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After the call ended, Rudolph leaned back and rested his head on the headboard of the bed.
"I'm home," he said to the air. "Dad, please help me. What do I do?"
He slid down the headboard. With his head on now on the pillow, he drifted off into a restless afternoon nap.
As he fell asleep, he felt a chill at his side and the bed shift.
"Sleep," his father's ghost whispered to him. "Sleep, my son."
He waited for Rudolph to wake up.
A couple of hours later, Rudolph woke up, groggily. He still felt the chill. He started to sit up and noticed a semi-transparent figure sitting next to him. He glanced up at the ghost's face and fell back onto the bed with a gasp.
"Dad…?" he asked.
Norman smiled and said, "Rudolph… it's been too long…"
"18 years… most of my life… Mom never explained what happened… When she was alive," Rudolph said.
"What? Connie died?"
"I guess you never did hear about 9/11, did you?"
"I take it you don't mean the phone number for emergencies," Norman said.
Rudolph began to explain, to the best of his knowledge, what happened. After he finished, his father's ghost seemed deflated.
"I'm sorry, but I can't stay much longer," he said.
"Are spirits' lives on this earth so short?" Rudolph asked, quoting Charles Dickens.
"Yes, at times. But I have visited you several times, but you never noticed."
"Dad… before you go… they're tearing down your old motel completely. I want to save it. I want to know where to find your will."
"The cell. Look in the cell," he said as he faded away.
"'The cell?' No… wait! What do you mean, 'the cell'?" Rudolph asked.
