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“The moon?”
“Bless the moon,” she says, “but no. What did you do today?”
“I was at work, Nina. You know that. At the store.”
She shakes her head. “No, Benji. What did you do?”
“I… I don’t know what you mean, Nina.” Goosebumps sprout on my arms. “Nina?”
“Oh, Benji,” she whispers in reverence, her eyes sparkling in the moonlight as she watches the space above me. A wind picks up, blowing through the trees.
“What do you see?”
“Blue,” she says. “There is so much blue.” She sighs. “It’s been around you for a long time, but now it’s just so blue. You did something. It’s why I wait, you know.”
“Is it?” I choke out.
My aunt glances at me before looking back up. “Yes. Every night you come home, there’s a bit of blue that follows. Sometimes it’s faint. Sometimes it’s bright. But it always dances, Benji. It always dances after you. I’m not sure if….” She becomes distracted again.
I don’t believe this, I think. This isn’t real. There’s nothing there. I see nothing. I feel nothing.
But that in itself is a lie. That which I do not believe has been there ever since I returned to Little House. The hand I don’t feel on my shoulder. The breath I don’t feel on my neck. The flash of blue that isn’t there. Ever since that night, I’ve come home to find her waiting on the porch, her hands folded in her lap, waiting for me. She’s always delighted when I pull up in the Ford, clapping her hands and laughing. I always thought it was me, that she’d been happy to just see me. And while that may be part of it, it seems, for her, there is more.
This isn’t real. This can’t be real. Reality isn’t flashing blue or disembodied hands. Reality isn’t the feeling that someone is always there, that I’m never truly alone. Reality isn’t—
I stop, cutting myself off.
Nina giggles and claps her hand. “Whatever you did,” she tells me, “it sure is something. I’ve never seen it so bright.”
“Nina?” I croak.
“Benji?”
I can’t ask. My throat works.
She waits.
I have to know. I can’t not know.
“Is it him? Is it….” I can
’t find the words to finish.
She appears startled as her gaze finds mine. She takes a step toward me and reaches up to cup my face, her hands soft and cool against my flushed skin. I stare down at her wide eyes and tell myself the flash of lights I see reflected back aren’t there, that I’m hallucinating. I’m tired. I’m sad. I’m fucking lonely and I’m making up shit that isn’t there. I’m seeing things that aren’t there. I’m losing my fucking mind—
“Big Eddie loves you,” Nina says, rubbing her thumbs against my cheeks. “Sometimes, I think he’s closer than even you could imagine. But this? This is blue, Benji. Different.”
“I don’t understand.”
Her brow furrows. Then, “Secret?”
Secret? This game we played when I was a child? This word I haven’t heard
from her in years, and hearing it now knocks me off my axis. She flexes her fingers against my skin. “Secret?” she insists.
I nod.
“Cross your heart?”
