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He looked down at his hand in confusion. “You made me coffee.”
Noelle gave a long-suffering sigh. “Sit, hang out with Kringle and Baba Yaga. I’m in the middle of something. She should be in here any minute.”
Levi did exactly what she suggested. He sat in the love seat facing the fireplace, and he contemplated wild forest witches until he heard Miriam come in from the studio.
“Levi Blue!” she exclaimed in delight.
He hugged her tightly, and she hugged him back, both of them trying not to spill hot coffee on each other. Kringle complained that neither of them was hugging him.
“Did you see how cool my kitchen is?!” She pulled him into the room to point out all the new appliances. “Noelle made me a little baker’s paradise.”
He made appropriate—and unfeigned—noises of appreciation about her new KitchenAid and admitted that the oven was extremely good.
“What’s up, though, why are you here?” she asked. “Are you going to steal my oven for the main kitchen? I told your mom I was buying her one for her birthday next year.”
“You’re bad at birthday surprises”—he started a list with his fingers—“you know I’m going to need to have input on that oven, and I would never steal someone else’s kitchen equipment. What are you up to for the rest of the week? Do you have a chunk of free time?”
She opened her phone and checked her calendar app. “I have a BYOB sculpting class on Tuesday night, and the Ohio Bloomers are coming for a tour on Wednesday, and then Thursday I’m on dinner duty because Noelle goes into the city for an AA meeting…I’m free right now? Today? What do you need?”
“I want to go visit Cass’s grave,” he said. “I need to see it. I hoped you’d go with me. But we don’t have to do it today. I’m sure you have stuff.”
“I already did stuff ! I ruined a very old antique and posted it on Instagram and immediately sold it for a totally outrageous amount of money!” she assured him happily. “I’m free for the whole day. ROAD TRIP TO THE CEMETERY!”
She ran off, muttering about stealing Noelle’s keys so she could take the vintage cherry-red Chevy truck that Noelle had restored and loved almost as much as she loved Miriam.
“Noelle will kill me if I take her truck, Mir,” Levi protested.
“But she won’t killme,” she sang, hopping around to get her boots on like a tiny fae creature. “You’re not taking the Chevy. I’m taking the Chevy—you’re coming along for the ride. We’ll stop for Michigans and poutine at Clare and Carl’s on the way back and we’ll sing too loud the whole way there and you can be Simon and I’ll be Garfunkel and it’ll beso fun, Levi!”
“But in this scenario, I’m actually driving, right? Because you definitely don’t know how to drive stick.”
“Oh, ha, yeah, I don’t even know how to drive automatic. You’re definitely driving. But the spirit remains, I’m the one who technically borrowed the truck.” Miriam pirouetted away to find her coat.
He sighed. Only Miriam, who had managed to have a meet-cute at a funeral, would think a cemetery adventure made for a fun day. But he was glad she was the one going with him, so he wouldn’t sink into melancholy he couldn’t get out of, like Artax in the Swamp of Sadness, giving in to the Nothing. “Thank you for coming with me.”
She kissed him on the cheek and hustled him out the door. Her enthusiasm for his company rubbed off some of his pointiest edges so he could sit in his own skin without injuring himself on them.
“Didn’t you used to be like…more chill?”
Miriam shrugged. “Yeah, I used to be in a trauma-induced fugue state, so I didn’t really feel things except through making disturbing but adorable art. But now I feel things! It’s better.”
“Is it?” he teased, winking.
“Do you want to talk about your secret marriage?” she asked once they were on the road.
“Do you want to talk about your secret painting career that you hid from mewhilewe were living together in Manhattan, or the reasons it ended and you disappeared for a decade?” he countered.
“Touché, Blue. Let’s stop for coffee and donuts instead!”
Levi had imagined a thousand responses to standing on Cass’s grave. Sadness, anger, regret, more anger. He had not expected to be overwhelmed by a wave of grief that felt like he was drowning. As soon as he clipped a yarmulke into his hair and stepped through the gates of the cemetery, his steps were leaden.
When he turned a corner and saw the grave marker, he sank to his knees, unable to move. On top, in Hebrew, it readRivka bat Gavriel, and her dates of birth and death. Below, in English:
Cassiopeia Carrigan, Famed Eccentric,
Extraordinary Pain in the Ass
He clasped his hands to stop them from shaking and recited the Kel Maleh Rachamim.
