb sometimes. I reached out and grabbed both Vic and Karen's wrists and pushed it into Sara's chest. Then realizing how weird that was, I adjusted it a bit to her arm and her stomach respectively. Sara did not react to their touch at all. In fact, she reached up and tried to touch Vic's cheek, but her hand passed straight through. She made a choking sound and Vic jumped back. Karen jumped a little, too, but stayed put. “Can you feel anything?”

“It feels a bit colder here. Not much, but a bit,” Karen said.

“My hand felt cold. Then my cheek. Then I heard a noise,” Vic managed. I looked at Sara. She was crying. I sighed.

“Yeah, that makes sense. She . . . She tried to touch your cheek. But couldn't.” I muttered.

“But I can touch things. When I want to.”

“Yeah, but you're also the only ghost that I know that can do that . . . I think . . . I think Sara is a different kind of ghost.” I said, turning my back to her. It was hard to think when someone was crying in front of me.

“A different kind of ghost?” Karen asked.

“Well, when I first met Lona, she got really upset and started affected everything around her. Not just what she could touch but like the whole room. It has happened a time or two since then, but only when she's in distress.”

“Okay? And what does that have to do with anything?” Karen asked, annoyance creeping in her voice.

“Sara was really mad at Vic for inviting us over. Like really, really mad. I think that's why you could see and hear her. Well, you'd always be able to hear her, but Vic wouldn't. Vic, have you ever heard or seen ghosts before?”

“Hell no!” Victor said, shaking his head vehemently.

“Watch your language!” Sara said, stomping her foot. Vic jumped. For a moment Sara looked a little more solid and then faded back. She might have been a shade more translucent than before. It must take a lot of energy to manifest like that.

“I am starting to think that maybe . . . I was wrong about how ghosts work. Maybe they're more . . . cinematic than I thought.” I said.

“And what the hell does that mean?” Karen demanded, rubbing her temple. Sara muttered something about going to hell herself and Karen glared up at her. Before she could say something back, I cut in.

“I think there are different . . . Different types of ghosts. Lona is a poltergeist. She can move things. I think that Sara is a different type. One that can be heard sometimes. One that can be seen.”

“Oh, weird. What should we call that?”

“Uh . . . Well, the only ghosts I've ever read about that could be heard by vanil- . . . regular people are Banshees. So, I think that might be a good name. As for ghosts that can be seen? I don't know.”

“A visitant,” Lona suggested. I looked at her. “There, like, was a play that used that word. It's just another word for ghost, but I think it's as good as any.”

“Okay. How do you feel about that, Sara?” I asked.

“How am I supposed to know? Visitant? Banshee? I don't care. The only thing I want is for Vic to pick up after himself!” She said, every syllable laced with annoyance. I looked to Vic and was about to ask if he heard that. He held up a hand and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah.” He said. “I'll get started on that.”