I spent a good deal of time throwing dishtowels over birds in the house on Mo’ua Street. I carefully picked them up, walked them out on the lanai, and let them fly straight from my hands. There were two rows of inoperable windows, lining the front and back of the house. They lined up so that if you looked at the front windows, you saw straight through to the back yard, which was the Pacific Ocean. I made cutout mobiles of silver stars and moons, and colorful glass beads with prisms at the end to deter the birds from trying to fly right through the glass panes. It helped somewhat, but they inevitably found the open doorways, and became small scared creatures in a corner, whereupon I would run for the dishtowel, which was to be the instrument of their freedom.

The house was peppered with the incessant tinkling of computer keyboard, garnished with whiny cough like an old car trying and failing to start. Stephen, showered and wearing only his sarong, would put his feet upon the desk and write. I did not know what he wrote, it only mattered that he was a constant writer. It was a signpost that told me I belonged there.

He was a difficult man, so said his friends and six ex-wives. They were all pictured in the hallway museum of framed friends; all but one. His first wife, not pictured, was the mother of his only child, whose first words to her were, “I don’t like you.” So Stephen said. He was a difficult man, but I managed easily. Until the maggots, that is.

The maggots came squirming up out of the carpet as I was vacuuming. They rose in white wriggling waves. I vacuumed, they rose, I vacuumed. A brave few made their way toward the door, but we were at war and none would escape my weapon. I rose over the maggots, triumphant though shaken, after an intense forty minutes. I began to question our lack of doors. I imagined maggots getting under my mosquito net and into my bed.

Stephen was incorrigible, incredulous, a curmudgeon. He is also keenly responsible for teaching me all those words. Over breakfast we debated the implications of the Roman Empire on modern society, and moved to heavier topics throughout the day. He was a bookworm. I tried and failed several attempts to read Jitterbug Perfume in the guest bedroom. He said his own immune system was eating his muscles. He thought it had started in on his lungs too, but he couldn’t be sure. He finally quit smoking.

One morning blood sprayed the bathroom sink in tiny droplets like a sneeze: one on the mirror, a couple on the floor, on the doorframe. Stephen was gone to work. I cleaned up. I called him at school, left a message at the office. Stephen had coughed up blood in the bathroom, and I was wracked with worry. But when my workday was over, he was sitting placidly in the TV room. Any and all of my worries rushed out at him in a fury. No, he had not been to the doctor, he was feeling fine. “Miss,” (I was always Miss) “Miss, what is the matter with you?” I informed him that the next time he coughed blood in the sink he should clean it himself.

After two hours of careful examination and logical conversation, the only reasonable explanation was that a supernatural entity had left the blood in the bathroom. After all, this was Hawaii, and we had no doors. Entities could come and go as they pleased. Perhaps one got caught flying through, like a bird, and I just couldn’t see it to throw a dishtowel over it and blind it to take it back outside. Within a week there was more blood in the fruit dish.

The air in the house thickened thereafter despite the ample cross breeze. Our third VCR was stolen. My grandmother’s ring and Stephen’s gold bracelet disappeared. My tent, backpack, wallet; gone. I wanted a lock on my bedroom. Stephen thought it was ludicrous. I was nineteen, not an ugly girl. I let the boys follow me home. They took our stuff. It was my fault. The TV room became the ghost’s room. Overnight guests were choked in their sleep. Tapes flew off the bookshelf at the mention of blood in the bathroom. There were lights in the yard at night. It was time to go.

I took the liberty of prorating my own last month’s rent. This was an unforgivable offense. I had one hour to pack and leave. The ghost stayed. The birds, presumably, kept coming in. Stephen stayed, but only for nine more months.

I tried to reconcile. I told him I would paint over the purple in my room, which he abhorred. I gave him an “Aloha, Stephen” at a mutual friend’s taco night. I e-mailed him after my father’s death, saying, “life is too short to hold a grudge.” Stephen made a business of holding grudges. I knew Stephen well enough to assume that he saw my name and deleted the message without reading it. He probably did not read that “life is too short.” He probably did not know that for him, “too short” meant only three more months. His son moved into the house, affixed two doors, which were kept closed.