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“She does. There is so much in my life that I love because she loved it. She’d love things with such joy and passion that you couldn’t help but love them, too.

” Poppy’s fingers moved in his, restlessly.

“And she loved Dad. She didn’t work outside the home, but she would help him with his art business—cutting mats for prints, stretching canvas, doing paperwork for his sales when he would rather be painting.

Moving out here was like a dream for them both.

Dad was starting to get popular in the local galleries, and Mom was by his side, and they were happy.

” Her fingers twisted again, almost a spasm, and Rai raised their linked hands to his breast.

“And?” Rai tightened his arm about her. She was breathing hard, and he knew whatever she had to say could not be good, not when she was so agitated telling a story of true love.

“He died,” Poppy said simply, her voice worn.

That was not the end of the story. Rai knew it couldn’t be. But Poppy had fallen silent again, and he could feel her words weighing on her, as if she, too, were hearing them for the first time. “I am sorry,” he said at last. She shifted under his arm.

“Some date this is,” she muttered, sounding ashamed.

“It is a date?” He had looked into the concept that afternoon but had been given the impression dates involved gifts of flowers and sipping a milkshake with two bent straws. Perhaps he had been looking at the wrong websites.

“Pretty sure it counts.” She wriggled again, though this time she seemed to be burrowing closer to him. “Plans were made. Kisses were kissed.”

“Mmm.” He wrapped his arms a little tighter. “It is a very good date, then. ”

She looked at him for the first time since they’d sat. Her eyes were puffy with emotion. She was beautiful. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes,” Rai said. “If you wish to say it.”

“I’m not sure I want to, but…it feels good to tell someone.

I haven’t had…” She heaved another trembling breath.

“He died at the very beginning of the pandemic. Part of the first wave, early enough that we didn’t know what was going to happen.

We had just started lockdown, and I couldn't… I didn’t come out to help.

Mom said she was okay. She said we’d talk about a memorial when things were over. ”

Rai nodded slowly. Although the plague that had struck humanity a few years earlier had not affected faerie directly, he’d heard rumblings about the death rate, the way it had rippled throughout the world.

He had a moment of sick guilt, remembering how he’d laughed with another storm rider about the plague ruining the spring thunderstorms. So much less fun when nobody was out on the streets.

“I had my own things going on,” Poppy continued.

“So I didn’t even notice how she was calling more and more.

And…and I kept having my own things, putting off coming out to visit, making excuses.

” Her voice grew bitter. “The transmission rate was too high. I couldn’t take off work.

Things were just too busy. And we talked on the phone every night, so what was the hurry?

Every time I mentioned flying out, she’d worry more than ever because of the danger of infection.

I figured I’d visit when she had the memorial, and she never picked a date, so I kept letting it slide.

It wasn’t until two Christmases later that…

I managed to come out to visit. And by then it was too late. The OCD was in charge.”

She shifted away from him, and Rai resisted the urge to hold her closer. She stood and walked a few steps away.

“People make jokes about it,” she said. “Even I did, when I was a teenager, until my dad took me aside and told me to knock it off, though he didn’t tell me why.

‘Oh, I’m organizing my makeup. I’m so OCD.

’” She looked over her shoulder. “I’d say you would have seen it on TikTok but you just got your phone today.

But you’ve probably heard it from someone. ”

“I do not know who the OCD is,” Rai said, quelling a bubble of rage at the thought of this person or creature damaging Poppy’s mother. He stood and went to her, reaching out his hand almost to her shoulder. She flinched away, and he let his hand drop.

“Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,” she said.

“I don’t know the term in Portuguese or Spanish.

People think it’s just, I don’t know, sorting things, or cleaning a lot, or even just liking your life a certain way.

But it’s not about habits or neatness. Lots of people are neat.

Lots of parents worry. That’s why Mom’s behavior didn’t stick out to me when I was a kid, because her symptoms were well managed.

But Dad’s the one who helped her manage, made sure she got to the doctor and took her meds, helped her get through the bad days that inevitably happened.

And when he was gone, all of that went away. ” She shrugged again, harshly.

“You feel guilt,” Rai realized out loud.

“Well, yeah,” she said, and scrubbed a hand over her face again. “Of course I do. She was my mom. And I waited almost two years after Dad’s death before visiting. Stupid me, I thought she was getting by like all of us were.”

“You are not stupid,” Rai said, reaching out for her shoulder again. This time she leaned into it, bringing her hand to cover his. “You did not know.”

“You sound like my therapist,” she said in wry resignation.

“I understand that. I understand with my brain that it’s not my fault, that I couldn’t possibly have known without her telling me.

And believe me, I’ve spent my share of time angry at other people, too.

Dad, even. But it doesn’t keep me from feeling like shit about it. ”

Rai stepped in closer, and she folded in toward him again. “You should sit,” he murmured.

A low laugh bubbled from her lips. “Yeah. Sorry I’m being all drama queen about this.” She let him guide her back to the loveseat and settled in against his shoulder again. “You’re a good listener. Some guys would already be telling me how to fix everything.”

He snorted. “I do not know how to fix anything.”

She gave him a wry look. “You’re probably the first guy in the universe ever to admit that.

Anyhow, this isn’t something that can be fixed.

Mom’s part, at least. It’s something you manage, not something you cure.

” She huffed out a breath that made her short hair fly off her forehead.

“She did what she could. Dad had set most of the bills on autopay, and she was already having groceries delivered, so she was able to stay alive. But she was just so…so lost without him. It was so unexpected—he was only fifty-five. They got married young, before they even finished college, and they’d been together their entire adult lives.

And she knew she couldn’t live forever on their savings.

She tried to get a job, but the few times she got an interview, she’d start, and then within the first week, something would set her off, and she’d miss work or cause a scene, and they’d decide she wasn’t worth the hassle.

And so when I arrived, she was just about to lose the house. ”

Rai must be getting better at modern English; he understood that figure of speech. “And so you came.”

“I did. I had to leave my job and…and everything behind. Just packed up what I owned and drove out here to stay. And she’s made a lot of progress.

The house is worth too much for her to get social services, but I got her back in to see her psychiatrist, and she’s taking her meds again.

And we’ve got an application in for disability services—she can’t get benefits straight up, because she’s hardly worked, but if we can get her established as disabled, she can get survivor’s benefits.

That would help a lot.” She heaved another sigh.

“It’s just rough. Losing Dad the way she did confirms that she’s right to worry, so once she starts down that path in her head, she gets lost fast. That’s why I work from home, so that I can be here when she needs me. ”

She fell silent, and this time it felt like the end. Rai sat there with her for a long time before he spoke. “You are very strong.”

She snorted. “Doesn’t feel that way.” She set her hand on his chest, idly tracing the curve of one of the waves. “Anyhow, I’m sorry. You probably weren’t expecting any of this tonight.”

“I had no expectations.”

She made a sound that might have been disbelief, but then she cuddled in closer. “Well, I’m not complaining. Just having someone to talk to about it helps a lot.”

They sat there for a long time. Rai’s heart was swelling with affection, flowing over like a river.

He had liked Poppy from the start, but this felt different—like the way the stars looked different above the clouds than below.

He wanted to kiss her again, but he also wanted this, just this, her warm and content in his arms, while he was soothed by the knowledge that he had done good for her just by letting her speak. He was not accustomed to being useful.

“I wish to help you more,” he said after a bit.

“Thank you,” she replied. “But I’m not sure what you can do.”

I could give you money, he thought, but something made him hesitate. She seemed defensive when she spoke of money, like a cactus, and he did not want to cause another storm. “You spoke of your vehicle’s battery,” he said instead.

She stiffened. “I can’t let you—”

“I am not offering to pay for it,” he hastened to say. “I merely wonder… Would you show it to me? ”

“Oh, so now the man who doesn’t know how to fix anything wants to fix my car?” She said it teasingly, not angrily.

“I do not know how to fix a car,” he said. “I simply wish to see it.”

She sat up and looked out the window. “I don’t know. It’s really coming down.”