“Philip?”
He stands at hall’s end, looking up at his baby portrait. I’ve seen it a million times—a one-year-old Philip holding a stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh. Baby Philip wears a pressed sailor suit; wispy blond curls spiral out from his head, and he smiles widely, showing off two brand-new lower baby teeth.
Philip doesn’t seem to hear me, and I can only make out his silhouette.
In that frustrating way dreams work, the hall seems to be getting longer. Space doesn’t make sense. Also, I can’t move quickly—the sensation is like walking through water.
“Philip?”
He keeps his gaze glued to the baby portrait.What are you trying to tell me?
And I wake up, asking the question out loud in my room, my heart pounding in my chest.
As always, that heavy longing hits me hard after these dreams. He’s always just beyond my fingertips, just out of reach, and I miss him—the desire something like pain.
According to my phone, it’s one o’clock in the morning. The house is quiet and dark.
What would Philip think of me and how I’m living now?
At once, the previous days fall on me like a crushing weight.
He’s only been dead a little over two months, and I’ve already almost-kissed his best friend. In spite of all my excuses and justifications, I’m attracted to August Dansworth. Yet I’m wearing Philip’s hair in the jet necklace, his fingerprint on another chain. I’m wearing mostly black widow’s clothes. But I text, and I wear red lipstick, and I lust after insouciant rakes.
I’m a widow failure.
I toss and turn in the bedsheets, trying to go back to sleep. Annoyed, Lucy leaps off the bed and onto one of the room’s upholstered chairs.
I was a neurotic child and often had trouble sleeping. Mom always told me that middle-of-the-night worries appear bigger than they actually are. She explained that they’re like monsters under the bed, an utterly ridiculous fear that rears only at night. She told me that when night worries hit, I might as well get up and do something else until I’m tired again.Warm milk is the antidote to worry,she’d say, and I’d sip her microwaved milk from my favorite cat mug until my anxious brain cooled.
Since Philip’s death, the middle-of-the-night-worries have grown tenfold, and I’ve tossed and turned, but never actually come back to her advice until now.
Tiptoeing downstairs, I microwave some milk, and sip at the kitchen island. Filtered street light streams through the window above the sink, and I stare at the shadow of quivering ivy through the curtains.
Soon Ms. Fernsby walks softly down the stairs, hair up in pins. She tightens her robe belt when she sees me and makes a motherly tsk-tsk sound with her tongue.
“It’s too late or too early for you to be up. Do you mind me asking what’s troubling you?”
“Monsters.”
“What?”
“Sorry, worries—middle-of-the-night worries. They’re just as silly as monsters under the bed. At least, that’s what my mom always said. But she’s not here anymore.”
She shakes her head sympathetically. “Was that Grandma Nora?”
“Yes,” I mutter.
“Even with his corn dog, Heathie asked for broccoli tonight. He told me his Grandma Nora said superheroes always eat vegetables.”
“That was her. She was wonderful. Dad hasn’t been doing too well since her death. I lost her last year and then Philip this year. It’s been too much.”
She pulls out a plate of her shortbread cookies, removing the Saran Wrap.
“You know, luv, my mum read myths to me as a child, and Sleep and Death were brothers in the underworld. I’ve always thought when Death pays a visit, Sleep gets out of sorts and can’t figure out his place in a household. Of course, I didn’t have the same relationship with old Lord Routledge that you had with Philip.” She chuckles, “God knows, he was my employer, a married man, and even though he could be such a grumpy old codger, I did love him. When he died, I felt grief like never before, and I couldn’t sleep through the night for a year.”
“It’s just awful, isn’t it?” My vision blurs with tears. “The separation, I mean. I just don’t know what to do with myself. I miss him so much.”
She hands me a napkin when I can’t hold back the tears. “Heathcliff doesn’t get it. He thought we’d see Philip here when we got to London even though I regularly show him this.” I pull the bird urn from my pajama pocket, setting it by the cookie plate. “He asks if his daddy can see Batman from where he is. ButIdon’t know where Philip is. None of us can.I don’t even know if heis. Like maybe he is just in that urn. Maybe it really is the end. And that’s—awful.”
