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chairs.
    Adriana wanted to sit near the back of the room, but had no energy to put up a fight. Jazz steered her toward the front where a few people were already sitting. Wide-eyed and excited, Jazz hung on to Adriana’s arm as she shrunk into her seat. “We’re going to talk to the dead!” Jazz thrilled. Adriana felt the blood rush to her face. Jazz whispered loudly, “I’ve been waiting forever to talk to the dead!”
    Adriana turned her head away. So this is what a spiritualist was, someone who talks to dead people? Adriana thought of her conversations with her mother. The last thing she wanted was to talk to her in front of all these people. She turned to Jazz. “I’m leaving,” Adriana said. Jazz looked up at her in disbelief. “Let me get by,” Adriana pleaded weakly.
    Jazz held her hand. “Adriana, wait. Do you know why I brought you here?” Adriana couldn’t guess, except that perhaps Jazz thought it would help her. “Number one, because it will be a fun time and Lord knows, you could use a little fun. But number two is because I want to talk to my father.” Jazz gulped. Adriana stood beside Jazz, her hands open to the empty air. She felt ashamed. “It’s not all about you, you know?” echoed in her head. She’d heard those words many times from Jazz.
    Adriana sat down. Jazz was still clutching her arm, her face full of anguish. Adriana figured she was thinking about her Dad, who had gone missing when she was only a toddler. At first, it was presumed he had drowned in a New Brunswick lake where he had gone fishing with a friend. But then he’d been found hanging in a fishing shed from his own belt.
    Adriana had rarely heard Jazz talk about her father. He was an absence in her life that cast no shadow, Adriana had thought, partly thanks to Jazz’s mother, who was of the opinion that the less her daughter knew about the man who had brought shame to her family, the better. Adriana blinked. Jazz was always so cool, matter of fact, but it occurred to Adriana that maybe her aplomb was an act, protective gear only.
    Jazz wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. Adriana felt miles away from her pain, as though she were looking down the wrong end of a telescope. But she sat and waited for Jazz to stop sniffling. Jazz smiled at her, gratefully. “Thanks Addy, for staying. There was no one else I wanted to bring except you.”
    Adriana looked down at her hands, which lay lifeless in her lap. The darkness inside her head was impenetrably bleak, as though her skull were lined with lead. For the first time she realized that she was alone inside this darkness, that not even Jazz was able to enter. Only her mother, cold and relentless as a glacier, had found a foothold there.
    A short, chubby man wandered into the spotlight. He cleared his throat, waited until a hush settled over the room, and began to read. “There are not many men who have done what Bartholomew Banks, tonight’s illustrious guest speaker, has done. He has crossed through the shadows of the Valley of Death to reach out to those who linger at the edges of this Life, waiting for their time to pass into the Great Beyond.” Jazz clutched Adriana’s hand, riveted.
    â€œBartholomew Banks not only speaks to the Dead, he helps them find their way to the Light. I will not take your time to list all of Bartholomew Banks’s accomplishments, but would simply like to introduce him as a man gifted beyond our understanding, and courageous and compassionate enough to use this gift for good.”
    Jazz clutched a handkerchief to her mouth. Adriana thought of her mother who, hands on hips, would no doubt poo-poo a man like Bartholomew Banks. Adriana doubted she was waiting in the shadows to speak with her—more likely, she was waiting off stage to castigate Adriana for being weak enough to attend an evening with an obvious charlatan.
    Bartholomew Banks entered the