"Would you believe it's not the difficult part?" Dan asks, but it's phrased to be rhetorical. "It never was. The difficult part was learning to deal with the spirits themselves. The people I helped, they didn't linger, but the world was still full of hungry ghosts."

He lets the pad of his finger brush the black letters of the ad.

"I nearly ruined myself, trying to keep them out of my head. The hospice work was steady. If I was sober, no place cared to get rid of me."

Looking up at Obi-Wan, at his own not-quite face, he says, "I don't think that answers the question."