“Icould. . .”
“Treat yourself like you treat your flowers, sprout,” she said softly. “Be kind.”
“I will. I love you.” I felt a tug of homesickness as I always did when I said it. I missed her hot cocoas at midnight and the smell of her cigarette smoke on her sweaters, and her hugs. “You and Eddie should come visit. It’s beautiful up here. You’d love it.”
“I’ll think about it. You know we traveled so much I’m now a homebody,” she replied. She’d only visited me once in the city since I moved up there ten years ago, so I could’ve guessed her answer. But still, I asked even though I already knew her answer. “Just . . . be careful near those cliffs? I’m worried about you living in that cottage all alone. You never know what kind of murderers are out there,” she went on.
“Mom,” I begged. “I’mfine.”
“I know, I know. I love you! Good night, sprout!”
“Good night.”
I hung up and dropped my phone onto the table, and stared dejectedly down at the bag of salad in my hand. “Be kind,” she had told me. Well, kindness was not eating a salad without any dressing, so I put it back and opened the freezer again. I could eat a frozenchickendinner instead … but then Mom would probably sense it from hundreds of miles away and send me a care package with green juices and packets of vitamin C. With a groan, I pulled my hands through my brown pixie cut. It was growing out from where I’d shaved it months before, still at the most awkward length it could be. The cut had been impromptu, much like the move to Maine, except I hadn’t done the haircut alone.
I still dreamed of the night I showed up at Harrie’s door-step with a bottle of wine and a men’s shaver in a Walmart bag, and went into the bathroom with her. We unscrewed the cork and passed the bottle between us while we shaved our heads together. Harrie had already started to lose her hair, anyway. I didn’t ask her about the time she spent keeping her diagnosis from me, and she didn’t ask how I found out (San-chez, her fiancé). We did a terrible job with the shaver and had to go to a salon the next morning with hangovers, but I didn’t regret it. We ended up shaving our heads every few months after that, a bittersweet sort of tradition. I didn’t have a lot of big feelings about my hair. It was brown and wavy and never did what I wanted it to. But Harrie loved her hair a lot. She always put masks on it and bought the most expensive shampoo, and it would shine so healthily I even found myself envioussometimes. This was the one sacrifice that was easy for me to make, so she didn’t feel alone.
No one tells you that when you lose your best friend, no one laughs at your jokes anymore. Or if they do, you don’t hear it because you keep listening for a voice that no longer exists. No one tells you that when the phone rings, you pick it up expecting your best friend. No one tells you that you have to eat the whole appetizer now when you go out to Chili’s. Or that you’ll go alone to romcoms and laugh at a joke and look over to the seat where your best friend was supposed to be—
And remember.
Over and over andoveragain.
The loneliness was so heavy and so unremarkable, I couldn’t explain it even if I tried. I felt like a flower too full of rain, bending down to the earth because the water was just too much. It wasn’t like the loss of a spouse, or the loss of a parent, or a sibling—it was different.
Bigger.
There was a word for that, but I couldn’t think of it, so I sat down at the kitchen table where a small brown journal sat beside a Magic 8 Ball, and I flipped through it until I found the one I was looking for.
Cigerpare.The word for someone you loved as much as your own vital organs.
Knowing the word made me feel better. It put a name to this anchor.
I closed the journal and sat back, staring at the Magic 8 Ball.
No one at Lilymoor knew Harrie, or knew about our promise to return here, or the hell I’d gone through this lastyear. I didn’twantthem to know, either. I didn’t want that look of pity, the soft “Are you okay?” because I was tired of answering “Yes.”
I was only ever really truthful around Harrie, anyway.
I picked up the Magic 8 Ball. It was heavy in my hands—heavier than a normal one, anyway. It was the first thing I unpacked from my suitcase when I arrived at the beginning of June.
“Am I wasting my time?” I asked and shook it.
The die in the middle spun in the dark liquid and settled onASK AGAIN LATER.
7
serendipity
That night, I dreamed of Harrie.
I didn’t dream about her often, and whenever I did it was always about the hospital, so when I found myself standing in front of Lilymoor, I was afraid it was a work dream. Then I saw her beside me, fresh out of college and healthy, and the dread turned into relief. She wouldn’t be sick in this dream, more memory than nightmare.
A small gift. I took every one of them I could, greedily hoarding them like a penguin with their perfect pebble.
“After all this time,” she whispered, looking up at the strange and lovely house, “we’re finally here.” Then she pulled her arm through mine, and we let ourselves in through the sage-colored front door, hand-painted with cream lilies and curling vines, and explored the manor.
I had never dreamed about our first trip to Lilymoor.
