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The body. His dad was a body.

He almost crumpled at the thought, no matter how many times he’d already had it that day. He landed on the couch, Emily’s hand resting on his shoulder as if she’d tried to catch him and failed. “Is that okay?” she asked, brows wrinkling with concern. He leaned into her in response, closing his eyes against the softness of her belly.

They’d had a pregnancy scare about a month ago. Emily realized her period was late, and she’d been feeling nauseous in the mornings, and Leo had just about pulled out all his hair in the twenty minutes it took to drive to the drugstore, pick out a first-response pregnancy test, go pick out another first-response pregnancy test when she decried him for picking the generic brand, and then wait for her to pee on it. In the end, she hadn’t been pregnant. It had been maybe the biggest relief of his life. I’m free, he’d remembered thinking, which didn’t make any sense, because Emily was his girlfriend and he loved her and they’d been talking about buying a ring, so having a baby with her would happen anyway and simply be out of order now, right?

He didn’t know why he was thinking about that at this moment. He’d considered raising the subject with his dad but hesitated before he could. Didn’t want his dad to think poorly of him, to think that he was irresponsible. I’ll tell him with the one that’s on purpose, Leo had decided. When he’ll be a grandfather.

If he weren’t already sitting, that thought would have made him buckle again. He’ll never be a grandfather.

The rest of the morning and his flight were a blur. He drank whatever Emily put to his lips and mechanically chewed whatever she told him to eat. He blinked and he was in an Uber to the airport, the Uber driver asking him how he liked Florida, and then he blinked again and he was on the plane, in a window seat, Emily asleep on his shoulder. The shade was closed. He considered opening it, then thought all the sun dazzling on the ocean might hurt his eyes. He slept, too, maybe, because at one point he was talking to his dad about their shared hatred of the TSA, and that could only have happened while he was asleep.

He didn’t stop at his apartment, though Emily decided to. “You’re sure that’s okay?” she said, hovering anxiously before him in the airport parking garage. “I can take an Uber, or I can take the car and you can take an Uber if you don’t want to drive.” She wanted to pick out an appropriate funeral dress and maybe take a shower. Were you supposed to shower before a funeral? Some rule lurked in the back of his mind that you weren’t supposed to shower when you were sitting shiva. Or shave or brush your teeth. Or was that Yom Kippur? And did the rules apply when you had plane germs all over you? Surely the ancient rabbis hadn’t accounted for that.

His dad would probably know. His dad would probably want him to know.

Shira would know. Shira would know, and then maybe he would feel less alone for it.

“Yeah, no problem,” Leo said. “I want to go right to my dad’s house.” The funeral home had come directly to the airport to pick up…the body. Leaving Leo with nothing to do until the funeral. He couldn’t do nothing, though. There had to be something he could do at home.

He’d dreaded the thought of opening the door to his childhood home and finding the air stale, everything dusty and unchanged from the moment his dad had left—the house confused, wondering why Leo was there and not his dad. “I’m sorry,” Leo said to the house, which seemed to be holding its breath. “I’m sorry it’s me and not him.”

A whine. Leo nearly jumped out of his skin, thinking the house itself was responding, and then he heard the nails click-clacking on the wood floors. He crouched instinctively and let the dog throw himself into his arms. “Hey, boy,” he whispered into the smelly fur on his head. Neptune sagged into him in response. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Another footstep because, of course, Neptune wasn’t here alone. Shira stepped into the foyer, keys jingling from her fingers. “I just picked him up,” she said. “I was looking for his food, but I couldn’t find—”

“The bottom shelf of the china cabinet next to the kitchen table,” Leo said. “I know, it’s not intuitive. I don’t know why my dad put it there.”

“Got it. Thanks.” And Shira disappeared back into the kitchen. Leo gave himself another minute to extricate himself from the dog, who was shaking with how happy he was to see him. How would the rest of this go? Would Neptune even care that his dad was gone?

As if proving his point, Neptune was gone in a flash at the sound of kibble hitting his bowl. Leo followed slowly, reaching the kitchen as Shira was putting the kibble back on the shelf. “It’s a pain to reach it here,” she said, standing up and wincing. “I think I twisted something in my back.”

“Yeah,” Leo said. It was honestly comforting how she’d moved the furniture around and covered the mirrors, because it was like he’d entered a slightly different universe from the one he’d left. “Hey, thank you so much for breaking in and setting things up. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course. Anytime,” she said. She wore her hair in a long, loose ponytail down her back that swung with every movement in an almost hypnotizing fashion. Her pale blue sweater looked softer than a pillow. “Talia helped, too, but she had to go home for some video call. Oh, I ordered sandwiches and salads from the deli. They said they’d be ready by the shiva. I’ll pick them up.”

“Thanks,” he said. He felt the sudden urge to ask if she’d gotten roast beef, because that was his dad’s favorite, then realized that his dad wouldn’t be here to eat it so it didn’t matter. The combined weight of all these thoughts and feelings meant that there was nothing else to do but sink down to the kitchen floor, his back up against the cabinet where all the cleaning supplies were still secured behind a child lock despite the fact that his dad had more trouble with it than Leo did now, and try not to fall through the floor.

Neptune ran to him, of course, and sat alert by his side, as if watching out for threats. Shira sat on the other side of the dog, her back against the cabinet with all the random doodads and cords that had accumulated over thirty years of kitchening. “Just tell me if you want to be alone and I’ll go,” she said. She didn’t extend her hand toward him as she had years ago on the train. He didn’t know why he was thinking about that now. Maybe because that was the last time he’d been in such a dark place. “Or if you want to sit in silence or if you want to talk.”

He didn’t know what he wanted. All he knew was that if she left him alone, he might sink into the floor, his mouth filling with fake wood and cement and dirt and magma and whatever else lay below him. He took a deep breath, trying to keep himself upright. “Are you working on any new paintings?”

If she was surprised by his question, she didn’t let on. “Not seriously. I’ve been jotting down ideas here and there, making sketches.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’ve been thinking about trying something different than I’m used to. It’d be new, but the freedom in failing at one thing is that nobody wants you to keep doing that thing.”

“Ah,” said Leo. She’d hit upon the opposite of how he’d been feeling lately. At the beginning of the year, he’d sold Washing Dishes at the End of the World to Tiny Elephant Studios and accepted a position with them. They’d wanted to put him in charge of the department handling his game, which seemed only fair, since he was the one who’d created it, so he agreed. Only now they wanted a sequel, which was good, but also he had no ideas. Creating the first game had been fun and challenging, and the second one was…work. Which was expected.

But he didn’t love doing it. He was beginning to dread the hours stuck at his desk, sending Slack messages and bouncing ideas off the crew. He’d sit there and picture himself back in the warehouse, which of course wasn’t where he wanted to be, but that job hadn’t held the pressure and the stress of this job.

He wasn’t going to be an asshole and complain about having the exact same thing Shira was missing, but she’d given him the key once before. Maybe she could do it again. “Did you play Washing Dishes at the End of the World?”

“Of course I did,” she told him, tipping her head back against the cabinet, exposing the long pale line of her throat. I want to bite it, he thought nonsensically, before flushing hot and turning away. What was he, a vampire? Grief was really messing with his head. “Granted, I don’t play a ton of video games, but it was my favorite one.” She paused, a smile tugging at her lips, and he realized he was looking at her again, that his face had gravitated back toward her without him even realizing it, the way a flower turned toward the sun. “I was thinking of it yesterday, actually, when we were talking. An entire world had ended, and there we were, scheduling flights and ordering sandwich platters. I think that’s why it resonated so deeply with people. Because it’s really about life, isn’t it? Genocides happen and entire cities break off into the ocean and our brains are all full of plastic, and yet we have to keep washing dishes and arguing with coworkers about who keeps burning popcorn in the microwave.”

He took a deep breath and held it. It was true, and somehow it made him feel a little better, the knowledge that other people had lost loved ones and kept muddling through. “What do you think about a sequel?”

She turned to him, eyes bright with interest. “Ooh, are you planning one? Maybe set after the world’s been saved but there’s all sorts of dirty work to do to clean up from the great battle and everything the Dark Lord left behind?”

He blinked, processing. Duh. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. Someone would have to go and disperse the Evil Miasma that cloaked the Elven Forest, and sort out the magic land mine situation underground so that the dwarves could obtain enough ore to rebuild all the cities the Dark Lord had destroyed. Someone would have to go make the world livable again while the heroes were on their grand victory tour. Someone would have to make it possible to live in the world again.

Someone would have to sort through his father’s things and keep some and sell some and trash the rest. Someone would have to get the house ready to sell. Someone would have to take care of Neptune. Did Leo’s apartment even allow dogs? It had to. He couldn’t give Neptune away.