Page 91 of Hilarina and the Ogre

There wasn’t anything that couldn’t easily be sacrificed to answer that call. “Yes, darling?”

He could hear the scowl through the phone. “Are you going through a thesaurus or something?”

He could understand why the man thought so. Over the last few hours, he had gone through dearest, sweetheart, honey bun, handsome, pumpkin, and (just for the heck of it) blueberry.

“Let me know when I hit on one you like.”

“You could just use my name, you know, like a normal person.”

“How about baby? That one’s popular.”

He was sure the vague crackling from the other end of the line was the sound of Hilary’s tooth enamel wearing away. “If you don’t mind breathing through a hole in your neck, maybe.”

Trenton found he was smiling and had been for most of the afternoon. “You called my name,” he reminded him. “Did you need something?

“It’s another update I remembered. I can tell you later, but I didn’t want to forget.”

There had been several of those already. Trenton had missed a lot of things. “What is it?”

“It’s about Mrs. Parson.”

And with that, Trenton knew from the tone alone. “Ah.”

“I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t exactly surprising. She hadn’t been young fifteen years back, but it did feel wrong to be told the death of someone who had only just been put back into his mind. Then again, it was strange that Mrs. Parson had ever been deleted at all. Most of the time he’d known her had been before Hilary. Then again, almost everything that Hilary overlapped had been deleted. “When did it happen?”

“Two years ago. Almost three now. Remember when I took that two-week trip?”

He did remember. Hilary had even asked if he’d wanted to come along, but he hadn’t been able to get off work, something Trenton wouldn’t have cared about if he’d had his memories. But of course, he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Hilary said again. “I should have pushed more.”

“No.” Because even if Hilary had managed to convince him, it wouldn’t have meant anything, and likely only confused and hurt Mrs. Parson to have him appearing uncaring. “I’m glad you went. Was she…?”

“It was when she broke her hip. I went to get her settled with the new aid. Unfortunately, she never really recovered, though it went quick at the end, Mom said. I didn’t—I wasn’t there for the funeral.”

And he could guess why. His most recent forgetting—the time before this one. They’d been together almost three years, and Hilary must have been starting to think they were done with the cycle of forgetting and almost remembering. It must have hit hard. Very hard. If their positions had been reversed, he’d have been devastated. How Hilary had managed—had kept getting up after each time… It was the kind of strength you had to develop when you didn’t think have a choice.

Hilary cleared his throat. “I mention her because she left you everything. The shop. The apartment up top. It’s all yours.”

It wasn’t at all what Trenton had been expecting the man to say, and he had to jerk his thoughts hard to get them moving in the new direction. “What?”

“She knew about what happened. To us, and about your memory. She’d send things for you sometimes. The jams and the tea. Do you remember?”

Of course, Hilary’s Aunt Peggie. Though she wasn’t an aunt at all, but Mrs. Parson, who had been so generous, sending a basket every Christmas, and for their birthdays too. The pressed flowers in the hall closet had been from her as well, along with the pretty teacups they rarely used because of their small size that sat on the kitchen windowsill, along with the salt shaker shaped like a mushroom. “Ah,” he said again, his heart squeezing with it. “I hope she didn’t think—”

“She knew how much you cared about her. And she didn’t think the forgetting was permanent. She would tell me that all of you was still inside and that you just needed more time. She was always telling me to give you just a little more time.”

Again, it was that feeling, that yawning depth of a wrong he could never fix. But Hilary wasn’t saying it to make him feel bad. It was the opposite, really. Telling him of support that had been there for him. So many people still thinking of him. “She put her will under my name, but only so I could hold on to it for you, so it would be there when you remembered. It’s all still waiting there. I’m not sure what state the store is in. I haven’t been down there except to collect some of your books. But I’m warning you, Peggie said she’d haunt you for life if you tried to reopen the shop. She said, and I quote, ‘If you try to rot out there the way I did, I’ll never forgive you.”

Trenton couldn’t help but be offended, even knowing they were her words. “She didn’t rot.” But he didn’t disagree with the reasoning behind the sentiment. He couldn’t go back there. Everything good there, the meeting place that should have been sacred, the setting for a love and friendship that had been allowed to blossom—was poison now. “I’m glad you took the books.”

“Only the ones I’d seen you read. I’m sure there are more. Mom boxed up the nicer-looking ones and any first editions. We can go and get them whenever you’re ready.”

It might be awhile. Even with Hilary at his side, it would be difficult to go.

“We could still open something,” Hilary offered. “A new store built using the proceeds of the old one. Peggie was still talking about it, toward the end. About coming to visit us at the new shop.”