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“Remy, I need to know whether you’ll help us. Archie could, but I would rather he remain with Bianca.” To be honest, I add, “I’d rather he not witness the moment I’m taken.”

Remy grips my arm, his eyes wide with shock and, what surprises me most, regret. “But how can this be accomplished?”

A second later, Archie returns holding a hairbrush, his bearing weighed down as though every step is an epic struggle against gravity. “Are you certain?”

“You know the answer to that. My life has been preparing me for this trial since long before our family found each other.”

Remy glances from Archie to me. “You can’t do this.”

I take the brush from Archie and sound as somber as I feel as I say, “Yes, I can. Will you help us?”

“What is it you want me to do?”

“I’m going through the portal to the moment after we first came through it. Then I’ll use the portal to reach Bianca’s father and bring him here. But I don’t know how long it will take for me to be claimed and we must get her father to Pennie’s pool with due haste. Will you help us?”

Remy scowls, his eyes still wild. “Is this what love is? Sacrificing everything you are for an outcome you won’t be able to share?”

I simply nod, my body filled with a certainty I couldn’t explain to him, not with all the words that ever existed. “Archie, you stay with them.”

My dear Archie wants to argue but he doesn’t, though he asks, “Are you certain Remy can be trusted with such an important task?”

Remy’s expression changes, now exuding true resolve. “I swear I will not fail you.”

Archie extends his hand to Remy and they shake, something I never thought I would behold.

“It’s time. Let’s go.” Struggling against emotions that will only make this more arduous, I embrace Archie and whisper, “Love them all, enough for me.”

Chapter36

Dad

Lime-green golf carts puttering around a sea of endless green grass. My golf game hasn’t improved at all being here, and the days are growing monotonous. We’re all supposed to want retirement, but for me, it feels too much like abandoning all my adventures to live the same day on a loop.

Frank over there is about to throw his nine iron, just like he did yesterday and the day before. A sit-com for geezers, that’s my life now. Why did I move down here? It wasn’t for the bugs. Oh, right, it was so I didn’t go on a monosyllabic murder spree of all those douches infecting Bianca’s life.

Waiting for her to finally get it… that’s been the greatest challenge of my life. But as I camp here in my golf cart, twiddling my thumbs while the pokiest of golfers works out his shot, all my thoughts of Bianca are decidedly hopeful, joyous even. She sounded certain about a needed course correction in her life. She’s finally got this, and all the bumps she called mistakes were the lessons that prepared her for today.

I’ll call her later. Maybe I’ll send flowers. Chocolates would be better. A truckload of ice cream, even better. I wonder if she’d like an ice cream truck and a bounce house to go with a mariachi band and a taco truck. Some things you never outgrow. I’m smugly reminiscing about how every parent in the neighborhood attempted to take my trophy for best birthday parties—never happened, probably never will.

The sky is a beautiful blue and I roll my shoulders to ease the aching tension that’s been bugging me for a few days. A sharp pain takes me by surprise, takes my breath. My chest is suddenly squeezed in a vice. I clutch my burning left arm with my right while struggling for air.

No. Not yet. I need to see Bianca safely in her new life. I can’t be the reason she falters. Not when she’s so close.

But the pain. Darkness dots my vision and I suddenly feel like a tiny speck in a massive, uncontrollable universe.

This isbad… I’m hallucinating. I haven’t done that since that concert back in my youth when I got a little adventurous with some mushrooms. But nothing else explains the giant, furry blue/black monster barreling toward me, his fuzzy tail twitching.

When he reaches me, he moves behind the golf cart. “Depress the acceleratory pedal, Mr. Bianca’s Father, Sir.”

“Bianca?” I ask with a groan, while smelling burnt popcorn.

The monster grimaces. “Please, Sir,pushthe pedal. Go fast. We don’t have long. Bianca’s waiting.”

With a seemingly much larger monster sitting on my chest, I weigh my options. And hey, when a monstrous, furry blue/black monster, who apparently knows your daughter, tells you to push the gas, then I guess you push the dang gas.

I jam my foot down and the monster shoves the golf cart from behind, helping us achieve quite a nice speed. I distantly hear some gasps from those jerks taking all day to make their shots, but my focus is on the tree we’re aiming for. But since I can’t breathe or scream, I’m saved from making embarrassing sounds before the inevitable collision.

But we don’t hit the tree. We sail right through it—golf cart included—into an enchanted forest, a kind of green I’ve never seen in my life. The canopy is so thick I can’t see the sky.