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I look out, the water calm and sun-dappled, the sky bright blue and cloudless. I can’t imagine anything less likely than a storm, but when she points, I notice a black cloud off to our right. It almost looks like a funnel, swirling around on itself. That makes no sense. It’s a clear day—
My phone rings. I glance down and sigh.
“My brother,” I say. “I’ve been here an entire twenty minutes and haven’t called yet.” I glance back at the funnel-shaped cloud. “Can you check the forecast while I answer this?”
“Sure.”
We’re in the house. Shania looked up the weather forecast and found no mention of a storm, much less a tornado. We must have been seeing smoke. One of the nuclear plants? We check that, but the directionality is wrong and that smoke wouldn’t be black. Hopefully it’s not a boat on fire. The cloud seems to be gone now, though, so I put it out of my mind and focus on settling into my room.
As I told Jin, it’s the Monroe room, which is less Marilyn-specific and more sixties glam, with bright colors, curved furniture, and semi-tasteful gold leaf on the plaster ceiling.
When I step in, time ripples, and I’m with Anton again on our first visit, us approaching the bedroom door.
“And here is where Viktor and I slept when we were kids. Well, until he was sixteen and stayed back home to work for the summer, and I got the whole room to myself. Baba let us decorate it, and I’m really hoping it’s changed, or I’m totally blaming the pinups on Viktor.”
He throws open the door and waves me through.
I step in and sputter. “Never knew your teen crushes were quite so retro, but I’m digging it.”
He walks in and his face…
I laugh until my sides hurt. “Childhood memories ruined again.”
“It’s very…” He looks around at the glitz. “Sparkly. And gold. Very gold. I’m guessing you’d like us to take another room?”
“Never. It’s a round bed with silk sheets under a boudoir photo of Marilyn Monroe.” I hop onto the bed. “You wanna play horny honeymooners?”
He grins and tosses his bag down. “Nah, I wanna play horny teen who dreamed of getting a girl in my bed here.”
“Well, come on then. I’m here to make all your teenage dreams come true.”
I smile and shake my head as I put down my bag. As Anton said later, there was nothing of his old room here. The furnishings are strictly thrift-shop fare, with sticking drawers, loose knobs, and water marks, but they are immaculately clean, and the bedding is brand-new.
There’s an entire bookcase filled with reading material, and I glance over to see whether there’s anything recent. Nope. More thrift-shop finds, with nothing published in the last twenty years. Luckily, I brought my own reading material. I set two novels on my nightstand. Then I take a third from my bag. It’s a space opera with a bookmark three-quarters of the way through. The spine is bent at that same spot, from having sat open to that same page since October.
I take the novel to the right side of the bed. Anton’s side. Then I remove the bookmark and lay it open, just as it had been the night he died.
Do I feel a little foolish doing that? Yes. Mostly, though, I feel relieved, as if I can sleep in here now. If it helps, then it’s fine. Or so says my therapist.
The bed is circular, with white satin sheets, and I imagine pulling them back and sliding in. Just for a few minutes.
Just for a few minutes.
Which will turn into hours, lying there, paralyzed by grief, crying into the pillows.
Yep, none of that today. I pull the folded comforter tight, as if it’s a shield that’ll keep me out of bed until nightfall.
A knock at the door makes me jump.
“Nic?” Jin calls. “Once you’re settled, it’s cocktail hour.”
“Be right there!” I call before fleeing the bedroom and the memories there.
FIVE
I’m in charge of tonight’s drinks. Each of us has a day when we’ll serve our signature cocktail. Yes, we’re here for a very serious purpose, but that won’t stop us from treating it like a holiday. Dr. Cirillo says that’s exactly what we should do. We aren’t going to spend all of our waking hours trying to contact Anton. We need to relax, and in relaxing we’re making the environment welcoming and reminding the dead of the best parts of life, spending time with family and friends.
My signature cocktail is, yep, shooters. Jin and Libby can tease me about it—and Anton thought it was adorable—but drinking is as much about ritual as the actual consumption of alcohol. University is the first taste of independent life for most kids, but when you have a chronic illness, that independence can be even slower coming. There’s someone watching and monitoring and fretting long after the age when other kids slip from under parental eyes.
