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My paper was two-thirds out.

TWENTY SECONDS

Cal banged the mouse on the desk.

“Come on!” she yelled.

Her voice sounded different from the way it usually did, even when she was upset. There was fury in it, sure. But there was also something else. Fear.

I almost felt bad, but then the paper dropped, warm as a tender moment, into my outstretched hands, and I had it. The missing piece, the final key to the only thing I had cared about for as long as I knew myself. I folded it again and again and stood up.

TEN SECONDS. PLEASE STEP BACK FROM THE LOOKING GLASS.

“Cal, we have to turn it off.”

“It hasn’t found him yet.” She gripped the edge of the desk, her nose grazing the screen.

“Let go, Cal. They’ll send you back Downstairs.”

I put my hand on her shoulder, and she bucked me off. The map flickered again, and I could see Florida and the jagged edge of Georgia meeting the Atlantic.

“Cal, now!”

I could’ve left her there. In fact, it would’ve tied a very pretty little bow on the whole thing. Cal back in the Downstairs, her brain turned to goo and back again too many times for her to ever remember me or how I threw our deal, and her, under the bus. KQ wouldn’t care. She would be proud of her character-judging skills. She just couldn’t hack it, boss. It would’ve solved a lot of my problems. But the truth is, it didn’t even occur to me. The handle of the door clicked, and I threw myself into Cal, knocking her to the ground.





LILY





THAT MORNING, LILY WOKE up reaching. Regardless of the distance she constructed while awake, she never stopped reaching for Silas in her sleep. He slept later than she did most days, blocking the sun with a pillow or the crook of his arm, and when she reached, he was there to be found. But that morning, he was gone.

Lily listened for voices from the stairwell but heard none. She turned the corner and knocked.

“Si?”

The door opened into emptiness. Lily picked up an undershirt from the floor and pulled the corners of the quilt, the bed unslept in but messy anyway.

The day had begun on the lake. She could hear boat motors, and children shrieking with joy as they clutched the vinyl handles of tubes. Someone was playing country music through a speaker turned up too loud, making the twangs tinny. She could see the outdoor shower below, Ruth’s and Mickey’s bathing suits draped over the door. She had been surprised when Mickey asked her for a two-piece that year. She wondered if she would ever stop being surprised by the way her children kept growing up. She looked over at the shed to see if the bike was missing, but it was there, pristine as ever.

She used the hem of the undershirt to wipe a smudge from the windowpane, which blurred the otherwise perfect view.

He wasn’t cooking breakfast. The kitchen was littered with remnants of her children’s fending for themselves: crumbs on the counter, peanut butter with the lid askew. She turned the corner and went onto the porch. Nothing.

It wasn’t until she faced the dining room that she saw it. The table was cleared of last night’s meal, the trivets and candlesticks back on their shelves. But there was one small vase left out, right in the center. Its neck like a loose fist around the stem of one red flower.

He knew.



* * *



—

“HEY, YOU.”

No matter the problem, the first harmonic of Gavin’s voice was the best and most immediate remedy. She wanted to call him again and again just to hear him answer. She wanted to hook herself up to the cell phone towers between them, align her heartbeat with the pause between rings.

“Gav.” She exhaled, her breath hard and quick as she crossed the lawn. “Something’s up. I think he knows.”

“Slow down,” Gavin said. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Her foot slipped on the morning’s dew, and she steadied herself. “I’m okay. He’s not here right now; I don’t know where he went. But he definitely knows something.”

“What happened, exactly?”

Lily entered the shadow of the boathouse and pressed herself against the wall. She felt briefly insane, flush with drama like a teenager. But the pounding in her heart was real.

“Okay, so, I did something for Sarah yesterday. Nothing special, just brought flowers to the clearing. For the anniversary.”

“Oh, Lily,” he said. “Thank you. What did you get her?”

“Poppies. I remember her saying something about liking flowers that could make drugs.”

Gavin chuckled at the memory, so adolescent. The dead don’t grow up.

“You’re the kindest woman I know. You know that?”

“I learned it from you,” she said, and for a moment she forgot why she’d called; she forgot anything else existed at all.

“So, then what?”

“When I went downstairs this morning, one of Sarah’s flowers—a poppy—was sitting right there, in the middle of the dining room table. He put it in a vase and everything. I didn’t even think he knew where we kept those.” She took a breath. “He wanted me to find it, Gav. He wanted me to know he knows.”

“Could he have just found it and thought it was nice?”

“After prom, Silas tried to replant my corsage as a surprise. Trust me, this wasn’t floral appreciation.”