Ren and I curled up in bed once everyone had gone home, long past dawn. Fully clothed, like old times. I liked that I could literally bury myself in his chest, hide from the world inside him. But not forever.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
I pulled back to meet his eyes. He tried to rub circles on my back.
“You know,” I said.
He placed his lips over each of my tired eyes.
I’d almost forgotten the revelation I’d had earlier—the decision I’d made. “I’m ready to try again with Cris.”
He blinked at me. “I thought you’d given up.”
I couldn’t quite shrug lying down against him. “I did. It’s not like I want to tell her she was right about my sort-of suicide.”
My limbs clenched instinctively, waiting for lights to flicker, chains to rattle. But there weren’t any lights on, and the locks and chains were long gone. The coffee pot stayed safely in its cupboard, the curtains didn’t rustle, the stove didn’t burn.
The guilt remained, but it didn’t bleed anymore, beginning to scar over.
“That’s not what she really needed to hear from me,” I said.
“And what’s that?”
The echo tasted bittersweet in my mouth. “Just that I love her.”
I didn’t feel his smile against my hair so much as sense its warmth in my stomach. “That sounds easy enough to say.”
“Not as easy as you’d think.”
He did his best to wrap his arms tighter around me. “We need to come up with a better plan than last time.”
“I’m working on it.”
We’d been in too much of a hurry before, for no good reason. He’d been a stranger. They needed to bond for real if he was going to communicate just as intimately as a sister—even a distant, emotionally stunted one. She needed new family to make up for the one she’d lost.
This time, we wouldn’t go in so unprepared. And I had an idea of where they could meet again.
“What’s the date?”
Cris and I were supposed to have a new tradition. Last year, on her birthday, we’d spent the whole day together. Brunch, shopping, then a small dinner party with her church and college friends, who I’d managed to charm into thinking I was one of them, sparing her the embarrassment of the truth. We’d agreed to keep it up every year, making up for all her birthdays I’d missed in college and on the road, back when she lived with our mother, who sucked the joy out of parties.
I’d broken that promise. But I didn’t think she would.
* * *
Vicki’s new place looked a lot like her old one, the same vintage burlesque posters hanging on the wall, and the big shipyard-looking trunk she’d thrifted for a coffee table. She’d traded in all her other starter furniture for stuff that must’ve cost way more and actually matched. But she still hung all the same art, made by friends of varying talent, and the band posters she used to collect—including ours—just framed and arranged better. I kind of wanted to snoop in her bedroom to see if she’d kept any of our old toys.
Vicki came out of the kitchen in a red silk robe, her hair in rubber curlers, clutching a novelty coffee mug shaped like tits, right as keys jingled in the doorway and the person I’d meant to check on arrived.
Cris rolled in wearing a messy updo, smeared mascara, and a tiny, clinging silver dress. It took me a second to notice.
“What have you done to your hair?” I asked.
She’d gone and dyed it blue. It looked much better on her than it had on me.
Vicki didn’t whistle. She used to whistle whenever I completed a walk of shame in our dorm, before we started dating. And she’d done the same for a crash-couching friend of ours once, so she didn’t reserve it just for her crushes, doling it out as a general compliment.
“You should’ve come,” said Cris.
Vicki settled heavily into a leather armchair. “Well, don’t shoot me. I’m not old enough to put out to pasture just yet.”
I never thought I’d see the day she finally slowed her roll.
Cris pointed, on her way to the kitchen. “Did you make me any?”
“I thought you had work today.”
So she had to pay her own rent now. I wondered if she could still afford school.
“I got my shift covered,” said Cris over her shoulder, as she went about making her own coffee. She banged the cabinet loudly. “I’ll pick up an extra next week, it’s fine.”
Vicki turned around in her chair to peer at her. “When are you going to find time for class?”
“Again?” asked Vicki. “Uh, how many do you have left? Don’t you have a limit to meet for your loan?”
I’d been foolish to think she’d be fine, neatly compartmentalizing her party time the same as she’d always balanced school and church and volunteering.
My sister’s shoulders went stiff. “Can the cross-examination wait till after I’ve caffeinated, Mother?”
Vicki mumbled into her mug, “You could use one.”
That didn’t go unheard, judging by the sigh from the kitchen, bordering on a growl.
“Are you even having fun?” asked Vicki.
Cris whirled with a glare. “Really—coming from you?”
“I know what’s good for me,” said Vicki. “At first, I figured you were still hung up about sinning or whatever, and once you got over it, you’d enjoy yourself, but…”
Rather than finish, she took a bracing swig, as if her coffee were a stiff drink.
Cris looked dull, in spite of the blue hair and glittery dress, paler than usual and skinnier, with bags under her eyes. So that’s why she hadn’t earned a whistle. I used to come home messy, but grinning.
I’d wanted to believe the partying was a good sign, last time I checked on her. But this wasn’t my little sister. She hadn’t loosened up so much as unraveled.
“I don’t need any preaching.” Cris gave up on the coffee, marching across the kitchen and living room. “I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”
For a moment, I thought she’d straight up leave. Apparently, she wanted a shower first. She stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door.
The kitchen light flickered. I wriggled my wrists, fighting off the ache.
I never thought, between the two of us, I’d be the sister who staged an intervention.
* * *
Cris’s birthday arrived not long after. Ren and I sat parked at my cemetery all morning, after stopping to pick up another sunflower bouquet. But he could’ve slept in longer instead of nursing a second coffee in a thermos. She probably wasn’t an early riser anymore.
“Are you sure she’ll show?” he asked.
“She wouldn’t miss it,” I said, only to second-guess myself.
If she had work today, some kind of service job with weekend shifts, we might be fucked. Or maybe she wasn’t keeping track of the date anymore, either.
Out of the window, I spotted a streak of blue amongst the melting snow and emerging green. “That’s her.”
I could still hardly believe the length of her skirt. Another walk of shame.
“Now what?” asked Ren.
“It’s cool,” I said. “Just go on and pay me a visit, like you’re not bothered she’s there.”
“I would be bothered, though. I’d wait until she left.”
“Let’s say some of my devil-may-care attitude rubbed off on you, when we were supposedly dating.”
He smiled. “At least that part’s not a lie anymore.”
And he’d gotten a lot better at making friends lately, though I didn’t mention that.
We got out of the car and made our way down the rows, all the lingering ice aglow in the sunlight. It must’ve felt good, at least on the skin. But the bright glare couldn’t be good for a hangover.
Cris had a solution for that. She kept drinking, my brand of whiskey, as she curled up on the newly grown grass of my grave. It might not be the best time to talk, but there’d probably never be a best time. We’d waited long enough.
Ren sidled up to her, casting a shadow. She looked up, but he didn’t acknowledge her as he tucked the sunflowers under his arm and lit a cigarette.
She sat in silence for a while longer, before she finally asked, “Who the fuck are you?”
I flinched, still not used to hearing her curse.
He just smiled. “You don’t remember me from the wake?”
She did a double take. “Wait—her special friend?”
At least she didn’t look mad. Well, not any madder than she’d been already.
He squatted down beside her, laying the flowers at my headstone before offering her a drag. She took it, then coughed, like she wasn’t used to smoking. She washed it down with my whiskey, which she offered in return. He only took a small sip.
“So you’re the one who’s been leaving the sunflowers,” she said.
“Thanks for the booze.”
She gave a toast, and then began to pour one out. But he grabbed the bottle before she could tip it over. Their hands brushed.
“What gives?” she asked. She must’ve gotten that phrase from Vicki.
“Mal wouldn’t have wanted you to waste it.”
Cris laughed, surprised. It didn’t sound like her laugh, delicate and restrained—more like mine, witchy and irreverent.
Ren must’ve noticed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think she’d come back to possess you.”
“As if she’d ever come back.”
He couldn’t resist raising his eyebrows at me. “I don’t know about that.”
She pointed her bottle at him in challenge. “Where do you think she went? What happens after we die?”
It had been a long time since I’d seen him rein his expressions in, keeping his face as stony as when we’d first met, bent on ignoring my existence. “That’s not a fair question.”
“No shit.”
“I mean for me, specifically.” He’d begun to blush. I’d forgotten he’d never shared the truth with another breather. At least, not with anyone who’d believed him. “It’d be easy for me to believe if I could trust myself. That’s the problem, though. Sometimes, I can’t.”
That got her to make the effort of lifting her head. “Trust yourself about what? Have you ever…” She hesitated, embarrassed to even entertain the idea. “…Seen anything?”
“You could say that. But the thing is—I’m not about to tell just anybody.”
She rolled her eyes and took another swig. “Well, I’m not just anybody, if you were really that close with her.”
He drew himself up, brushing the grass off his jeans. “You want to go find something better to sit on, and something nonalcoholic to drink?”
She dropped her glare, putting her whiskey in her purse. “What the hell.”
My stomach sank unexpectedly when he offered her a hand, and she took it. I couldn’t tell which of them I envied more.
It hit me. I hadn’t coached a single thing he’d said. They’d been bonding all on their own, exactly like I’d hoped. They hadn’t met normally, brought together by my otherworldly intervention, but if I took a step back, their connection would develop naturally. Part of the cycle.
Cris started walking ahead. Ren looked back, waiting.
I waved him off. “Go on without me.”
He shook his head, silently questioning.
“This is how it’s supposed to be,” I said. My eyes stung, but I smiled. “I’m already gone, remember? But you’re still here.”
He bit his lip, but he couldn’t exactly argue, not out loud.
“I’ll drop by later, so you can tell her the words and I can hear them. Till then, you don’t need me haunting you.”
Cris paused a few paces ahead. “You coming?”
He sighed, eyes heavy with melancholy. But he turned away, running to catch up with her.
I watched them leave. It felt right, in spite of the tears. Where they were going, I couldn’t follow.