“I don’t see—” Over the phone line, Bree’s niece Anna gave a breathy pause. “—any fairies here.”
“Keep digging. It’s there.”
Bree listened as her niece rustled through the box full of bizarre and not-so-bizarre knickknacks and collectibles, photographs, rocks, lace, and cards. Every Saturday Bree made her way to the post office and sent a package to Miss Anna Farland, 114 Haybrook Way—a box of items Bree acquired over the course of the week, items that had a story. Tangible things, a string to go the distance between them and give each one an end to hold.
It wasn’t the same as being there with her. It wasn’t even close.
But until she could pull herself together, until she could get a grip, it was the best she could do.
Evie found her postage receipts one day and asked her how on earth she managed to spend so much every week on humongous packages when Bree always claimed to be short on cash. What was in the packages? Evie had pressed. Who were they for? Were there secrets in there? Was she some sort of spy? Bree had stuffed the slips into her back pocket and redirected the topic to Evie’s bizarre cat coffee mug. Evie hesitated, then went on to vehemently defend her cat mug—almost convincingly enough to make Bree believe Evie was ignorant of the fact they had changed the subject. Almost. That was the day they had turned from housemates to, in their own way, friends.
She tried not to listen to Anna’s labored breathing as she sorted through her treasure box. Every breath Bree heard felt like a punch.
“Here it is!” said Anna. Bree smiled to herself as she imagined her niece taking in every detail of the photograph Bree had shot of the eight-hundred-pound, sixteen-foot-tall bronze statue of Titania encircled by Puck, woodland creatures, and her fairy entourage. When she spoke at last, Anna’s voice was soft but enthusiastic. “Cute! But you circled something in this picture. What is it?”
Bree turned the mug in her hands and held the phone between her shoulder and ear. “So that’s my fairy in the play. My character is Mustardseed, so I circled my fairy on the sculpture. Or what I like to believe is my fairy. I pass that fountain and the sculptures every day on the way to work.”
“I like how—she’s holding—the butterfly.”
Bree listened as she took a sip of her coffee. Nodded. “I wanted to be the one playing in the water, but Birdie told me that was the character named Puck.” Bree swallowed then, realizing she’d mentioned another taboo topic. Anna used to play in the water. Used to be passionate about swimming. Used to be part of the neighborhood swim team. But that was before the hospital visits. And the clinics. And the pain.
Now when she wasn’t in the hospital Anna just sat on her bed in her filtered room, hearing the distant whistles and shouts of children playing outside.
Bree’s hand slipped to her backside, where even now, seven months later, she could remember the pain of the needle pushing through her cortical bone, and marrow bone, to get to the marrow.
It was supposed to work.
There wasn’t supposed to be graft failure.
And yet here they were.
Her throat stung.
Bree took a sip of her coffee to manage it.
“Did you get to the bottom of the box yet? I found the thing you wanted.” She pressed her toe between the slivered crack of the porch’s second step.
Anna gasped. “You found it!”
Bree smiled but also managed to shoot another eye-dagger at Chip as he passed. He wore a new hole-ridden T-shirt today and jeans covered in caulk and many colors of paint. When Bree took note of the sweat beading at the back of his neck and the little flip of his damp brown hair, her teeth clenched.
This man had woken her up at 3:13 a.m. This filthy, sweaty, disgusting man.
She turned her attention back to Anna. “If my niece wants an 1100-piece Lego Heartlake Shopping Mall set, my niece gets an 1100-piece Heartlake Shopping Mall set.” Her eyes shifted to the red Buick slowly rolling down the street. “Hey, I gotta go. The folks are here. Talk tomorrow?”
Already Bree could hear the sound of cardboard ripping open. “You bet.”
Bree hung up and took a shaky breath. Every good-bye, even when it would only be hours until the next hello, felt like another step toward the last one. Four months ago, she had said her last good-bye to Nana.