Page 18

MOM WOKE UP in the middle of the night in a panic.

I had barely rubbed the sleep out of my eyes by the time she’d gotten dressed and pulled her shoes on.

She was already going for the Subaru keys, but Dad—still in his pajama boxers, hair sticking up in a cowlick he tamed with pomade—snagged them from the hook before she could reach them.

I stopped at the top of the stairs, watching quietly, confused.

“Hank, I have to go. I’m late,” she said. Her voice was strained as she said it. She’d buttoned up her shirt wrong, one hole off, and that was something she never did.

“Where do you have to go, heart?” Dad asked, sweet and patient.

“There’s no time. ”

“There’s always time, heart, and it’s the middle of the night.”

She frowned. Then looked out of the front stained glass, the windows dark. “No, it’s not …” She faltered. “I need to go, Hank. I need to go.”

The realization of what I was seeing was slowly beginning to dawn on me, and I sank down behind the staircase railing so my parents wouldn’t see me.

I did that often when I was little, Mitchell beside me, on nights when Mom met Dad at the door and they whispered softly to each other about the Revelry.

That was when we first found out that Grandma had passed, and the first time we overheard about Dad’s uncle skimming off the top of the books, all the disasters not suited for children’s ears.

I wasn’t a child anymore, but this still felt like the kind of moment I shouldn’t be privy to.

The kind of moment my parents didn’t want me to see as proof that they were human.

And that life was nothing like love songs.

As I watched from the top of the stairs, I began to put everything together. Mom was confused. She’d woken up in a different time, in a different era. I’d read about this happening, but I didn’t think … and Dad hadn’t mentioned …

He hadn’t mentioned a lot of things, come to think of it.

“I need to get to her. I need to see she’s okay,” Mom went on, her voice breaking. Her eyes glimmered with tears. “Hank, she has to be okay. Ami has to be.”

Ami? I frowned. She mentioned her a few days ago.

Dad seemed to know immediately whom she was talking about, because he grabbed her tightly by the arms and squeezed them. “Okay, okay, dear heart,” he said gently, “we’ll go. I’ll drive, okay?”

“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she? And what about—”

He grabbed her purse, and his wallet, and gently followed her out of the door. “Things turn out okay,” he replied, and just as he reached back to close the door, he caught sight of me peering down between the railings. We locked eyes.

There were so many things I wanted to ask: This wasn’t the first time, was it? But how many other times had she woken up in a different memory? How many more times would she? How would he get her back? How hard was it for him, each time?

And by the look on his face, it got harder each time.

Mom was asking a question now, voice carrying away in the breeze on the porch.

Dad turned away from me and stepped outside with his hand on the knob. “He’s safe, dear heart. Take the passenger seat. Watch your step …”

And the door closed behind him.

I waited for a moment until the headlights of the Subaru flickered on, and Dad backed out of the driveway, lighting the stained glass panels surrounding the front door.

They threw colors across the walls for a brief moment, and then left me in darkness again as my parents drove away.

It was only after they were gone that I moved, and only to sit on the top step of the stairs.

I felt sick to my stomach, because I was helpless.

There was nothing I could do, even though I was here.

That knotted, terrible ball in my chest grew tighter—

How often did this happen to Dad, when he had to throw on shoes and grab his keys, and go after her? How much longer would it happen?

What if she managed to leave without him knowing?

My ears were ringing, my head full of awful noise. I held tightly to the stair railing, trying to keep a handle on myself. I had to. I had to—

Faintly, in my head, Sasha began to hum. It was that sweet, familiar melody. The first few notes, over and over. I concentrated on it. On his voice. On the notes.

And hummed along.

“Breathe,” he whispered.

I did.

In, and out.

I concentrated on harmonizing with him. On the dissonance when he changed keys, feeling our way through a melody in our heads. And the little knot of dread wound tight in my chest slowly began to ebb, or maybe I was getting used to the tightness. Maybe I was just learning to cope.

He never said anything else.

He just hummed, and hummed, and hummed, until his voice finally faded in my head and my eyes were no longer watery, and the Subaru pulled back up into the driveway.

I heard the car doors open as I stood from the top of the stairs and returned to my room at the end of the hallway, closing the door quietly as my parents came into the house, whispering, and I returned to bed.

Thank you , I thought as I slipped back into the bed I’d slept in as a teenager. My posters still on the walls, wilted at the corners with age.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he ventured gently.

I sighed. “No.” Besides, he had a front-row seat to my spiraling tonight, anyway. I’m sure he was only asking to be polite.

“I know it’s corny for someone to say they know how you feel, but—I really do know how you feel.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, because you’re in my head.”

“No, I mean—I loved my mom a lot. She was my entire world. She was smart and funny … and I couldn’t imagine a world without her. Until I had to live in it.”

“Oh.” I put my arm over my eyes. I felt like an idiot. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know …”

“It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to—but I promise you, I get it.”

My throat tightened. “I feel so helpless.”

“I know.” And it really felt like he did. There was this warm, soft comfort in the back of my head where his voice echoed, like a well-loved woolen blanket. I just wanted to curl up in that spot in the back of my head.

I felt safe there. Safe to think all the terrible thoughts I could never say aloud.

I thought about the end of this last good summer.

I thought about what this autumn would look like.

This winter. I thought about how close it all seemed so suddenly.

How the days just seemed to go by faster and faster and I couldn’t stop them.

They slipped through my fingers like sand.

I wanted to ask how badly it would hurt when I lost her.

I wanted to ask if it felt like losing a limb or losing a part of your soul.

But the person I wanted to ask, I was afraid I never could.

So, instead, as I lay awake in bed, I ventured in a prodding whisper, “Hey, Sasha?”

“Yes, bird?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

I bit my lip to keep it from wobbling, and turned over onto my side, curling my arms around my chest tightly to stay together, to keep myself intact, as that knotted ball of dread grew in my middle, cold and heavy and hurting.

For not letting me be alone , I thought, and closed my eyes, and hoped for sleep.