Page 131

Twig nodded, still looking a little distracted. “I’m really sorry about Signy’s friend,” she said. “I don’t know if she’ll care about hearing that from me, but—”

“Of course she’d care,” Cora said. “Why wouldn’t she care?”

Twig shrugged. “So what happened, did he overdose or something?”

Cora blinked. “What?”

“You said he had a heart attack.”

“Yeah, because—jesus, Twig, because he’s old, not because he took some bad shit.”

“How old?”

“Like, seventy-four, seventy-five?”

“For reals?”

“Yes, for reals!”

“Wow.” Twig took that in. “That’s really old.”

“‘Did he overdose,’ oh my god.” Cora gave Twig a light cuff upside the head. “Dipshit.”

“Don’t call me dipshit,” Twig said, shoving her back. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking again at the tank full of plants. “Is he gonna be okay?”

Cora exhaled, loud and slow. She stuck her hands in her pockets, likewise looking to the tiny bubbles, the swaying sails of green. “I dunno,” she said quietly. “It’s not sounding good.”

Chapter 44 Signy, Fortune

Certain things in the natural world followed others so predictably, they never came as a surprise. Acid rain followed a volcanic eruption. Root rot followed overwatering. Tissue damage followed a severe heart attack, as did arrhythmia and organ failure. And just as nobody could do anything about acid rain other than take cover, and just as there was no cure for soggy roots more sophisticated than letting them dry out—sometimes, there was no way to tell a body that had badly malfunctioned how to keep going.

Signy and Sam worked together to make Otto’s bedroom comfortable before the paramedics brought him home. Because that’s what you did when the doctor said he’d have to call security if you didn’t stop yelling at him after he told you the patient wasn’t eligible for a transplant. You stopped yelling so that you wouldn’t be taken away from the patient any sooner than you were already going to be, and then you brought him back home, and you gave him every comfort you could think of. Signy put fresh sheets on the bed as Sam cried her way through dusting the surrounding shelves. Darcy combed through boxes of memory sticks, picking out what he knew to be favorite recordings. Ramona was . . . well, Ramona was preparing an army of lucky charms, which perhaps someone somewhere might consider to be a help. Nurse Arlo had arrived with equipment Signy recognized—an oxygen tank, a suction machine, a heart monitor.

Then Otto came home, and despite how full the apartment was, Signy could feel just how empty it was going to become.

She sat beside his bed, but she didn’t face him. She’d angled the chair toward the window, which wasn’t as big as his window in the living room, but it would do. She propped her elbows on her knees as she focused his binoculars, scanning across the street. “Okay, I see a man leaving the bakery. He’s got a red barrier jacket, and he’s carrying a box of—”

“Is it Tuesday?” Otto said, his once-rich voice a breathy creak.

Signy glanced toward him, away from the lenses. He was confused, fatigued, dipping in and out of consciousness, and yet—“Yes, it’s Tuesday,” she said. “Do you see him on Tuesdays?”

“Yes,” Otto said with the slightest nod of his head. “He always buys a box of cupcakes on Tuesdays.”

Signy looked back through the binoculars, finding the man in the red jacket again. “How do you know they’re cupcakes?” she asked. It looked like an ordinary takeout box to her, but she wouldn’t put it past Otto to slip down to the bakery on a Tuesday to find out what his target was buying.

Otto smiled. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just like to think he buys cupcakes for his kids on Tuesdays.”

“How do you know he has kids?” Signy asked.

Otto coughed, still smiling. He shook his head, but said nothing.

Signy was hit with the dawning realization that the kids were fictional, too. She lowered the binoculars and peered at him. “How much of your reports on the neighborhood have you made up?” she asked.

“The parts that needed some oomph,” Otto said. “Every script needs an editor.”

Signy shut her eyes. “You are the most annoying person I’ve ever met.” She returned to her scouting as he softly chuckled. “Let’s see . . . there’s a maintenance crew repairing something on the building next to mine—or maybe they’re installing something—a new radio dish, maybe?”

“Where’s Henry?” Otto asked.