The Refugees

The protagonist is a ghostwriter of biographies for people who are made famous by some scandal or other unfortunate event. She is picked to write a book for Victor Devoto, a man who survived a plane crash that killed his family and is wracked with survivor’s guilt. The protagonist’s mother wakes her early on a rainy morning, claiming her dead son came inside. The carpet is wet, so the narrator assumes her forgetful, elderly mother went outside and came back in; she tells her she must be confused. However, she remains adamant that she saw her son.

The narrator and her mother have lived together since the narrator’s father died. They get along well, but the narrator prefers quietly writing, while her mother loves to talk and gossip. Her favorite stories to tell tend to be morbid—deaths, misfortunes, and ghost stories. She tells the narrator the story of Aunt Six, who died of a heart attack and visited her, as a spirit, to say farewell. She thinks her son’s ghost swam across the Pacific to visit them; that is why he was wet.

The narrator humors her mother. According to her, her son’s ghost looks the same age as when he died 25 years ago.