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“It scares me,” Izzy admitted, her voice quiet. “And it scares me that you are not scared by it.”
Cassie took a moment to think about Izzy’s words, trying to look at them from all angles to see if she was being unreasonable. She didn’t like Izzy being unhappy, but she couldn’t contemplate the idea of giving up the Book of Doors. It was everything that her life had never been—it was a plaything of impossibilities, of excitement and mystery and wonder. She didn’t understand why Izzy couldn’t see that.
She took another bite of her apple, thinking about how to make Izzy see, how to make her understand. “Can I show you something?” she asked.
Izzy’s eyes narrowed, as if sensing a trap. “Does it require me to go through a door to somewhere else?”
Cassie put her half-eaten apple on the coffee table, wiped her hand on her jeans, and then held it out toward Izzy. “Just come with me? Just once?” she said. “Please.”
Izzy held her gaze for a moment, then relented.
“Okay. But I’m not holding your sticky apple hand.”
Cassie led Izzy through a door and into a large circular room with floor-to-ceiling windows all around. There were people milling about and the sound of light conversation, but the space wasn’t busy.
“Where are we?” Izzy asked, taking in the faces of the other people in the room.
“Come,” Cassie said, urging her on with a flick of her hand.
They walked toward the window wall and the view opened up in front of them, an endless expanse of buildings and streets in all directions beneath a hazy blue sky. In the distance, on the horizon, a giant shape loomed, perfectly symmetrical and triangular, topped with a cap of white.
“Whoa!” Izzy exclaimed, as she took in the view.
“Tokyo,” Cassie said, her eyes fixed on the streets spread out below them. “This is the observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, to be exact. And that...” She pointed to the shape on the horizon, tapping the glass with her forefinger. “That is Mount Fuji. Have you ever seen a more mountain-looking mountain?”
Izzy smiled. “I thought New York was the best city in the world... This is...” She shook her head slowly. “This is like New York times ten.”
“Yeah,” Cassie agreed.
Izzy enjoyed the view in silence for a few moments. “But you could buy a ticket and fly here, Cassie,” she said, looking at her. “Tokyo is here with or without the book.”
“It’s not really about Tokyo,” Cassie said, letting her gaze linger on Mount Fuji.
“I don’t get it,” Izzy complained. “What’s it about, then?”
They waited, silent once more, as an old Japanese couple walked slowly past them. Then Cassie answered.
“You know my grandpa died?”
“Of course,” Izzy said. “Lung cancer.”
Cassie nodded. “But nothing else, right? That’s all I say. ‘Lung cancer.’ And then people nod and make out they understand, and we move on. I never say any more than that because it’s too hard, and I’m scared that if I let it out, I’ll never stop letting it out and it’s all I’ll be, just this never-ending grief and...”
She pulled her eyes away from the view and saw the look of concern on Izzy’s face. The words dried up in her mouth. Izzy placed a hand on her arm.
“My grandfather raised me,” Cassie explained. “After my mother left me with him because she was an addict. Then she died of an overdose. And then he lost his wife, my grandmother, when I was an infant.”
“Jesus.”
“No, it was fine. I never knew my mother, or my grandmother. I had a happy childhood. My gramps was the best dad I could have had. The best parent. It was just me and him. He gave me my love of books. He’d read to me when I was little, and then I’d read by myself. He was a carpenter, and he had this workshop next to our house. There was a big beanbag in the corner, and I’d sit there after school or on weekends when he was working, and I’d just read. We didn’t have much money, but we were fine.”
Izzy nodded, frowning a little as if not understanding the point of the stream of memories.
“He got cancer when I was eighteen,” Cassie said. “It came out of nowhere, just one of those things. By the time he had symptoms it was too late. I was with him through those months when he died, Izzy. Someone with cancer, they don’t die in one moment. It’s a long slow death over weeks and months where everything that person is gets stripped away from them. It’s... dehumanizing.”
“Couldn’t they do anything?” Izzy asked.
Cassie smiled sadly. “We didn’t have good insurance. He’d put all of his money into the house. And by the time he was really ill he didn’t want to take any money out of the house to pay for medicine. He said it was for me. He said he knew he was dying, and nothing would change it. I asked one of the doctors once if he could have been saved if we’d had the right insurance. She said she didn’t think so, but I don’t know if I believe her.”
