Page 39 of The Dead of Summer

Gracie’s eyes shine like faraway stars.

“Ollie-baby, you came home.”

The parlor ceiling has caved atop the velvet couches, and the reef—once tiny enough to be contained in the aquarium upstairs—flourishes down the walls, flows on the stairs, festers over the furniture, over everything.

Shapes I recognize ripple throughout the surreal structures: spires of candelabras, the jellyfish flamboyance of the fallen chandelier, the translucent sconces fluttering like heart chambers.

And Gracie. A face, an arm, a hand, a hip.

Echoes of her reverberate in the pastel reef, so that the room appears full of crystallized ghosts.

They draw together toward the bay window into the woman herself, at her piano, fused to the bench.

She stops playing.

“I knew you’d come back, but … I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

When she turns to me, I see the destroyed half of her head where the Cnidaria has blistered away her ear and clouded one eye.

Her blue wig is long gone. Self-conscious, she hides the patchy hair of her scalp, and it’s the familiarity of that motion that snaps me back into myself.

In the last year, I have watched Gracie wither and grow, watched her skin gray and flush, watched her hair fall out.

Watched her fight. I have faced every degrading transformation alongside her, always with love, always with laughter. I handled everything.

And I can handle this.

I step through the wreckage of the parlor, and I sit down on the bench with my mom. She shrinks from me. I knew she would do that. Like I’ve done a hundred times, I reach into the curl of her body, find her hand, and hold it.

There is no sting, no prickle. The air here doesn’t choke or drown me. I don’t even think about why or why not. This is my home, and this is my mom, and we’re just two people sitting at a piano.

“For a long time I was sinking. Just sinking. But then I heard you somewhere above me, or outside of me, I don’t know.

But in my heart, I swam toward you,” Gracie says to me.

“I hear so much now. It’s all a song, all a song, and when I listen, I seem to lose myself.

I remember … I remember …” The light of the reef dims, then surges, like Gracie’s mind extends throughout the house now.

“I remember your song. I remember you. All three of you.”

Bash and Elisa are in the doorway, shirts drawn up over their mouths protectively, eyes wide as they absorb what’s happened to Singing House.

They see me at the piano and freeze. I shake my head to tell them to stay back.

This Gracie beside me is and is not my mother, or at least not just my mother.

I don’t think she will hurt us, but there’s something else in her voice now.

Something uncanny and detached. It’s as though she speaks for the coral growing within and around her.

“I remember me, too,” Gracie says, reading the worry in my eyes.

“But … it’s like I can remember entire years before me.

Oh, it’s so odd. I remember the centuries in which I was small, nothing but a single flower drifting in the dark, and then I gushed through this brilliant tear, right into this world.

I was tiny then. Simple. Just a single waving hand reaching for the light.

And I was hungry. When we are young, we only know how to eat and how to grow, but now I am learning how to think.

And how to feel. And once I’m big enough—once I’m wise enough—I suppose I’ll decide if I want to stay. ”

I know Gracie better than anyone, and this isn’t her—not entirely—but because whatever speaks through her is using her voice, I also know something else. She, and it, are telling the truth.

“We locked it in,” she whispers, her single eye searching some invisible distance for a way out. “We locked it in with us, and our lovely light. Oh, Ollie-baby, no wonder it wants to stay. Anyone would. Our island is heaven, you know.”

That. That right there. That was Gracie. My throat tightens and my heart burns. It’s just like Elisa said. It’s almost impossible to know she’s just alive enough to miss.

“Mom, we’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”

“Ollie, wait—”

I ignore Elisa’s protest and pry a horn of coral from the bench. I stop immediately when Gracie cries out, and the soft white light flickers. It’s like Singing House itself has flinched. Dust flutters down from above as the house settles.

“Why?” I begin to cry. “Why did it do this to you?”

“Oh, every big thing starts as a little thing. This little thing just happened to start with me. I remember a storm and I remember a fight, and I remember a sunrise and I remember the beach. I see myself reaching through water—a tidal pool. We found each other. But don’t worry, Ollie-baby, it doesn’t hurt much anymore.

It’s the softest conquest this body has ever seen.

It’s kind, you know. That’s why it seeks out our joy. It’s like I always say …”

I say the graciom for her.

“The tide gives as much as it takes, right?”

“Right.” She smiles. “Don’t worry about me. You three should go, before the sun comes back around and wakes up this mad world.”

“But what’s going to happen to you?” Asking is like pulling out a knife lodged deep in my heart; necessary, but I’m not sure I can survive the blood loss.

Gracie tilts her chin up, like she’s listening to approaching music.

“I don’t know, but something tells me I won’t be guessing for long.

” She attempts a smile, but like the light around us …

it flickers. She’s lying. It’s just like Scary Mary, and we both know the reason the reef around her is fading.

Gracie’s smile turns ashamed.

“Don’t make me say it, Ollie. Please,” she whispers.

“Say it.” It comes out too harsh, but I know now that if this moment doesn’t end in truth, I will relive it forever.

“Please,” I try again. “Just tell me.”

Gracie turns to her piano. These keys have played her through every up and down.

They surrounded us with love and songs. They waited under their cover, through a quiet no one thought would end.

Then, when we finally came home to them, they danced beneath our hands in the seconds before our final fight.

It’s no wonder Gracie reaches for them now, but her fingers fall soft and silent on the keys. There’s no outplaying this one.

“The cancer came back. I was always going to die, Ollie-baby.”

Gracie hangs her head, reflexively wiping at any spilled tears, but there’s nothing to hide. No tears left. I put my head on her heaving shoulder. The sound of my mother crying breaks open my world. Her fear fills the room, the entire house.

“When did you know?” I ask.

“Oh, sweetie, weeks and weeks ago. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to know. It was supposed to be our best summer ever.”

Tears race through the dust on my cheeks. “I think I knew,” I say, a crack in my voice now. We sit quietly. I made her tell me, and now she did, and I’m not sure there’s worth in any other words. My mom was always going to die. What’s left to say?

She doesn’t see it that way.

“I hope you can forgive me. For lying to you,” she whispers. “I just wanted to show you that there are places worth saving. And even if it was the last thing I could do, I was determined to bring you home, back to your family. It’s a beautiful life on our island, isn’t it, Ollie-baby?”

I smile, tasting my tears in the back of my throat as I swallow. I consider asking her about that word— family . Does it include Willy? But I know the answer will be yes, just like family includes so many others Gracie hoped would take me in once she faded away.

I just say, “Yeah, Mom, it was a beautiful life.”

Soft hands come to rest on my shoulders. Elisa and Bash. Gracie turns to them. Seeing the three of us back together, the twinkle in her eye triples.

“It is beautiful,” she insists.

The light in the room has faded now, nearly all the way gone. The air has turned gray with the threat of an impending sunrise. Through the back windows, I can see a sliver of the sky about to burn open with tomorrow. Our time has come to an end.

“Can we have a moment?” I ask my friends.

They nod. Before they go, they say their own goodbyes.

To Bash, Gracie gives her brightest smile and says, “The heartthrob with a heart. Take care of them, Bashar.” And for Elisa, Gracie’s smile falters.

“My brave girl,” she says, swallowing. “Our island’s pride and joy. Don’t forget to take care of yourself.”

My friends go, leaving me alone with Gracie. As gentle as I can manage, I hug her. She is featherlight in my arms. Even her clothes have been sapped of color. I press my face into the soft skin at the base of her freckled skull, and for the first time in a year, I let my mom see me cry.

I don’t smile through it. I don’t try to be brave.

I cry.

“I’m here, I’m here,” she whispers to me. I can hear the fading in her voice. Even though I’m the one who is a mess, I stop my sobbing long enough to tell her not to be afraid. I don’t know how she hears me through the hiccups, but she does.

“Oh, I’m not afraid,” she whispers. “And I’m not gone. We do not end, remember?”

“We echo,” I say, miserable.

I can hear the smile in Gracie’s voice as she whispers a final pearl of wisdom into my ear, just for me to know and hear. I nod, finding enough strength to sit up and face her.

“How about that,” I say, smiling through the tears. One last smile, for Gracie.

“That’s my Ollie-baby. Now, go catch up with your friends.”

I rise from the bench, an unsure bubble.

I float to the parlor door. I know that if I look back, I’ll break too badly to take those final steps outside, so I don’t look back.

I stand at the stairs, facing the door, and listen to the home I’m about to leave behind.

At first there’s nothing to hear; the songs of Singing House are all silent to me now.

Nothing creaks and no one laughs … but then, one final encore remains in the bones of this place.

Piano music, fragile as morning light, drifting from the parlor, and a woman humming a new melody to herself.

It’s not a song I recognize, but I know it’s a lullaby. I catch it in my heart.

Elisa and Bash are waiting for me on the porch. They each take one of my hands, but I’m the one who leads them away.

Soon , my mother told me, I’ll just be another song you get to sing. How about that?