The first true smile of the morning tries to happen; I let a corner of it. “Pockets,” I say. “Plural. And not decorative. Something you can actually fit things into.”
“Saints preserve us,” Aoife says, actually delighted. “We are going to be best friends.”
“No,” Pru says, very fast. “She’s my best friend. Find your own.”
“I have a dog,” Aoife says. “He’s my real best friend. I only collect saints in a professional capacity.” She opens the folio, produces a measuring tape, a form with too many lines, and a pen that looks expensive enough to hurt someone with. “Arms up, love.”
“I am not wearing black,” I announce suddenly, more to the room than to the people in it.
Pru claps once. “Correct answer.”
“Turquoise,” Aoife says instantly. “I saw a jewel-toned pantsuit in your closet while I was snooping.”
“Turquoise is too loud,” I say, and then, because I am tired of life always being something that is done to me instead of something that I get to do, “And loud’ll be perfect. Pru, can I borrow it for today?”
Pru sags onto the bed and puts a pillow over her face. “My best friend is going to battle in a teal power suit, and I’m going to cry because that’s hot.”
“You can wear black if you want,” Aoife tells her, cheerful. “Just to balance the aesthetics.”
Aoife finishes punishingsomeone on the phone and tucks it away. “And for the record, Cayce can want whatever he wants,” she says. “He’ll still call you beautiful because you are, and he’ll smile while he takes pictures with you in turquoise because he knows what side of the lens the future lives on.”
“You talk like this all the time?” Pru asks.
“Only on Tuesdays,” Aoife says.
“Isn’t today Monday?” I point out.
“I feel like today is a very Tuesday kind of day, don’t you?”
I shrug and give her the point.
I should wear a black dress. I think about it, obsess over it while I pick out dress samples and swatches and everything else that’s put in front of me for a wedding I never thought could happen.
When I step out into the afternoon light hours later, I’m not wearing black and Cayce doesn’t look surprised in the slightest.
“Not a dress,” he says. His voice carries the barest hint of disappointment.
“Not black, either,” I say.
“Underwear?” he asks, as chilly as the November weather around us.
“Categorically present,” I say. “Don’t die mad.”
He laughs, and I’m thrown completely into chaos because whatever reaction I expected, this is not it.
“Come along, kitten.” He holds out a hand to me. “I can’t wait to see you wage war on the Church.”
10
CAYCE
I don’t bringsoldiers or weapons to see my grandmother. I bring flowers, a driver who knows when to vanish, and a face the old ladies at the gate will remember as polite.
Nan earned the right to live without men in coats at her shoulder. She forfeits nothing because of her age, she just enjoys her freedom.
The neighborhood sits on the Salem line—old money that learned how to hide itself in cedar, glass, and well-tended silence. The sign at the entrance doesn’t say retirement. It says “Residences.” No vinyl letters, no clip-art sailboats. Wide paths. Hydrangeas the size of a person’s head in the springtime.
Now there are leaves and a salt smell that cuts through everything and leaves the edges clean.
