Page 33 of Keep Me

“Yes.” Hydrangeas were my mom’s favorite. Lilies were his.

“Are you sure you don’t need a moment, Ms. Garcia? We can pause.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “The time is fine; the flowers are fine.” It was not like I had any experience in planning funerals. I did not even remember my mother’s funeral.

At home, I write what I can remember on the back of an old envelope. Twelve. Blue. White. January. Then I looked at what I had written and understood that my father had sat in that same office, or one like it, months ago. He had chosen the flowers. He had paid in advance. I looked at the envelope for a long time.

Then I put it next to the phones and the granola bar, and I went back to the porch, and the bully with the crooked tail feather was still there, still eating, still completely unbothered, and I pulled the plaid blanket tighter and I watched it until Zane came out with another cup of coffee I wasn’t going to drink. And I watched the hummingbirds. When the hummingbirds went home to sleep, I watched the feeder. Then I watched the air and then I watched the inside of my mind.

The red sugar water in the cylinder was four and a half inches below the brass rim. Zane’s boots were by the door, exactly parallel, the laces tucked inside the ankles. He moved through the living room without getting dizzy because he was not being haunted.

“Seren.”

Zane was standing four feet away. His fingers were hooked into the front pockets of his jeans, the denim white at the seams from wear. His eyes were moving across my face, tracking from the left brow to the corner of my mouth, searching. He’s searching because he thinks I’m hiding from him, but I was not. This is what there is. He can see it.

“I made some rice,” he said. His voice was down in the register he uses when he is worried my mind will drown. “With the chicken from yesterday. It’s on the stove.”

“I’m not hungry, Zane,” I told him.

“You haven’t had anything since the hospital, Seren.”

“The logistics for Thursday are done,” I said, looking past his shoulder into the living room window, toward the third shelf of the bookcase. The spines are alphabetical by author. Moriarty. Morrison. Mukherjee. “The oak casket has been chosen. The flowers are ordered.”

He did not move. He waited for five seconds, then six. The silence has a density now; it felt like the gray insulation foam they spray into basement headers.

At 11:00, he stands near the sofa where I am lying under the plaid blanket. He clears his throat, the sound small and dry.

“Baby,” he said, his voice trailing off. He hesitated, his mouth opening as if to start the count. Five. Four. He did not finish it. The numbers collapsed before they left his throat. He let his breath out through his nose. “I am going to stay down here tonight. On the couch.”

“The bed is upstairs.” I reminded him.

“I’m good here.”

“Stop watching me,” I told him.

Zane’s shoulders dropped half an inch. His lips thinned into a straight, pale line. “I’m just here, Seren. That’s all.”

“Go to sleep.” He should sleep. I do not want him awake when the haunting begins.

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t move toward the couch. He stayed by the armchair; his weight shifted slightly to the left heel.

3:14 AM. The kitchen island had an eased edge. The granite is Absolute Black, but under the small pendant light Zane left on over the sink, it looks like grease. There are forty-two white subway tiles between the edge of the range hood and the corner cupboard.

The stairs did not creak if the foot is placed exactly four inches from the left drywall line. In Tom’s office, the air smelled of cedar shavings. The chair did not shake when it is touched. The leather was cool. It took seven minutes for the skin of my thigh to transfer enough heat to make the material match the room.

My whole life, ghosts were the ones awake at three in the morning. Moving things. Leaving messes. Now I am the one awake at three in the morning. Moving things. Leaving messes. The ghosts are not haunting me; I am haunting me.

The front door opens at 6:12 AM. The air that flowed through it was wrong. It smelled of the cabin of a Boeing 737, stale coffee, recycled air, and already smoked tobacco.

Austin dropped his duffel bag. He let it fall from his hand, and it hit the tile with a thud that vibrated through the floorboards. He was still wearing his coat, the black leather, spotted with the rain that started overnight. He did not look at Zane. He looked at me, sitting on the second step of the stairs with my knees pulled up inside a gray sweatshirt that belonged to Tom. The one I found while haunting and looking for things to throw around.

“Seren,” he said.

His voice was too loud for the house. He crossed the six feet between us in two strides, and he pulled me up by the elbows. His grip was hard, a living pressure. He pulled me into his chest; I just went hollow. The inventory stopped. The counting of the subway tiles, the tracking of the hummingbirds, the distance between the phone and the edge of the granite. He held me against his chest until his chin dug into the crown of my head, his breathing ragged against my ear, three short gasps that sound like someone trying to start an engine with a dead battery.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered into my hair. “Fucking hell, Seren.”

My arms stayed down at my sides. My palms were flat against the thighs of my jeans. I did not feel the heat of him. I did not feel the significance of his hands on my shoulders. I was just a space where someone used to be.