Fifteen months and, somewhere, Theo’s still logged on to iChat. At first it was creepy and Annabelle thought about calling tech support, or something, and asking them to disconnect him. She’s not even sure how that would work. Would she have to produce the death certificate? Can you prove an email address is dead?

But she takes comfort in it now. A little weird and, yeah, probably unhealthy. But she’s not his only buddy, and the others don’t talk about it either.

“you around?” she types, every couple weeks, and waits. Nothing yet. He doesn’t even have an away message up.