“Mark is still paying 80 dollars a month for a ghost, Ellie, and we have a wedding to pay for,” Sarah said, her voice perfectly sweet as she polished her engagement ring.

She did not look up from her hand. She was sitting at my kitchen table, the one my husband built out of pine before he died, and she was using a little pink emery board on her nails. The sound was a dull, rhythmic scrape.

“It is my daughter’s voice,” I told her. My voice sounded thin, even to me. I was standing by the sink, holding a damp dishtowel that had yellow lemons faded across the fabric.

“We are building a life here,” she said.

“The bill is on Mark’s account. He agreed to keep it active.”

“Not anymore,” she smiled, finally looking up. Her eyes were very blue, very cold, and completely dry. “We are cutting the line on Tuesday.

The wedding budget is tight, and we have to make cuts somewhere. It is just a phone, Ellie. She is not on the other end of it.”

My daughter, Beth, has been gone for 4 years.

Every Sunday evening at exactly 7 PM, I call her old number. I let it ring twice, and then her voice says, “Hi, you’ve reached Beth, leave a message after the beep,” bright as a kitchen window. I always hang up before the beep, because the beep is where the silence starts.

Her husband, Mark, had kept the line active for me. He never said so out loud, but I knew what a phone bill was. I appreciated it. I thought it was his way of keeping a piece of her alive too, even after he met Sarah.

Sarah had been Beth’s bridesmaid. She had stood in the church in a lilac dress, holding a bouquet of baby’s breath, weeping louder than anyone else at the funeral. Now, she was living in Beth’s house, sleeping in Beth’s bed, and organizing a 50,000 dollar wedding to my former son-in-law.

I need to explain something about Sarah. She was always efficient. When Beth died, Sarah was the one who volunteered to pack up her closet. She said it was too hard for Mark. I remember standing in the hallway, watching her carry out boxes of Beth’s sweaters. She had a small, focused line between her eyebrows. It looked like work to her. It did not look like grief.

I actually defended her to my sister that week. I told her Sarah was just trying to be strong for Mark. Looking back, I sound so stupid, but at the time, it genuinely made sense to me. I wanted to believe people were good.

But on Monday morning, the phone company called.

I was sitting in my living room, the one with the worn floral carpet and the framed pictures of Beth on the mantle. The sky outside was gray, the typical Toledo November chill pressing against the glass.