Page 148 of Shatter

Vanir pulled it off his body before the club handled everything else.

She asked for it, and nobody said no.

The preacher closes his book.

In the silence afterward, the phone in her hand starts to ring.

The screen lights up in the rain.

Mom.

Anni looks down at it.

Her face doesn't change.

It rings and rings, the cheerful little tune loud and wrong in the wet hush under the oak, and every head turns.

She doesn't answer it or silence it.

My hand tightens around hers until I feel every one of her knuckles.

She holds it in her open palm and looks at it while it rings, her thumb motionless.

I watch her mouth go hard, slow, like something closing for good.

It rings out, and the screen goes dark.

Anni bends down and lays the phone on top of her brother's casket, face down, and straightens up.

Then she turns and looks at me.

"Take me home." Her voice is barely there. "Please."

***

For four days, she doesn't get out of bed.

She lies on her side facing the wall, with the blanket pulled up to her ear, and watches the ceiling fan's shadow turn.

She eats a few bites when I bring food and drinks when I hold the glass.

At night, she lets me lie down behind her with my arm across her waist, and sometimes, in the dark, her hand finds mine and holds on so hard it hurts.

I lie awake behind her and count her breaths until the window goes gray.

She doesn't talk.

I don't ask her to.

The second day after the funeral, I call Aziza and tell her Anni won't be in.

"She'll come back when she comes back, baby." Aziza's voice is gentle down the line. "Her key's not going anywhere."

On the third day, Vail comes and sits on the edge of the bed and checks Anni's fingertips, pink and healing.

She talks about nothing for half an hour while Anni doesn't answer, and Vail doesn't seem to mind.

Dag knocks on the fourth day.