I shrugged. “It’s like I’m a detective.”
“More like you’re nosy.”
I couldn’t help but smile, because it was true. But it wasn’t a big smile, and it didn’t last long.
“That, too,” I said.
“Can I help?”
I thought of how that could go, of how quickly we’d dissolve into silliness and then forget what it was we were supposed to be doing.
“I’ll be veryvery useful,” she said as though reading my mind. “You’ll be in charge and I’ll be your Girl Thursday.”
“I think it’s Girl Friday.”
“I don’t think so. Today’s Thursday. Tomorrow I can be Girl Friday.”
I gave her another shrug. “It doesn’t matter. It turns out I’m a terrible detective.”
She slid down the banister and plonked herself on the bottom step.
“Tell me about it,” she said.
“It started out when I went looking for you and your store, but then I got distracted…”
“And now I feel like I’m forgetting what it’s like to be happy,” I said, finishing up. “It’s like that stupid ghost boy stole all my happiness away, and now, ever since I talked to him, all I meet are unhappy people with very good reasons to be unhappy, and that makes me wonder, how could I ever have been happy? And what is being happy, anyway?”
Zia gave a glum nod. “I think it might be catching, because now I’m feeling the same way.”
“You see? That’s just what I mean. Why is it so easy to spread sadness and so hard to spread happiness?”
“I guess,” Zia said, “because there’s so much more sadness.”
“Or maybe,” I said, “it’s that there’s so much of it that nobody can do anything about.”
“But we can do something about this, can’t we?”
“What could we possibly do?
“Make the mother remember.”
I shook my head. “Humans are very good at not remembering,” I said. “It might be impossible for her to remember him now. She might not even remember him when she’s dead herself and her whole life goes by in front of her eyes.”
“Supposedly.”
“Well, yes. If you’re going to get precise, nobody knows if that’s what really happens. But if it did, she probably wouldn’t remember.”
“And you can’t just kill her to find out,” Zia said.
“Of course not.” I sighed. “So what am I going to do? I promised Donald I’d help him, but there’s nothing I can do.”
“I have an idea,” Zia said, a mischievous gleam in her eye.
“This is serious—” I began, but she laid a finger across my lips.
“I know. So we’re going to be serious. But we’re also going to make her remember.”
“How?”