You want to know who sent the roses, am I right? 

The significance of the roses was easy. I was —

Sorry. Give me a minute here. 

I was turning 50 that week.  

Fifty. 

Cliff Clavin — from Cheers — his mom was portrayed by a 52-year-old actor. 

And Cliff Clavin was, like, a grown-up. 

I’m not a grown-up.  

Recently, the answer to a Jeopardy! clue was “dik-dik,” a cervid-looking mammal who really needs a different name. 

I couldn’t stop laughing. 

Even now, as I write this, giggles bubble through my chest like carbonation in a soda bottle. 

So how can Cliff Clavin’s mom be just two years older than me? She never struck me as a laugh-at-a-dik-dik kind of girl. 

I set the roses in water, using pint glasses as vases because anyone who laughs at dik-diks doesn’t own vases. 

I Googled the flower company, relieved to find they exist.  

Is that weird? I don’t know. Do I think I’m beautiful enough to have a secret admirer who not only celebrates my birthday but also invented a flower merchant? 

I mean, yes. Of course I think that. 

I used the website’s “Contact Us” form to explain my dilemma, then trundled off to pick up my son. I dumped the enormous shipping container for the roses into the garage on my way out. 

By the time I got home, the florist responded.  

They needed more than my name and address to figure out who was so desperately in love with me. 

They needed the tracking number from the shipping label. 

That meant pulling the box from the garage. 

Not only does Kato the skink live there, but also his baby, Kato Jr.  

And a few dead mice in mousetraps.  

And probably a snake because I saw a shed snakeskin in there once. 

And no. I can’t just throw away the dead mice myself. I’m just not that girl. We all know that. 

And if I have a husband and a secret admirer, why do I have to throw them out anyway? Let one of them do it. 

I replied to the flower merchant. Then my husband and I cultivated a theory about the roses. 

The back door alarm was triggered less than a week before. Maybe my secret admirer, desperate to squeeze into bed with Cliff Clavin’s mom and her beagle, tried to break in. Maybe the sensor was jostled loose by his efforts. 

I was disappointed it wasn’t a ghost. That I’m so gorgeous as to spur an admirer — that was hardly a salve. 

And the letter — the letter to my husband presuming a relation in another state — that arrived between the door alarm and the flowers. Was that somehow involved?  

We couldn’t fathom how it could be, but in less than a week we had three bizarre incidents — all centered around me. 

Me. Cliff Clavin’s mom. 

A new email from the florist explained my secret admirer has a last name beginning with “R.”  

Their first name is Jordi. 

That’s a Star Trek character. 

My husband and I speculated maybe “Jordi” was my friend — the one who attended Shyamaween with me. We did, after all, dress as Star Trek characters. 

I argued she would know the Jordi of Star Trek doesn’t spell his name that way.  

Then — all at once — it hit me.  

The florist’s email had a typo.  

The flowers, I realized, were sent by my cousin. My cousin, who shares a last initial with me. My cousin, whose name is one letter off from “Jordi.” 

There was no secret admirer. No attempted break-in. The letter was still exactly what we’d assessed. 

I was just a lady, two years away from being Cliff Clavin’s mom, with 50 roses in pint glasses. 

And people who love her. 

That’s better than a ghost. 

And almost as good as being Cliff Clavin’s mom.