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“Yeah, I know what a vacation is.” Cora continued to laugh. “Oh my god. I could not have predicted what you were about to say if you’d paid me a hundred bucks.”

“Why is that so funny?”

“A vacation!” Cora said. “That’s so . . . I dunno. So fairy-tale. Do you want to ride an elephant, too? Or maybe a moose?”

“Sure,” Signy said. “If it’s on offer.” She glanced around the tight square of walls. “I could do with being somewhere that isn’t here, I think.”

Cora sat up. “Do you wanna come to the stables with me, for my preflight next week?”

“Sure, all right.”

“No, I’m being serious.”

Signy looked at Cora. She was being serious. “And do . . . what?”

“Look at stars. Say hi to Colibri. Make out in micrograv. Drink chicory from a tube.” Cora stroked Signy’s cheek. “Not be here.”

Images of those suggestions flickered through Signy’s head—particularly the possibilities of micrograv—but surely this was impractical. “Is that even allowed? You’ll be working.”

“Sure, but university folks come up all the time, and they’re allowed to do overnights. If you can visit, I don’t see why you can’t stay a few days. I can at least ask.”

The thing about grief was it threw all your hesitations and hang-ups out the airlock. A month ago, Signy would’ve kissed Cora amusedly over the sweet, silly suggestion. She would’ve said no, she had customers to look after, she had her plants to look after, she had projects to puzzle out, and besides, she’d only be in the way. She didn’t know how to sleep in micrograv, she didn’t know how to wash up in micrograv, she didn’t want to distract Cora or Colibri while they were working, and—

And what did she care now? Her templates had been deleted. Her favored plants had been torched. She’d let her customers down, sent them off into the wind to suffer alone. And no one would wave at her from a window across the street when she got to the shop each morning. No one would make her dumpling soup on Fridays. And Cora, Cora was in pieces. Signy could feel it as they lay against each other—the same strong body as always, rendered delicate by the crumbling heart inside. All Signy wanted to do for the foreseeable future was hold Cora and be held back, and she didn’t care if they did that in the Berth or floating above it. “Why not,” she said. “If they say yes, then . . . why not.”

Chapter 794 Cora, Cypsela

Cora let Signy hold her as the nook held them both. There were no sounds in the little room except for their own breathing and the soft hum of the irrigation line that kept the plants around them happy. Signy had made a chair of herself, her back up against the edge of the nest of cushions. She kissed the tip of Cora’s ear. She played with her hair. Cora pressed close, her tears slowing every minute that passed. She felt stillness, and gratitude.

“I cannot begin to imagine who I’d be if I hadn’t met you,” Cora said.

Signy clicked her tongue once, thoughtfully. “That’s because it’s unimaginable,” she said. “The person I am now doesn’t exist without you, and vice versa. So, you’re trying to imagine your existence in a scenario in which you—the person doing the imagining—doesn’t exist. It’s a contradiction. It can’t be done.”

Cora flicked her eyes up toward Signy’s, catching them as best she could. Her wife had an incredible knack for making an existential crisis worse. She always had. And yet, Cora found Signy’s eternal commitment to the no-bullshit bit more grounding than any platitudes. Signy only ever called it like she saw it, and so long as Cora got to keep her front-row seat for that, she could handle anything.

She looked back to the window, to the ring of rock and ice, to the nameless fabric holding it all in place. “It scares me, sometimes,” she said.

“What?” Signy asked. “Not being able to see a different life?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t have imagined any of this, either. Back then, I mean. And so it freaks me out, because . . . how different is my life gonna be in another ten years, or whatever?”

“It’s been fourteen years.”

“Yes, I know. I meant figuratively.”

“You can’t have a figurative ten.”

Cora gave Signy’s calf a light flick. “You know what I fucking mean.”

Signy kissed the back of Cora’s head, letting her win. She raked idle lines along Cora’s scalp, and with each pass, Cora felt herself untangle a little more. God, she could be the rawest, maddest, most snarled-up knot inside, and all she had to do was take shelter here—in these arms, this voice, this heartbeat—to start to feel steady again.

“Do you actually think you would be able to function at all, knowing what was going to happen next?” Signy asked.

“Probably not,” Cora replied.