It all started in the bathroom on a Monday morning. I woke up and ran to the toilet. I had just made it before my stomach spewed its guts up. It went on for nearly twenty minutes before I was able to pull myself away.

I called into work a few moments later as I sat upon the giant king sized bed I shared with my husband and former ghost and told them I had the flu. I work at the high school I used to attend during my years as a teenager. I got hired four years ago as a guidance counselor. The job was everything I had hoped for, loved helping troubled teens that had traumatic pasts or depression. Not to mention helping them map their way through high school so they could get into the colleges that would launch them into their career fields they dreamed of.

So a few things about me. I can see, hear, speak, and touch ghosts or NCDP's as I liked to call them. I have been able to see them since I was an infant. I am a Mediator, a person who helps those with unfinished business to find out what it is and get them onto their next life whether it be heaven, hell, or whatever. My name is Susannah De Silvia, formerly known as Simon, though I prefer to be called Suze by everyone aside from my husband and my mother.

Yes, my husband was once a ghost and had spent one hundred and fifty years as one. We met when I was sixteen and had moved to Carmel California after my mother had remarried. We moved across the country from New York to California where her new husband at the time and his three sons were settled. Since I was the only child of my mother's and Andy had a business out there we moved there.

I will never forget the first time I had met Jesse De Silvia, my husband and current doctor. My mother and stepfather were showing me my new room when I looked over at the loveseat he had made for me and saw him.

My mother went away, and I shut the door quietly behind her. I waited until I couldn't hear her heels on the stairs anymore, and then I turned around.

"All right," I said to him on the window seat. "Who the hell are you?"

To say the guy looked surprised to be addressed in this manner would have been a massive understatement. He didn't just look surprised. He actually looked over his shoulder, to see if it was really him I was talking to.

But of course, the only thing behind him was the window, and through it, that incredible view of Carmel Bay. So then he turned back to look at me, and must have seen that my gaze was fastened directly on his face, since he breathed, "Nombre de Dios," in a manner that would have had Gina, who has a thing for Latino guys, swooning.

"It's no use calling on your higher power," I informed him, as I swung the pink tassled chair to my new dressing table around, and straddled it. "In case you haven't noticed, He isn't paying a whole lot of attention to you. Otherwise, He wouldn't have left you here to fester—" I took in his outfit, which looked a lot like something they'd have worn on The Wild, Wild West. "What is it, a hundred and fifty years? Has it really been that long since you croaked?"

He stared at me with eyes that were as black and liquid as ink. "What is… croaked?" he asked in a voice that sounded rusty from misuse.

I rolled my eyes. "Kicked the bucket," I translated. "Checked out. Popped off. Bit the dust." When I saw his perplexed expression that he still didn't understand, I said, with some exasperation, "Died."

"Oh," he said. "Died." But instead of answering my question, he shook his head. "I don't understand," he said, in tones of wonder. "I don't understand how it is that you can see me. All these years, no one has ever—"

"Yeah," I said, cutting him off. I hear this kind of thing a lot, you understand. "Well, listen, the times, you know, they are a-changin'. So what's your glitch."

He blinked at me with those big dark eyes. His eyelashes were longer than mine. It isn't often I run into a ghost who also happens to be a hottie, but this guy… boy, he must have been something back when he was alive because here he was dead and I was already trying to get a peak at what was going on beneath the white shirt he was wearing very open at the throat, exposing quite a bit of his chest, and some of his stomach too. Do ghosts have six-packs? This was not something I had ever had occasion—or a desire—to explore before.

Not that I was about to let myself get distracted by that now. I'm a professional, after all.

"Glitch?" he echoed. Even his voice was liquid, his English as flat and unaccented as I fancied my own was, slight Brooklyn blurring of my t's aside. He clearly had some Spaniard in him, as his Dios and his coloring indicated, but he was as American as I was—or as American as someone who was born before California became a state could be.

"Yeah." I cleared my throat. He had turned a little and put a boot up onto the pale blue cushion that covered the window seat, and I had seen definitive proof that yes, ghosts could indeed have six-packs. His abdominal muscles were deeply ridged, and covered with a light dusting of silky black hair.

I swallowed. Hard.

"Glitch," I said. "Problem. Why are you still here?" He looked at me, his expression blank, but interested. I elaborated. "Why haven't you gone to the other side?"

He shook his head. Have I mentioned that his hair was short and dark and sort of crisp-looking, like if you touched it, it would be really, really thick? "I don't know what you mean?"

I was sort of getting warm, but I had already taken off my leather jacket, so I didn't know what to do about it. I couldn't very well take off everything else with him sitting there watching me. This realization might have contributed to my suddenly very foul mood.

"What do you mean, you don't know what I mean?" I snapped, pushing some hair away from my eyes. "You're dead. You don't belong here. You're supposed to be off doing whatever it is that happens to people after they're dead. Rejoicing in heaven, or burning in hell, or being reincarnated, or ascending to another plane of consciousness, or whatever. You're not supposed to be just… well, just hanging around."

He looked at me thoughtfully, balancing his elbow on his uplifted knee, his arm sort of dangling. "What if I happen to like just hanging around?" he wanted to know.

I wasn't sure, but I had a feeling he was making fun of me. And I don't like being made fun of. I really don't. People back in Brooklyn used to do it all the time—well, until I learned how effectively a fist connecting with their nose could shut them up.

I wasn't ready to hit this guy—not yet. But I was close. I mean, I'd just traveled a gazillion miles for what seemed like days in order to live with a bunch of stupid boys; I still had to unpack; I had already practically made my mother cry; and then I find a ghost in my bedroom. Can you really blame me for being… well, short with him?

"Look," I said, standing up fast, and swinging my leg around the back of the chair. You can do all the hanging around you want, amigo. Slack away. I don't really care. But you can't do it here."

"Jesse," he said, not moving.

"What?"

"You called me amigo. I thought you might like to know I have a name. It's Jesse."

I nodded. "Right. That figures. Well, fine. Jesse, then. You can't stay here, Jesse."

"And you?" Jesse was smiling at me now. He had a nice face. A good face. The kind of face that, back in my old high school, would've gotten him elected prom king in no time flat. The kind of face Gina would have cut out of a magazine and taped to her bedroom wall.

Not that he was pretty. Not at all. Dangerous was how he looked. Mighty dangerous.

"And me what?" I knew I was being rude. I didn't care.

"What is your name?"

I glared at him. "Look. Just tell me what you want, and get out. I'm hot, and I want to change clothes. I don't have time for—"

He interrupted, as amiably as if he hadn't hear me talking at all, "That woman—your mother—called you Susie." His black eyes were bright on me. "Short for Susan?"

"Susannah," I said, correcting him automatically. "As in, 'Don't you cry for me."

He smiled. "I know the song."

"Yeah. It was probably in the top forty the year you were born, huh?"

He just kept on smiling. "So this is your room now, is it, Susannah?"

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, this is my room. So you're going to have to clear out."

"I'm going to have to clear out?" He raised one black eyebrow. "This has been my home for a century and a half. Why do I have to leave it?"

"Because." I was getting really mad. Mostly because I was so hot, and I wanted to open the window, but the windows were behind him, and I didn't want to get that close to him. "This is my room. I'm not sharing it with some dead cowboy."

That got him. He slammed his foot back down on the floor—hard—and stood up. I instantly wished I hadn't said anything. He was tall, way taller than me, and in my ankle boots I'm five eight.

"I am not a cowboy," he informed me angrily. He added something in Spanish in an undertone, but since I gad always taken French, I had no idea what he was saying. At the same time, the antique mirror hanging over my new dressing table started to wobble dangerously on the hook that held it to the wall. This was not due, I knew, to a California earthquake, but to the agitation of the ghost in front of me, whose psychic abilities were obviously of a kinetic bent.

That's the thing about ghosts. They're so touchy! The slightest thing can set them off.

"Whoa," I said, holding up both my hands, palms outward. "Down boy, down."

"My family," Jesse raged, wagging a finger in my face, "worked like slaves to make something of themselves in this country, but never, never as a vaquero—"

"Hey, I said. And that's when I made my big mistake. I reached out, not liking the finger he was jabbing at me, and grabbed it, hard, yanking on his hand and pulling him towards me so I could be sure he heard me as I hissed, "Stop with the mirror already. And stop shoving your finger in my face. Do it again, and I will break it."

I flung his hand away, and saw, with satisfaction, that the mirror had stopped shaking. But then I happened to glance at his face.

Ghosts don't have blood. How can they? They aren't alive. But I swear, at that moment, all the color drained from Jesse's face, as if every ounce of blood that had been there had evaporated just at that moment.

Not being alive, and not possessing blood, it follows that ghosts aren't made of matter, either. So it didn't make sense that I have been able to grab his finger. My hand should've passed right through him. Right?

Wrong. That's how it works for most people. But not for people like me. Not for the mediators. We can see ghosts, we can talk to ghosts, and, if necessary, we can kick a ghost's butt.

Jesse, looked down at his finger as if I'd burned a hole through it, seemed perfectly incapable of saying anything. It was probably the first time he'd been able to by touched by anyone in a century and a half. That kind of thing can blow a guy's mind. Especially a dead guy.

I took advantage of his astonishment, and said, in my sternest, most no-nonsense tone. "Now, look, Jesse. This is my room, understand? You can't stay here. You've either got to let me help you get to where you're supposed to go, or you're going to have to find some other house to haunt. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

Jesse looked up from his finger, his expression still one of utter disbelief. "Who are you?" he asked softly. "What kind of… girl are you?"

He hesitated so long before he said the word girl that it was clear he wasn't at all certain it was appropriate in my case. This kind of bugged me. I mean, I may not have been the most popular girl in school, but no one ever denied I was an actual girl. Truck drivers honk at me at crosswalks now and then, and not because they want me to get out of the way. Construction workers sometimes holler rude things at me, especially when I wear my leather miniskirt. I am not unattractive or mannish in any way. Sure, I'd threatened to break his finger off, but that didn't mean I wasn't a girl, for god's sake!

And that's how our relationship began. Me not happy to have a roommate of the male and ghostly variety, and he confounded by me and my being able to see, speak, and touch him.

We went through quite a lot with him as a ghost and me being alive. I fell for him hard, tried desperately to hide it, what with him being dead and all, and trying to keep him at a distance. It wasn't until my stepfather started digging in the backyard one summer, wanting to add a hot tub and a deck that Jesse's past came up, with the discovery of his skeleton, and the ghosts trying to kill us, mainly me. He had gotten exorcised at the influence of his ex-fiancé and her husband that murdered him by a young mediator who was just starting to learn how to use his gift.

I, desperate to save him, exorcised myself with the help of my principle and fellow mediator Father Dominic. He helped me bring back Jesse and send his murderers to where they would never hurt us again. It was then that our feelings were revealed to one another. It would take a little bit longer but eventually we succumbed to our feelings. This resulted in me going back in time to kill him, but couldn't and somehow ended up bringing back his body to the present. This in turn allowed Jesse to live a new life, one he was currently living with me as a well respected husband and doctor.

As I thought about all of our past, I smiled tenderly. But then I noticed something strange. I was holding my stomach protectively like I had something to protect. Which was silly since I wasn't pregnant. I gasped. Or was I?

Eyes wide, I was up and changing into a new set of clothes, out the door in a matter of minutes. I peeled out of the driveway and sped down until I could get to the closest Walmart. There were plenty of those nowadays and even in Caramel, California they were all huge. A relief since I really didn't want anybody to recognize me at the moment. I pulled up my hood of my sweatshirt and walked in with purpose until I got to the feminine products isle where the pregnancy tests were located.

Panicking at the many varieties, wondering which one to choose I stood there for about twenty minutes before settling on two of the highest reviewed brands. I quickly made my purchase and hightailed it to my apartment where I used to live before marrying Jesse. I don't know why I initially kept it but it had become a nice source of income when I rented it out. I owned it thanks to the little sum of money my father had left me. It was in between residents at the moment, which is why I decided to take the tests there. I didn't want Jesse to walk in on me while doing this. He has been acting strange around me lately. He is never home and when he is he is extremely distant.

I opened the first brand and peed on the stick. I had been purposefully drinking a few bottles of water so that I would have to use the bathroom when I got here. After peeing on it I set it on the counter, washed my hands, and then waited the last four minutes for it to be ready. I picked it up off the counter and stared at it in shock.

Two lines. Pregnant.

My heart thundered in my ears and banged against my chest. I knew some tests weren't accurate and so I again drank several bottles of water and a few hours later I took the second test, a different brand.

Pregnant.

To say I was shocked was an understatement but still a part of me didn't fully believe and so I left the apartment with test one resting safely in my purse and drove to the nearest pregnancy clinic. I waited for an hour and a half with a room full of mostly expectant mothers and some who were like me waiting to confirm if we were in fact pregnant.

"Simon, Susannah!" The nurse called. I don't know why I used my maiden name but I did.

I rose from my seat in the corner and walked into the back where all the rooms to see patients were. She led me to room number four and chatted at me, asking routine questions before telling me the doctor would be in shortly and leaving me alone to my thoughts.

A knock sounded five minutes later and in came a brown-haired woman with piercing blue eyes. "Hi, Susannah. I'm Dr. Robbins. How do you do?" She greeted as she held out her hand. I shook it for a second before she went on. "Says here that you took a home pregnancy test and came out positive. Are you here to confirm you're pregnant?"

I nodded my head, my throat dry and not able to bring myself to say yes. I don't know why but I think I was still in disbelief.

"Alright then. Would you like to do a blood test or another urine test to confirm this?" She asked.

"Which one is the most accurate?" I asked.

"The blood test one is but it takes several hours to a few days to get the results back." She explained. "Do you have to use the bathroom now?"

"I do and will go for the urine test." Dr. Robbins smiled and handed me a cup to pee in. "After that we will do a sonogram to double confirm and see if everything is fine and for you to see what will become your baby."

I nodded and quickly left the room to go do my business two doors down where the bathroom was located. I returned promptly and she inserted one stick into the cup. While we were waiting she had me remove my pants and panties and lay down on the chair-like bed, putting my feet in the stirrups. As she was setting up the test in my urine was done half of the stick now blue. She smiled at me. "Seems you are indeed pregnant. Lets see how far you're along." She put a condom on the wand looking object and then squirted some lube upon it. Once ready she prepped me on what she was doing and then gently inserted the wand into my vaginal opening pushing ever so slightly until she was where she needed to be.

Looking at the screen. All I can see is the visual equivalent of white noise— although it's more sepia in color. Slowly, Dr. Robbins moves the probe about, a very odd sensation.

"There," she murmurs. She presses a button, freezing the picture on the screen, and points to a tiny bean shape in the sepia storm. It's so tiny, a little blip in my belly. Wow. I forget about my anxiety as I stare dumbfounded at it. "It's too early to see the heartbeat, but yes you are definitely pregnant. Four or five weeks, I would say."

I am too much in awe to say anything. The little bean is a baby. A real honest to goodness baby. Jesse's baby. My baby.

"Would you like me to print a picture out for you?"

"I nod, still unable to speak and tears of joy began to pool in my eyes. Dr. Robbins presses another button, then gently removes the wand and hands me a paper towel to clean myself. "Congratulations, Miss Simon. We will need to make another appointment in about four weeks time. Then we can ascertain the exact age of your baby and set a likely due date. Go ahead and get redressed and meet out there to get your prescription for prenatal vitamins."

"Um… okay. Also my last name isn't completely accurate. It's De Silvia." I told her.

"Are you Jesse De Silvia's wife?" I nodded.

"Didn't want him to find out?"

"Not yet. I want to surprise him which is why I gave my maiden name."

"Of course." She smiled. "When you do see him tell him I say hello. We sometimes work together at the hospital when I have little infants he has to operate on with me."

"Oh." I laughed nervously. "Thanks. Please keep this a secret. I want to tell him and don't really want everyone he works with to know yet."

"I agree. You don't have to worry about me. I am your doctor and I take my oath of doctor patient confidentiality seriously." She nodded and then handed me the prescription.

I left the pregnancy center and drove to the nearest pharmacy and filled my prescription. After that, I went back to my apartment and just sat on the ugly couch and processed everything. I was going to be a mother and Jesse a father. I couldn't wait to tell him. I would tell him tonight at dinner.

With that in mind I left the apartment and drove home. I prepared his favorite and set the test on his plate, cap closed of course. I also placed the sonogram by his wine cup and then waited in the living room for him to come home. He should be due in twenty minutes.

I had changed into my favorite dress, a blue low-cut cocktail dress that always had his eyes darkening with lust. I made hair look amazing throwing it mostly to one side of my head with waves. My hair was just past my boobs something Jesse seemed to like. I also wore my favorite rose scented perfume and the matching earrings and necklace that went perfectly with my sapphire marriage rings. My heals matched with the whole ensemble.

As I was waiting I got a text from him and it was odd.

From: Sexy Husband

Can't come home tonight. I have a sick co-worker getting surgery. Will see you tomorrow, Suze.

Odd, he never stayed when co-workers were sick before. Must be bad, I thought. Wanting to offer support to my husband and his sick colleague I turned off the stove pulled out the steak and then left the house in what I was wearing.

It was a half hour drive to the hospital from our house but always worth it. I was just walking in to the hospital when I saw Jesse not dressed in any of his hospital attire, instead in a fancy suit. But that wasn't my issue. My issue was with the blonde-haired model type woman holding his hand, the hand that wasn't wearing his wedding ring like it was supposed to.

My heart was thundering in my chest but then came to a complete stop as, to my horror, I saw him cup her chin in his hand and place a hot kiss on her lips. Everything in me shattered in a single moment. How could he? I thought he loved me?

He saw me a second later and jolted. His face showed annoyance than anger followed by an expression of oops! I've been caught. This ignited my anger, pushing my devastated heart to the back.

"What the fuck is this?" I yelled. Everyone of his fellow doctors, the nurses, and even some of the patients turned to stare at us.

"Susannah, not here." He growled out before he turned to his bimbo. Yes, to me that is what she is. A slutty bimbo that ruined everything. "I am going to have to cancel tonight. I will talk to you tomorrow."

Disgusted, I scoffed, shook my head, and walked out of the hospital. I didn't want to be near him. I, not even thinking of myself and the now forgotten child in my womb, ran to my car and screeched the car in reverse not even listening to him yelling for me to be careful as I quickly changed gears and screeched myself out of the parking lot, driving recklessly in the BMW I got for my birthday a year ago from my stepbrother Jake. I sped recklessly up the mountain highways to our house. How I got there in one piece, I'll never know but thirty minutes later I was home.

Jesse arrived as I was unlocking the door. "Susannah, what the hell do you think you are doing? You could've gotten yourself killed!" He roared.

"What do you care?" I spouted back as I walked into the living room. "You're clearly not happy with me anyway."

"I'm sorry. But you weren't supposed to be there. Why did you come to the hospital in the first place?" He demanded.

"I was worried! I wanted to be there to support my husband and his friend and colleague. I thought it was a life and death surgery since you've never stayed before!" I screamed at him. "Why? What did I do?"

"Nothing. It just happened. I was planning to tell you. I want to take a break." He said. "I want to see other people for a little while. I have only ever been with you since coming back to life and found myself intrigued by her. She is an intelligent woman and I found myself attracted to her and I tried to resist but then we kissed and I couldn't undo it."

"Take a break." My anger crumbled around me, bringing up how much he just hurt me. First with seeing my knight in shining armor, the man I had risked her life for many times, who said he loved me as fiercely as I loved him, a love that would last forever, kissing another woman and now saying he wanted a break. As if a break was all he needed. "How long?" I asked not even sure why I was asking. Clearly it wouldn't just be a break. This was how divorces started, not to mention me catching him with another woman. How would I ever come back from seeing that, ever trusting him again? What kind of father would he be? Father! Fuck! The pregnancy test and photo were sitting on the plate in the dining room.

"I don't know, Susannah. Just give me time. I will move out in the meantime, go live with Jake for a while. I don't think we should be near each other at all." He said but I barely heard it. Everything in me was numb at the realization that I was most likely gong to be a single mother.

A sob shuddered up my chest and gasped out of me. His expression changed to one of horror and regret for hurting me. He reached out to comfort me but he was the cause and I stepped away.

"Just go." I said, pointing to the front door.

"Susannah, please don't look like that."

"Like what? Heartbroken, betrayed, devastated?" He blanched at those words and then unable to stand it, went up to the bedroom to gather some of his things. He came down a few moments later and was out the door, not even seeing the setup of what should've been a lovely, joyful dinner. All of it ruined.

I sank to the floor and gave in to my heartache, crying out all of the pain this one man, the man I loved, love with everything in me shattered me to pieces.