Page 77 of Every Almost

Reyna sat down.

Something about it didn't fit. It's shape, it's position, the dents and grooves already set from Elena's eight years living in it. Even the view from it didn't fit for Reyna. Everything about this room, from the walls to the clutter to even the chair was built around a woman who was, most likely, never coming back.

Reyna had now been instructed to take her place, to sit in this chair, even if it did not fit, and stay anyway.

I'm not captain material, she had said to them both at Novahall, two people who saw something in her she could never believe existed in herself. She hadn't believed it then and, truthfully, she wasn't sure she believed it now. But she was here, now, because someone had to be, and because Elena had built a ship worth commanding, choosing her as the second in line because, well, Reyna was still not sure. She had second-guessed it in the beginning, but the redeeming thought that made her accept the role without too much strain was realizing that, the likelihood that she'd never be without Elena and would have to captain the Emberkind was so slim that it wasn't worth her worry.

She actually chuckled to herself lightly as the thought flew across her mind now.

She continued to sit in that chair that didn't fit, but didn't leave, because that's not what she did. She didn't leave the table at Novahall when a stranger put a drink in front of an empty chair, she didn't leave when the Coalition had separated her and Elena from Jere in their first positions, and she wouldn't leave this chair when the universe put a command on her shoulders that she did not wanted but would not refuse.

She stayed.

SEVEN

LOCK HAVEN YELLOW

EARTH YEAR 1986 / COALITION CYCLE 496

? PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES ?

Frank Beckman died on a Saturday.

And that would be just like him, to choose the day of the week made for relaxation, celebration, and fun.

He'd been working on the Cutlass that afternoon. Helen had seen him from the kitchen window, his sleeves rolled up and his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead, leaning under the hood with the focus of a man who never got tired of engines. Around three o'clock, she watched him straighten up, wipe his hands on a rag, and walk to his lawn chair by the garage door. He sat down with the ease of being slow and satisfied, like a man who'd put in a good afternoon's work and earned the right to rest.

Helen made him a glass of lemonade and put a few cookies on a plate. She carried them out to the garage, already thinkingof what she would say to tease him about, something about the Cutlass always getting more attention than she did.

When she got there, Frank was in the chair, his head tilted slightly to the sky to absorb the warm sun. His hands were on his knees and his face peaceful, the way it looked when he fell asleep on the sofa for his Sunday naps.

Except this time, when Helen said his name, he didn't wake up.

He'd gone quickly and hadn't suffered. He'd sat down in the chair where he'd watched Charlie work for twelve years, and he'd simply gone to rest.

Katie was at a friend's house that Saturday. She arrived at the Beckmans in the early evening, walking through the kitchen door, expecting to find Helen at the stove and Frank in his chair at the table, the smell of something good filling the house. Instead, she found Helen in the living room, sitting very still on the sofa. Her eyes were puffy and red, her hands folded in her lap. When Katie walked in, Helen looked up at her and the expression on her face told Katie everything she needed to know before Helen even said a word.

Helen told her gently. She held Katie while Katie cried, and when the crying slowed, Helen said, "We need to call Charlie."

It was late, a little past eleven o'clock Indiana time when they were finally able to sit down and make the call, which made it just after eight in California. Charlie was at her desk in her Pasadena apartment, working through a problem set for her graduate coursework when the phone rang. She picked it up expecting a friend to invite her out to The Boulevard that night, their usual Saturday night hangout.

But instead, it was Helen. And behind Helen's voice, Charlie could hear Katie crying softly.

Charlie knew before Helen said it. Not because of the words, but because of the sound. Helen Beckman had never soundedlike this. It was steady, because Helen was always steady, but there was something underneath it that had been taken away, a foundation that had been there so long you didn't notice it until it was gone.

"Charlie, honey. I need to tell you something."

Charlie listened. She didn't interrupt. She didn't cry. She sat very still at her desk with the phone pressed to her ear and her hand flat on the problem set she'd been working on.

"He was working on the Cutlass," Helen said, and her voice cracked for the first time. "He was saying earlier how he was looking forward to showing you something new he had added."

Charlie closed her eyes.

After they hung up, she sat at her desk for a long time. She didn't move, didn't call anyone. She stared at the problem set in front of her, and the numbers looked like a language she'd forgotten how to read.

Her hand found the pin in the drawer of her desk, where she kept it next to Katie's mixtape insert card. Frank's Aviation Machinist's Mate badge. She turned it over in her fingers, feeling the tarnished wings and the propeller at the center, and she thought about the night before she'd left for Caltech. The garage. The way he'd said "Life" and looked at her like he meant it. She'd seen him a hundred times since that night for holidays and summers, but that was the moment that lived in the pin. The moment Frank told her who she was.

There were things she'd been meaning to tell him. Things she'd been working up to, turning over in her mind the way she turned the pin over in her hand, waiting for the right moment. But now the right moment would never arrive. Its possibility had settled into a lawn chair on a Saturday afternoon and simply gone to rest, and Charlie would never get it back.