Chương 13
Grant glanced at Lucy.
Lucy shrugged.
“I told her.”
He looked at the other girl.
“I prefer river man.”
Lucy smiled.
Her friend nodded seriously.
“Okay.”
Grant sat with them for six minutes.
They discussed cafeteria fries, whether robots should be allowed to own dogs, and why Grant’s building had too much glass.
Then a teacher called the children back together.
Lucy stood.
Before leaving, she looked at Grant’s left hand.
“Still numb?”
He smiled.
“A little.”
“Mom remembered.”
“Yes.”
Lucy touched the ring through her sweatshirt.
Then she ran after her class.
Grant watched her go.
In December, Maya called him at six forty in the morning.
Grant answered from his kitchen.
“This had better involve an emergency.”
“It does.”
“What happened?”
“Our espresso machine died.”
He looked at the phone.
“Maya.”
“You know people.”
“I know industrial engineers.”
“Excellent.”
“They build turbine systems.”
“Coffee is basically a small turbine.”
“That is scientifically offensive.”
“Can you help?”
Grant rubbed his face.
“I can buy you a new machine.”
“No.”
He paused.
Maya laughed.
“You heard yourself, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I need the name of a repair company.”
“I don’t know one.”
“But your assistant does.”
“My assistant is not awake.”
“You’re a terrible rich person.”
Grant found a service company online himself.
They opened at seven.
He texted Maya the number.
She replied with a photograph of a croissant and no explanation.
He began stopping at the bakery once or twice a month.
Not every visit involved Lucy.
Usually none did.
Maya talked about customers and her landlord and the employee who kept labeling almond flour as flour, almonds, which apparently made her furious.
Grant listened.
Sometimes he talked.
Once, without intending to, he told her he had started taking a longer route to work so he crossed a different bridge.
Maya said, “That sounds inconvenient.”
“It is.”
“You going to keep doing it?”
“For now.”
“Okay.”
She did not tell him he was healing.
He appreciated her for that.
By spring, Grant could cross the old bridge without opening email as a distraction.
He still looked at the water.
His hands still went cold.
He still occasionally dreamed about the car.
Nothing had transformed.
He had simply stopped treating symptoms of being human as management failures.
Rachel accepted help in irregular, tightly controlled doses.
Grant attended one school fundraiser.
He was assigned to a folding table selling raffle tickets and proved terrible at making change.
Rachel watched him hand a parent nine dollars after receiving a twenty for twelve dollars’ worth of tickets.
“You run a corporation.”
“I don’t run a register.”
“You owe that woman a dollar.”
“I know.”
“You gave it to the next person.”
“Money is circulating.”
“That is not how math works.”
Lucy sat beneath the table with a book and laughed at him.
He bought no wrapping paper that day.
Rachel said he had met his quota.
One year after Erin’s death, Grant received an envelope at his office.
No return address.
Inside was a folded piece of construction paper.
Lucy had drawn a river with blue marker.
The proportions were wrong. The bridge was bright red. A square black car floated beneath it.
On the bank stood a stick figure with long yellow lines for hair, though Erin had not been blond.
Another stick figure stood beside her in a navy rectangle.
Above them Lucy had written:
YOU BOTH LOOK LESS WET NOW.
Grant sat at his desk for a long time.
There was no note.
No request.
No lesson.
He framed the drawing.
Claire saw it later that afternoon.
“Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Why are your legs different lengths?”
“Artistic interpretation.”
“Who’s the other person?”
Grant looked at the yellow-haired figure.
“Erin.”
Claire nodded.
She did not say anything else.
That evening Grant crossed the avenue to Maya’s bakery.
Late-afternoon sunlight filled the front windows the same way it had a year earlier. The refrigerated case hummed. Traffic moved beyond the glass. Two college students argued quietly over a laptop. A man in running clothes stood at the register counting coins.
Grant stopped near the counter.
The memory arrived before he could prevent it.
Gold striking glass.
Three silver coins spinning.
A child asking whether time could be purchased in smaller amounts.
Maya looked up.
“You’re early.”
“For what?”
She pointed toward a corner table.
Rachel sat there with Lucy.
Grant frowned.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Not my job.”
Lucy got up.
She was eight now.
Taller.
Her hair was down.
The gold wedding ring still hung from a chain around her neck.
She carried something in one fist.
Grant looked at Rachel.
“What’s happening?”
Rachel shrugged.
“Ask her.”
Lucy walked to the pastry counter.
Maya came around behind it.
For a second the shape of the scene was so close to the old one that Grant’s chest tightened.
Then Lucy opened her hand.
Three silver coins.
The same three.
Grant recognized them only because he had spent an unreasonable amount of time thinking about them.
Maya stared.
“You kept those?”
Lucy nodded.
“Aunt Rachel put them in my memory box.”
Rachel called from the table, “Against my better judgment.”
Lucy placed the coins carefully on the glass.
They did not spin this time.
Maya looked at them.
“What are you buying?”
“One candle.”
Maya’s face softened.
“What color?”
“Lavender.”
Grant looked toward Rachel.
She rubbed one eye.
Lucy noticed.
“Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting.”
“You’re doing your face.”
“What face?”
“The crying one.”
“I have allergies.”
“It’s February.”
“Winter allergies.”
Maya set one lavender candle on the counter.
“That’ll be seventy-five cents.”
Grant glanced at her.
Maya ignored him.
Lucy pushed the three coins forward.
Maya rang the sale into the register.
A real sale.
No charity.
No ring.
No rescue.
She handed Lucy a receipt.
Lucy inspected it.
“Why is there tax?”
Maya closed her eyes.
“Oh, God.”
Grant laughed.
Rachel did too.
Lucy turned to Grant.
“We’re going to the river.”
His laughter stopped.
Rachel watched him.
“You don’t have to come.”
Grant looked at Lucy.
“What are you doing there?”
“Birthday.”
“Your mom’s birthday was last year.”
“She has another one.”
Grant opened his mouth.
Lucy frowned.
“You know what I mean.”
He did.
They drove separately.
Rachel did not allow Lucy to ride with him because, as she explained, “You still answer emails at red lights.”
“I use voice dictation.”
“Same disease.”
The city had built a narrow pedestrian path near the riverbank after the bridge reconstruction. It was not where the crash happened exactly. That area remained fenced.
They stood near the water instead.
Maya came too, carrying four paper cups of hot chocolate from the bakery.
The air was cold but not brutal.
Traffic moved overhead.
Lucy stuck the lavender candle into a cupcake Maya had brought.
Grant looked at her.
“I thought you only bought the candle.”
“I bought the cupcake.”
“With what?”
“Money.”
“That’s encouraging.”
Rachel elbowed him.
Lucy lit the candle with Maya’s lighter.
The flame bent in the river wind.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Grant stared at the water.
His body remembered before his mind did.
Tight chest.
Cold fingers.
A sudden certainty that the ground beneath him was not reliable.
Lucy stood beside him.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She nodded.
He smiled slightly.
“But I’m staying.”
“Okay.”
They looked at the candle.
Lucy closed her eyes.
Grant did not.
Across the river, windows reflected late sunlight. A gull dropped something into the water and immediately seemed to regret it. Cars passed above them with a steady hollow sound.
Nothing about the place looked sacred.
Grant was glad.
Sacred places demanded the right emotion.
This was only a riverbank.
Cold concrete.
Brown winter grass.
A paper cup warming his hand.
Lucy opened her eyes.
“Ready?”
Rachel said, “Ready.”
Maya nodded.
Grant looked at the lavender flame.
“Ready.”
Lucy leaned forward.
Then stopped.
“What?”
Rachel asked.
Lucy looked at Grant.
“Did Mom tell you what she wished for last year?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Lucy looked disappointed.
Maya said, “Wishes are private.”
“I know.”
Rachel tucked hair behind Lucy’s ear.
“You can make a new one.”
Lucy thought about it.
Then she shook her head.
“No.”
Grant watched her.
“Why not?”
“I don’t need one.”
The answer frightened him for a second.
It sounded too polished.
Too symbolic.
Then Lucy added, “Also I forgot what I was going to wish.”
Rachel laughed.
Maya laughed.
Grant laughed hardest.
Lucy rolled her eyes.
“I was thinking about the cupcake.”
“That feels healthier,” Grant said.
“Can I eat it after?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s my wish.”
She blew out the candle.
The flame disappeared.
Smoke twisted sideways and vanished into the cold air.
Lucy immediately pulled the candle from the frosting and licked icing off the bottom.
Rachel made a face.
“That is disgusting.”
“It’s frosting.”
“It was in wax.”
“Barely.”
Maya handed her a napkin.
Grant turned toward the river.
He expected Erin’s voice.
Nothing came.
For a moment he was disappointed.
Then Lucy stepped beside him, chewing cupcake.
“You said Mom’s hands shook.”
“In the water?”
“Yeah.”
“They did.”
“But she stayed.”
“Yes.”
Lucy looked at the river.
Grant waited for a question.
None came.
After a while she slipped the gold wedding ring out from under her coat and held it between two fingers.
The sunlight caught along its worn edge.
Grant’s breath stopped.
Lucy did not offer it to him.
She did not throw it into the river.
She did not make it stand for anything larger than what it was.
She looked at it, rubbed a smear of cupcake frosting from the chain, and put it back beneath her coat.
Then she took Grant’s left hand.
Her fingers wrapped around the two that still went numb in cold weather.
May you like
“Come on,” she said. “Maya brought another cupcake.”
Grant let her pull him away from the water.
