“What a shocking day for us all,” Zara says solemnly. A mother in the audience puts her arm around her young daughter. “That day you sent a message to Horatio but not Hamlet. Why is that?”
“My father told me not to communicate with Hamlet.”
“Did you always listen to your father?”
Ophelia looks down and blinks rapidly. “No. But I should have.”
Zara pats Ophelia’s leg.
Ophelia twists the bottom of her sweater between her fingers. “Each decision that day seemed really important, but I didn’t know what to do, how to make things right.”
Zara nods hard in agreement. “We were scheduled to tape a show that day on dog makeovers. It just didn’t seem right to carry on, but the puppies were ready, the stylists were all set with their specially designed outfits, and the runway had been built to scale. Hard to know what to do on a day like that. I think that day we were all feeling it.”
Ophelia blinks a few times, her lips pressed together. Then she says, “So you know then.”
* * *
“You look dashing, Dad,” I said, pulling at my father’s tie.
“I’m not supposed to look dashing. I’m supposed to look mournful. A man who does not know his place is a man who loses it.”
I cocked my head and answered, “Then you are a man who, despite himself, looks great, but in the most respectful, unpresumptuous way.”
He pinched my cheek. “Ready?” he asked, putting out his arm.
“Yeah. I told Hamlet I’d meet him upstairs.”
He clucked quietly.
“What?” I asked impatiently.
“He should be with his family.”
“Dad, he’s been trapped with his family for the past few days. He told me he can’t stand it anymore and just wants to be with me.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t not show up. He’s waiting.”
“Double negative.”
“Dad!” His grammar lessons always irritated me.
“Sweetheart, you put too much effort into that boy at the expense of what’s good for you. As the saying goes, ‘To thine own self be true.’ ”
I rolled my eyes. “Dad, when I’m with him, I am being true to mine own—my own—whatever. True to myself. He’s important to me, as is keeping my word. I’ll see you in a while.”
He shook his head and walked to his room.
As I rode up, my phone binged.
Sebastian: Going 2 the funeral?
Me: Course
Sebastian: If u need anything, im here 4 u
Me: K
I hadn’t seen my friends in a few days, but they kept checking in, which was sweet. I couldn’t really tell any of them what was happening—not the real stuff. Not how I hadn’t been able to sleep in a few days because I kept having nightmares about hospitals and funerals. Not how Gertrude had tried to keep Hamlet from everyone, including me, for days. Not how he had cried on the phone and how last night he had snuck down to talk after a sedative had pulled his mother into a deep sleep. I would never be able to share these things with them, and I felt a wall being built between my former life and my current one. A wall I didn’t realize would be so hard to break through.
When I left the elevator, the chambers were surprisingly quiet. One of the guards nodded at me and opened the door to Hamlet’s hall. I heard Gertrude talking as soon as he did. She was shouting about how she could not possibly go out and be seen in her current state. The pause must have been someone answering, but she did not give whoever it was much time before she continued shouting, “Your father. Your poor father!” I stopped, deciding whether to go on, and turned to face the guard, who gave an encouraging nod. I had made a promise, so I continued to Hamlet’s room. The door was open, so I waited in the doorway until someone looked up.
Hamlet saw me first and waved me forward, but I didn’t enter. I knew better than to walk in with Gertrude’s back to me. She saw him gesturing again and turned, ready for me to be an intrusive servant she had to dismiss. Full of rage, her eyes met mine. To say her fury dissipated would be an overstatement, but she pulled out of her full mistress-of-the-house posture and settled on annoyed. “What is it, Ophelia?”
“Uh, Hamlet asked me to come up.”
“Of course he did,” she said, then stood and straightened her skirt. “One time, Hamlet, one time it would nice if I was enough.” She turned