The Pisces(78)

She looked up at me.

“This was his favorite toy,” she said, giving it a squeeze. “Did you know that? Did I tell you that?”

“Yes. We played with it together a lot,” I lied.

“Good.” She smiled. “I wanted him to have the most beautiful life.”

“Annika, I am so sorry. I want you to know I’m grateful to you.”

“I knew I should have come home. I should have listened to my intuition. But you told me you could handle it. You said that nothing bad was going to happen to him, that he would be fine.”

“I know. If there is some way I can make this up to you—”

“No, it isn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s my fault.”

“You couldn’t have known. Even the vet didn’t know how sick he was exactly.”

“I will never forgive myself,” she said. “Never.”

“Annika,” I said.



There was nothing else left to say. I held out my hand to help her up. She took it, but instead of standing up, she brought me down to the floor to sit with her. With our backs pressed against the wall I held her hand with both of my hands. I softly stroked her skin, so that it was warmed. I felt nervous doing this, as though I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate. Why wouldn’t it be appropriate? We were sisters, after all. It was such a small act, but it felt so intimate. It was the gentleness and surety of the way I touched her hand that made me feel strange, as though I didn’t know I knew how to do this. I wondered who or what inside me was doing it. It was motherly, almost.

“Do you want me to play with your hair?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said.

I put my knees up so she could lean against them. Then I rubbed the back of her neck and the scalp area behind her ears.

“Mmmm, that feels nice,” she said.

“Lie back,” I said, folding my legs into a cross-legged position. She put her head in my lap and closed her eyes. I traced each of her eyelids with my pointer fingers. I softly rubbed her eyebrows and between them, moving in circles up to her forehead and slowly tickling her scalp. I became less aware of time passing. I seemed to drift in and out of myself for a little while, as though the act of giving this sweet nurture somehow relieved me of having to be a person—or made being a person bearable. But every time I’d almost let go of myself completely, disappear into the experience, I remembered that I had somewhere else I was supposed to be. I didn’t want to remember. I wanted to forget all about my plan. But I felt that I had to go through with it, as though some other part of me that was not my head or my heart—more like an internal magnet—was grabbing me and pulling me toward another magnet.

“I’m going to have to go,” I said to her, giving her one final pat on the head.

“Where are you going?” she asked, looking up at me.



“The airport,” I said. “My cab will be here in a moment or two.”

“The airport?”

“Yes, I booked my ticket.”

“Oh no, don’t go,” she said.

“I felt like I should leave you guys alone.”

“No, I don’t want that!” she said. “Please stay. Steve is at work all day and it’s going to be so lonely without Dominic. I’m scared to be alone.”

“I can’t,” I said, standing up. “I have to get back to the university.”

“But I need you,” she said.

Suddenly I wanted to stay. For maybe the first time in my life, I didn’t want to abandon an uncomfortable feeling. I wanted to give her motherly love in the way she had tried to give me motherly love. Hers had always been from a distance, but it was there. And I wanted to give her motherly love in the way that she couldn’t give me motherly love: by staying, even when it was uncomfortable. Wasn’t it time that I showed up for her?

I also wanted to give her love in the sisterly way I had given Claire and Diana love. The group had taught me how to do that, imperfectly, but I knew what it was now. You just sat there with someone and listened. That was all you had to do. I wondered if Diana had finished fucking her way through all the tennis pros—if she had moved on to her son’s friend. Or if she was doing better again. I thought about Claire and wondered if I stayed in Venice how long we would stay friends. How long she would stay alive. Had I chosen her as a friend because she had an end date too?

I wanted to leave my suitcase at the foot of her stairs, sit down beside my sister, and tell her that I would stay for as long as she needed me. I wanted to put my arms around her and thank her for needing me, for being unafraid to share the same space. I wanted to thank her for asking, risking that rejection. But that magnet kept pulling me out. It was as though what was to come was already written and I was just fulfilling my part of the story. And so I held on to my suitcase firmly, and all I could say was, “I’ll come back. I promise, soon, I’ll be back.”



I walked down a few houses with my suitcase so she and Steve couldn’t see me. Then I turned around toward the beach. Was this my last walk? The wind was blowing and it was cold. Annika hadn’t told me how cold Venice could be before I got there, even in summer. It was something I had to figure out for myself.

With the wind blowing, the beach houses looked warm and inviting. From the outside they made it look so easy to be alive on Earth, to hunker down all cozy and warm. I wondered if it felt that way for the people inside them, like a relief to be out of the elements. Or did they quickly forget about the chill outside and take the warmth for granted?