Lu pointed at the side of the bed. “Why don’t you sit here while Brogan and Stella get things sorted out.”
“Your husband’s here too?”
“Always,” Lu said.
“You’ve done this a lot, haven’t you?” Stella asked me.
“Enough to know how it works best for Lu. You need to be calm. Her mind and the realm of the living are filled with sounds and emotions and textures and smells and colors that will feel like a car crash now that you’ve passed.”
She cringed. I instantly regretted my choice of words. “Bad example,” I said. “My apologies. But it’s going to feel overly…everything. Loud, vivid, smelly. Life is chaos.”
“Okay,” Stella said. “Stay calm and ignore her memories. Has life been bad for her?”
“Very.”
Oh, there were good times too. Those memories might be just as strong as the bad times. But I knew Lu. She’d lock the good times, the times of us being together, the awkward early days, that damn rodeo, the bakery, tea, the love, away as deeply as she could.
That was all she had left of us. She wouldn’t want to share it with anyone else.
“All right,” she said. “It’s going to be startling. Is there anything else I need to know?”
“Think about exactly what you want to say to your sister and say it first. If it’s too hard for you, if it’s too much for Lu to bear, I’m going to yank you out of there by the hair.” I smiled to soften the words, but the threat was very, very real.
Stella held my gaze for a moment, then everything about her steadied. No more wide eyes, no more nerves. This was her shot, her best chance to say whatever she wanted to say to her sister that had kept her from moving on from this world.
“You won’t have to do that,” she said.
I believed her.
“Quick and focused,” I said. “Stay out of her memories. Don’t let the living world overwhelm you.”
“Got it.”
“Ready?”
She shook her hands and bounced on her toes a little. I wondered if she had been a gymnast when she was younger.
“I’m ready,” she said.
I stood next to the bed, my legs half in and half out of the little night table. The table was new, and I barely even noticed it. The only voice it carried was a very soft humming, maybe the worker who had assembled it, maybe just echoes from the old wall and floor it sat against.
“Lu,” I said, placing my hand on her shoulder. “We’re ready.”
“Ready?” Lu asked Dot.
Dot nodded.
“Brogan’s going to help Stella step into me. It’s not…easy. So give us a few minutes to sort everything out.”
“I will.”
“Do you know what you want to say to her?”
Dot nodded. “That I love her. And miss her. And I’m so sorry for what I did.”
“Okay, that’s okay,” Lu said. “Give me a minute.” Lu turned her hand up on her knee, palm waiting for mine.
I held out my hand for Stella, who quickly took it in hers.
