After my wife died it was just Pepper and me. She was... oh shoot, I can't start like this. Let's back up. 

My name is Paul Sommers and I guess it all started in May of nineteen-seventy-nine. Cheryl and I had been married for twelve years and everything was perfect. Then she found the lump. Eight months and two days later she was gone. It wasn't quick, the chemo had terrible side effects and didn't help, but they pumped her full of drugs and most of the time she wasn't in too much pain.

I remember asking God, this was early on after she had been diagnosed, I asked God to give me the pain. Hell, I told God to give it to me... to take the cancer out of her and put it in me. He didn't.

Most of her pain was dulled by meds while my pain... the pain of watching the person you love most in the world... was clear and razor-sharp.

I hate to say her death was a relief but if I am going to tell you this story then I am going to tell the truth. When she died, it hurt more than anything I have ever experienced before or since. But at the same time, it was as if a weight was lifted off of me. I hadn't known that weight was there but when she died it was suddenly gone and if that sounds callous, too fucking bad.

There is a saying that I have heard bandied about by cynical S.O.B.'s that goes, "The cure for Cancer is money!" Well, I can tell you that money doesn't mean jack-shit to cancer, or any other disease. Cheryl and I had money... plenty of money. I owned my own business and without getting into the boring details, it was a good business. We had more money than we knew what to do with and she is just as dead. She had the best doctors, private clinics, and experimental drugs and none of that came to a hill of beans.

As such, I have become a proponent of the belief that when it is your time, it is your time and there is nothing you can do about it.

Sorry for sermonizing, that's not what I want to do here. Suffice it to say the woman I loved died and I had to get on with my life. It sounds easy to do when you say it like that but it is not.

Cheryl and I owned a big sprawling house, eight bedrooms, twelve bathrooms, a pool, tennis court, well you get the idea... I told you we had money. All that for just two people... we had wanted kids but my plumbing had some issues and Cheryl never held that against me. We talked about adopting and we probably would have, but then she died.

That big house... it was terrible to live in that place after she was gone. Every room had memories. I spent weeks rattling around the echoing empty rooms letting my imagination get the better of me. I would be sitting in one room reading or watching television and I would hear her call my name.

"What's up buttercup?" I'd call back, the words rolling out before I remembered she was gone. It happened all the time. Then my guts would clench and my eyes would burn with fresh tears.

Of course, the nights were the worst. I moved out of our bedroom and started sleeping in a different guest room every night. Sleeping was actually the last thing I did in those rooms though. There is no sleep for a man who has lost his wife like that, I believe. At least not under the same roof in the home they had shared.

Finally, I knew I had to move. I sold the house and all the contents for far below market value just to get the Hell out and slept at my office. At least there I could get some shut-eye. My real estate agent asked what I was looking for in a new home and I said I didn't really care.

She would bring me listings and I would turn them down one after the other, never even going out to look at them in person.

Living in my office was, needless to say, not ideal. After a few weeks, even I had to admit it was starting to smell like a barn. It got so bad that I couldn't bring clients there anymore.

That's when I hit the road. I went to Japan for a meeting with one of my suppliers. I had never met the man in person and I have to say that he turned out to be a son-of-a-bitch. The kind of person I would never have done business with if I had known. Next was Vancouver, to talk to Stella. She ran the Canadian part of my business, and although we had met face to face many times I had never sat down in her office. She had always come to me, I was the boss after all.

It was a good meeting, at least until she brought up how sorry she was about Cheryl and then I just needed to get out of there.

Niagara Falls was the last stop on my little tour. I had been there many times as a kid but never as an adult. I met with Bill Brannon who, in my humble opinion, is the best salesman who ever lived. We talked over lunch and to his credit, Bill never brought up the topic of my dead wife. What he did do was drive me back to my hotel in his Cadillac. He cut through some back streets, away from the touristy part of town and that's when I first saw The Mills House.

"Stop!" I practically screamed as we passed.

Bill jammed on the breaks, looking panicked.

"What's wrong Paul?" He asked, but I didn't answer. I couldn't answer.

I jumped out of the car and walked out onto the sidewalk staring at the dilapidated house in awe. The place was a two-story Georgian relic, at least a hundred years old. The paint was peeling from the exterior and the front porch had slumped in the middle. There were no windows left, the local kids must have been using them for target practice for years. All in all it was a wreck... and I loved it.

I wanted to go inside but Bill had me by the arm and was talking about how dangerous it would be. I eventually let him pull me away but I called my agent as soon as I was back in my hotel room and by the end of the week I was filling out the forms.

I couldn't move in right away, the structure wasn't sound, but I did go back on my own once the building was in my name. Dangerous or not, I walked through the place and by the time I left I was sure I had made the right decision.

The renovations, a complete gut job combined with numerous structural repairs, cost me over two million and my contractor thought I was nuts. He told me over and over again that it would be cheaper to just bulldoze the place and build an entirely new house but I knew I couldn't do that. There was something special about the house, and bulldozing would mean the end of it.

Exactly eight months and two days later I moved in... coincidence right?

I remember putting my key into the lock on the new front door and feeling a little jolt. It was as if the key completed a circuit and a small amount of electricity shot up my arm and then through the rest of my body. Like that only... good.

Inside the hardwood floors gleamed, the freshly painted walls glowed and a fire burned merrily in the hearth. It seemed like there was joy... yes a feeling of pure joy that was mine and yet not mine in the house. The circular staircase, completely restored using the original oak, looked like a crooked smile and I knew I was home.

"It's such a wonderful house, Mr. Sommers."

The voice of Rebecca Kane made me jump. I had completely forgotten she was there. Rebecca had furnished the entire house for me and done an incredible job I soon realized. Now she was standing behind me in the foyer, with a look of amazement on her round face. Her plump cheeks were flushed and she looked almost cherubic.

"Yes," I agreed, I wanted to say more but in truth, there were no words for what I felt.

"It's just so... inviting. Every time I walk through the door I feel..." Her voice trailed off.

'Welcome... or wanted... almost loved." I finished in a reverent whisper.

Rebecca nodded, her eyes were glassy and I wondered if she was going to cry.

"Exactly," She said and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

She walked me through the house and I took in every nuance, although I couldn't tell you what she said. The house, the rooms, the entirety of it all was too much... sensory overload.

Finally, or perhaps the proper word would be reluctantly, she shook my hand and left.

The door closed and I walked from the foyer into the front parlor in a happy daze. I sat down in the overstuffed leather chair that I had already decided would be my reading place and that was when I met Pepper.

I caught movement from the corner of my eye and turned to watch her come down the stairs. It was like watching an old black and white movie. Her hair was blonde and done up in tight little ringlets around her pale face. Her skin glowed, set off flawlessly by her long white gown. One delicate hand seemed to caress the banister, while the other lay flat across the base of her long neck as she glided down the steps towards me.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs reaching both hands out towards me, palms up and long fingers beckoning.

"It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Mr. Sommers." She said.

But I knew she hadn't said it, her mouth hadn't moved. She was smiling but her lips had not formed those sounds. The words were in my head.

You're probably wondering about my reaction. After all, there was a strange woman in my house. This woman had been upstairs and I already told you that Rebecca had walked me through every room so why hadn't I seen this new woman before? Where was the shock and surprise, perhaps even anger at the person being in my new home uninvited? These are all reasonable questions for which I have no answer. The fact is that I was never afraid or alarmed by Pepper's presence. I can't explain it, that's just how it was.

I rose and walked towards her reaching out for her with my own hands. I felt compelled to do this but it was in no way against my will.

"The pleasure is mine, but I'm afraid I don't know your name," I said. The whole thing was absurd but this is how it happened.

"Oh how rude of me," she said looking aghast. "My name is Pippa... Pippa Mills, but my friends all call me Pepper. It's like a little joke... Pepper Mills... do you get it?"

Again the voice was in my head. She smiled and that smile was like a life preserver thrown to a drowning man. Pepper was the reason I had been drawn to the Mills house, I suddenly knew that, and I thanked God.

"Yes, I get it," I answered smiling myself as I stepped forward. Our hands met, or at least they should have. I was in no way surprised when instead of touching her warm skin my fingers passed through empty air a few degrees colder than the rest of the room.

Pepper giggled and pulled back. "Oh, that tickles!" She laughed. The sound was like tiny bells tinkling inside of my brain and that made me laugh too.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. The sound caught me by surprise and I jerked my head towards it. When I turned back to Pepper she was gone. I looked at the place where she had been standing and then let my eyes flowed up the stairs. One of the doors on the second floor was slightly open and I could see an eye, Peppers eye, peeking down at me. The door opened a little further revealing her full face and she placed one finger to her lips.

"Shhhhhhhh," She whispered and then there was more tinkling laughter inside of my head.

The knock came again and I gave Pepper the thumbs-up sign before I opened it.

Rebecca Kane was standing on the porch looking slightly perturbed. She had a sheaf of papers in her hand, which she offered to me.

"Sorry to bother you, Mr. Sommers. I suddenly remembered that I hadn't given you your warranties and the last few invoices."

"Of course, no bother. Thank you Rebecca, and thanks again for the wonderful job you did with the house."

Her look softened. "It was my pleasure, Mr. Sommers." She said. She seemed to want to say something else and I realized she was trying to look around me into the house.

After an awkward silence, I asked, "Was there anything else?"

"Oh... no... no nothing." She stammered.

I nodded. "Well, thank you again," I said and shut the door.

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