As expected, their mother jumped at the chance to visit Quinn that weekend. They had barely sent her a text before they got a reply that consisted mainly of heart emojis and an enthusiastic See you on Sunday!!!

Now that the day had arrived, Quinn could feel their stomach twisting with nerves. They were sitting at a table in the Sugar & Spice, a cup of tea untouched in front of them. Jun looked no better; he had spent the last ten minutes alternating between pacing around the café and drumming his fingers on the table, head snapping up every time the bell above the entrance chimed.

"Are you sure she knows which café you asked her to meet?" he asked after a brief few seconds of silence, his voice faint over the chatter of the other patrons.

Quinn shot him a look. Rhia had made sure to get them a table in a more secluded corner where it was unlikely anyone would notice them talking to themself, but they still lowered their voice to point out, "This is the only café in Oakriver, Jun."

"Right. Right." He fell quiet again, lifting a hand to his mouth to chew on his nails.

"I feel so bad I haven't talked to them in so long," Quinn murmured as they watched the rain trailing down the windows, "And that I'm only inviting them here now that I need something from them."

"You were going through some stuff," Jun reminded them. His dark eyes crinkled at the corners as he added, "And besides. I got high and crashed my fucking motorcycle. In the ranking of the biggest family disappointment, I'm unbeatable."

Quinn was about to object when the bell chimed again and in stumbled their parents, their mother laughing as their father struggled to close his umbrella. When she spotted Quinn, her smile softened into something smaller—something only reserved for them. Somehow, it was only then that Quinn realized just how much they'd missed their parents.

"Hey!" their mother exclaimed when she reached them, immediately pulling them in.

Her hug was tight enough to hurt, a little—or maybe it only hurt because of the way Quinn's heart twisted in their chest as they closed their eyes and rested their chin on top of her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of washing powder and vanilla shampoo and that lotion she'd used ever since Quinn could remember. For just a few seconds, they were a kid again, curling their fingers into the damp fabric of their mother's coat. Then she pulled back, one hand gently pushing a lock of hair out of Quinn's eyes, and Quinn remembered where they were again.

"Look at you," their mother said. "So handsome. I feel like I haven't seen you in ages."

"Me too," Quinn choked out before they were being pulled into another bone-crushing hug.

"It's good to see you, kid," their dad said, one hand clumsily patting Quinn's head before they could duck away.

"Why don't we sit?" Quinn said, gesturing at the table. "They, uh... they have really good cake."

Jun shot to his feet mere seconds before Quinn's dad could sit down on the chair he had just occupied. In a daze, he rounded the table to sink down next to Quinn on the small couch, his shoulder almost touching theirs. Studying his sister, his eyes were glistening with tears. "She was sixteen when I last saw her," he said in a voice barely louder than a whisper, more to himself than to Quinn.

They swallowed hard around the lump in their throat, glad when Rhia appeared next to their table at that moment. "Hey!" she said, catching Quinn's gaze. "Everything okay here?"

While their parents began to order, Quinn gave a small nod. Rhia squeezed their shoulder in passing before she headed towards the counter.

"Do you two know each other?" their mom inquired when she turned to face Quinn again.

"Oh, yeah. Rhia is Valerie's girlfriend. We hang out, sometimes. She's really sweet."

Their mother looked clearly relieved. "That's lovely! It's so hard to get anything out of you, we were worried you were lonely. But... you're okay, right?"

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm—I'm doing really well." They cleared their throat. "Anyway, how are you two?"

To their relief, their mother immediately began chattering away. Over several slices of cake, they talked about her work, Quinn's father's recent injury while hiking, Quinn's studies and friends and life in the dorms.

Throughout, Quinn risked a few glances at Jun. Although the glimmer of tears remained, his lips gradually curved into a soft smile as he attentively nodded along to what his sister was saying. Quinn couldn't imagine what he felt like. They didn't have any siblings of their own, but they could sense his relief, the pride on his face as he watched his sister gush about her new office just as palpable as his grief.

Eventually, Quinn's dad, restless as ever, announced that he was going outside to stretch his legs for a bit—which was code for I'm going to spend the next two to three hours exploring the town, call if you need me—leaving only the three of them.

"So... that boy. Luis," their mom said in a conspiratorial tone once he was gone, leaning closer over the table. "Is he really just a friend?"

"Mom," Quinn said, their cheeks going hot when Jun shot them a scandalized look. "Of course he is. I've only known him for a few days—"

"I only knew your dad for a few days before we got together! Sometimes things just click!" When Quinn avoided responding by stuffing their mouth with another bite of blueberry muffin, she raised her hands in surrender. "All right. You just looked so happy when you were talking about him, is all."

"I... I am happy when I'm around him," Quinn relented. "But I'm happy around lots of people."

Their mother smiled. "Good. That's the most important thing."

Quinn was quiet for a few moments, letting the background chatter and the soft acoustic music that drifted from the speakers fill the silence. Finally, they asked, "Hey, Mom? Do you still talk to Grandma?"

Both their mom and Jun blinked at them in surprise. "Sometimes. Maybe once or twice a year? Why are you asking?"

"Only once or twice?" Jun murmured.

"I... I've just been thinking a lot, lately. About how I barely know that part of our family."

Their mother's expression turned more serious, then—almost a little guilty. "I guess I'm not very good at keeping in touch with my family, either," she admitted. When she spoke again, she didn't sound like Ying Yue Jiang, wife and mother, but Dr. Jiang, full-time therapist. "I know things can be confusing when you're biracial and the child of a second-generation immigrant, but you—"

"Mom," Quinn cut her off. "Don't therapist me."

"I'm sorry. It's a defense mechanism. There, now I've therapist-ed myself," she sighed. "Would... would you like to know them better?"

"I don't know. Maybe." Quinn hesitated. "Why did you lose touch with them?"

"I never told you much about our family, did I?"

Quinn shook their head.

"All right." She leaned forward, smiling at Quinn over her folded hands. "A little history lesson. Your grandparents came to the U.S. in 1965. They had Jun one year later, and then me five years after that. I don't suppose you've ever questioned why they gave us Chinese names?"

"To... feel connected to their home country?" Quinn guessed.

"That's right. My father wanted to give us American names, I think—names that would help us fit in, names that were easy for our peers to pronounce and wouldn't stick out on application forms. My mother didn't agree. She insisted that she got to decide our names, just like she insisted that we spoke Mandarin at home."

Quinn fought down the small pang of envy that ran through them. They could barely scrape together a few basic sentences in Mandarin, and even then, their tongue felt clumsy around the language.

"She'd call home every day and just talk to her sisters for hours," their mother continued. "She must have missed them terribly. And when my brother died, it was the final straw."

Next to Quinn, Jun noticeably winced.

"She went back to her hometown to find comfort in her family, and I stayed in the U.S. with my father. I wanted to study here, and besides—I had only been to China a handful of times, and I had never felt any real connection to the country. Probably because I never felt any real connection to my mother's family, either."

Quinn sat up a little straighter. "Why not?"

"There was just this... this feeling that there was something that connected them that I could never understand. That there was a divide between us that I just couldn't conquer." Quinn's mom shook her head, her eyes clearing as she met Quinn's gaze again. "Anyway. Once she left, my mother and I simply lost touch. We still text every time there's a holiday and sometimes she asks me how you're doing—"

"Really?"

"Of course." Their mother's face softened. "Just because we don't have much in common doesn't mean she's not interested in you, Quinn. It's just... difficult to keep up a relationship over such a distance."

"She feels guilty she didn't go with Mom," Jun quietly said. "That's why she didn't try harder to stay in contact. She always used to go really quiet when she felt bad about something."

Quinn hesitated for a few seconds before they rushed out, "Do you... Do you think you could give me her phone number?"

Their mother blinked at them, taken aback. "Oh, I—Yeah, why not? I'll text it to you. She uses WeChat."

"Thanks," Quinn said, trying not to show their relief. "And... thanks for the history lesson. I never knew about all of that."

"Of course." Their mother offered them a small smile before getting to her feet. "I have to use the restroom for a sec—Can you watch my purse?"

"No, I'll gift it to the next stranger who comes by."

She made a face at them before turning around and heading for the toilets. Quinn all but lurched across the table as soon as she was out of sight, snatching her purse. "Oh, thank God, I was counting on that—Here it is!"

Triumphantly, they pulled out a small bundle. Under Jun's confused gaze, they carefully unwrapped the soft scarf that served as protection for what lay underneath it: an old-fashioned, baby blue Walkman, headphones and all.

"Holy shit," Jun gasped. "My Walkman!"

"Yeah!" Quinn laughed, relieved that he had immediately recognized it. "She carries it everywhere with her. I caught her sitting in the car in our driveway after work a few times—listening to your old cassettes calms her down, I think."

With his fingers hovering inches above the device, Jun tilted his head to read the title of the cassette inside: Queen's A Kind of Magic. "Oh my God, I loved this record! I used to listen to it at the skatepark all the time. It came out a year before I—you know." He cleared his throat. "Did she keep all of them?"

"I think so. There's a box in her wardrobe, somewhere."

Jun grinned fondly. "She was always a bit jealous of me for having enough money to buy a Walkman. I'm glad she kept it."

"Me too," Quinn said as they wrapped it in their mom's scarf again and quickly slid it into their messenger bag. "And even gladder that she left it out in the open."

"But... won't she notice it's gone?"

"Probably." Quinn tried not to feel too bad as they closed their mom's purse again and put it back in its former spot. "But I'll send her a text later to let her know I found it here. It's easier than explaining to her why I need something of yours."

Though Jun still didn't look entirely comfortable, he said, "Makes sense. And, anyway, it's technically mine, so it's not really stealing, right?"

"Right," Quinn immediately agreed, turning to face him again. "What about you? How are you feeling now?"

Jun paused, his hand fidgeting with the zipper on his brightly colored windbreaker. "Surprisingly okay. I thought it would be sadder, somehow? Like, in my mind, I was still picturing her at sixteen, but... she's grown. She's not a little girl. I mean, hell, she's done more with her life than I ever could've." His smile was so bitter-sweet it made something in Quinn's chest ache. "She's happy. That's all I needed to know."

Quinn nodded.

Their mom made their way back to the table a moment later. They only sat there until they had both finished their drinks before they left the café, Quinn huddled close to her under her umbrella.

"You know..." their mom said as they side-stepped one of the larger puddles, giving Quinn's arm a gentle squeeze. "I had to think about Jun just now. I feel like the two of you would have gotten along swimmingly."

"Yeah," Quinn said, unable to hold back a grin when they glanced over their shoulder to find Jun getting distracted by a dog a few steps behind them. "Yeah, I think so too."

***

Night had fallen by the time Quinn and Jun made it back to the college campus. They separated in front of the art building—while Jun went looking for Joy, Quinn snuck inside.

"Hey!" they said, swinging themself onto the windowsill where Vincent was already sitting. Their mittens and coat, they flung onto one of the desks.

"Someone's in a good mood," Vincent commented, pulling one knee closer to him so Quinn had more room. "Did everything work out, then?"

"Yep. I got the goods." Quinn drummed their fingers on the messenger bag in their lap. "And Jun got to see his sister. It was an all-around success."

"I'm glad." Vincent's smile, though it was genuine, carried that familiar shadow of longing in it that Quinn had gotten so used to by now. His words echoed in their mind again: Sometimes I feel like wanting is all I'm made of. Like yearning is the fabric of my entire being. "It was really nice of you to take him with you."

"It was the least I could do," Quinn said. After a beat, they added, "If I could, I would have taken you to see your sister, too. I even googled her last night, but... I couldn't find anything about a Rose Baker that matched."

Vincent shook his head. "It's okay. I mean, hey, if all of this works out, I might see her again on the other side in a bit."

"Oh? So the grand pessimist finally believes we have a chance?"

"I'm not a pessimist," Vincent protested. "I'm a realist. And I did believe there was a chance even when you first told me about it. I guess that, after all these years, I'm just... scared." The shadows the moonlight cast on his face shifted as he leaned his head against the window. "I haven't had anything to believe in in a long time. I think I need time to learn what it's like to hope again."

Quinn mirrored his position, drawing their knees to their chest as they rested their temple against the cool glass. "You don't have to hope if it's too hard," they told him. "I believe in it enough for both of us."

Vincent held their gaze for a few moments. Then, he looked down at his hands again and said, "You know... you're the only one I can talk to about these things."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's not so obvious at first glance, but Joy isn't as tough as she likes to pretend. Jun isn't really one for serious conversations. And I don't want to burden the little ones with all of this and remind them of... everything."

Quinn had to think back to their meeting, to Hannah, with her wise brown eyes, and Caleb and Josie bursting into the room after playing outside. "They seem weirdly okay with all of this."

"It comes and goes in waves, for them," Vincent said. "Most of the time, they distract themselves and they laugh and they play, but then sometimes the memories will crash over them again and they'll remember that this... isn't right."

"They're really strong," Quinn said.

Vincent almost looked proud as he nodded. "They are."

"You are, too. They're really lucky to have you."

"I'm really lucky to have them as well. The moment I found Hannah... God, I was so relieved. Not just because she was the first person to see me aside from that World War I guy, but because I... I don't know." In a small motion that seemed almost unconscious, he fished his pocket watch out of his pants, turning it over in his hands as he searched for the right words. "I think I finally felt like I had a purpose again. This—taking care of others, making sure they were okay—was something I knew from my former life. It was easy to set aside my own fear and just focus on taking away Hannah's. And then Joy's. And then Jun's, and Josie's and Caleb's. Without them, I probably would have gone insane at some point."

"You never told me how Hannah died," Quinn carefully prompted. "Do you know?"

"Yeah. She's probably the only person I know who remembers how it happened," Vincent said. "She was sick. I don't know exactly what it was and I never asked her about it, but she'd known about it for a while. She died in the hospital in November of 1955."

"Really? I thought that if you have a lot of time to mentally prepare, it would somehow be easier to... cross over."

"One would think so," Vincent agreed. "It's just that Hannah is stubborn. Somehow, she'd gotten it into her head that she wanted to put off dying until after Hannukah—she told me that she really wanted to eat latkes at least one more time. Her mother brought her some to the hospital, but she refused to eat them because in her opinion that didn't count." He shook his head. "I think the fact that she promised her mother that she would make it to see the real celebration is what anchored her here."

Quinn let the knowledge sink in for a moment before they pointed at the glint of silver between Vincent's fingers. "I've been meaning to ask—What's the deal with your pocket watch?"

"There's no deal. It doesn't have huge emotional significance or anything. My dad gave it to me so that I wouldn't always run late, and I guess I just took everything I had on my body with me to the afterlife." With a chuckle, he opened it so Quinn could see its face. The hands were frozen at 3:52. "If I had known I was going to die that day, I would've packed something more useful than a watch that doesn't work. Or even better, made sure I die in something comfortable, like Caleb and Josie with their pajamas. It's not like many people can see me."

Quinn had to grin at that. They had never thought about the logistics of ghost clothing before. They were sure that Luis, on the other hand, definitely had—he probably always dressed that fancy so he could look as pretentious as possible in the afterlife as well. "I think Joy clearly made the worst fashion choice then. I mean, those boots and fishnets can't be comfortable. And her skirt is so short she can probably never sit comfortably—"

"As if Joy cares about flashing us."

"No, you're right." Quinn could barely breathe through their laughter as they caught the pained expression on Vincent's face. "I'm just impressed that her hair has stayed so spiky all those years."

"Never underestimate the power of ghost hairspray," Vincent sagely said. Then, he pointed at the messenger bag Quinn was still holding in their lap. "Can I see the thing you brought back for Jun?"

Carefully, Quinn pulled out the Walkman and unwrapped the scarf. "Here. Do you know what it is?"

"Yes," Vincent said. His offended tone reminded Quinn of the way their father reacted every time they implied he didn't know how his smartphone worked. "I saw them everywhere in the eighties. I wish we would've had them, back when I was alive. All we had were these big, battery-powered radios—one in the kitchen, and one in our shop."

Quinn couldn't help the wave of fondness that came over them as they watched Vincent talk, a nostalgic little smile on his face as he studied Jun's blue Walkman. "What kind of music did you like back then?"

"Oh, I loved all types of jazz." He met their eyes again. "My father hated it. Said it was vulgar and inspired immorality. I'm pretty sure he was just racist and didn't know how to dance."

"Did you know how to dance?" Quinn gave a short little shake of their upper body. "You know, like this?"

"What was that?"

"Uh... the Charleston?"

"The— dear lord in heaven, no," Vincent chuckled before sliding off the windowsill. Pointing at the spot next to him, he said, "Over here. I'll show you how the Charleston goes."

Quinn made a face. "I can't dance."

"There's no one here but me. Come on, it'll be fun!"

Quinn wanted to protest, but it was hard to deny Vincent anything when he looked like this, his form more solid than it had been in days, his eyes brilliantly alive. With an exaggerated groan, they heaved themself off the windowsill and went to stand next to him.

"Let's start with the feet," Vincent said. "You want to step forward with your right foot, set it down, then step back with your left foot. Like this, see?"

Quinn pressed their knuckles to their mouth to hide their grin as they watched him demonstrate. "Uh-huh."

"And while you do this, you need to kind of... twist your knees. This is what makes it look like the Charleston," Vincent explained. "Then you add some arm movement and... ta-da." He came to a halt, now looking expectantly at Quinn.

"You... you want me to do that? Like, right now?"

"No, in five months. Yes, now."

"So sassy today," Quinn laughed before they pulled out their phone. "Okay, I'll do the dance. But not without music."

"Oh! Can you put on Heebie Jeebies?"

"Sure," Quinn said. It was as the first few notes sounded and they watched Vincent's face light up that they realized that this was the first time in decades that he was listening to something he wanted to listen to, not just picking up the music strangers played around him. The one he had chosen was an upbeat song that, despite their hesitation, made them bop on their feet a little almost instantly.

"Come on!" Vincent said, seamlessly falling into the dance steps.

Quinn threw a glance over their shoulder to check if the door was closed. "I don't know..."

"Please?" Vincent danced closer to them, a stupid grin on his face as he sang along to the music, "Say, don't you know it? You don't know how; don't be blue, someone will teach you. Come on and do that dance!"

"You're a dork," Quinn snorted, but finally—haltingly—began to dance with him.

To their surprise, it really wasn't that difficult. With Vincent counting out loud next to them and showing them the moves, it didn't take long before both their steps were getting faster and faster, Vincent's almost soundless and Quinn's the opposite. In the window, Quinn could see their reflection—themself, cheeks flushed and hair tousled as they did a shoddy rendition of a Charleston, and Vincent, his face bright with laughter as he moved in a way that looked like he had never done anything else. At that moment, he looked so happy that Quinn wouldn't even have cared if someone had spotted them like this.

"Where did you learn this?" they shouted over the music.

"My mom taught me!"

Quinn's cheeks almost hurt from how hard they were smiling by now. The song ended a few moments later, and they both slumped back onto the windowsill, a breathless, dizzy mess.

"My heart is racing," Quinn panted, pressing a hand to their chest.

"Mine isn't," Vincent said.

It was the hardest either of them had laughed in months.