"Come watch a movie with me."
"You're the reason we're in therapy."
"It's your depression over Cody that started this. Your actions triggered Mom. Not mine." I say it evenly, without cruelty. It's just true.
She goes still.
Her eyes, when she looks at me, aren't wet. They're flat. Dark. Like something behind them switched off months ago, and she's gotten used to the dark.
That's not what she looked like before him. I remember what she looked like before.
"Come watch the movie," I say.
She storms past me toward the home theater.
I melt the butter, salt the popcorn, and mix it. By the time I get there, she's already picked something. I don't say anything. I hand her the bowl and sit beside her.
We're halfway through the popcorn when she says, "Have you seen her yet?"
I don't answer.
"You know who I mean." She throws a piece of popcorn in her mouth.
I turn and look at her in the glow of the screen. She's thinner than she was a few weeks ago. Her lips are chapped. I don't like the way she's been looking since all of this started — like she's slowly becoming less of herself.
"Don't," I say.
"She's really pretty, Theo. Like genuinely—"
"I said don't."
Not because hearing Adela's name bothers me.
Because I don't want Nessa anywhere near that name. Near what that name is attached to. Near what's coming. She's been through enough, and whatever happens next — whatever I make happen next — she doesn't get to be part of it.
Nessa studies me for a moment. Something crosses her face that I can't read.
Then she hands me back the popcorn bowl, stands, and says, "I'm going to sleep."
"Goodnight."
She leaves.
I sit alone in the dark with the movie still playing, and I think about my mom's expression at dinner. The way she held her wine without drinking it. The way she kept looking at me was like she was solving something slowly.
She's close.
She's always close.
I think about Beckett spending the afternoon with Adela Kalkaska, feeding her sandwiches, planting seeds. Doing exactly what I told him to.
I think about Nessa's door. She used to leave it open, but it's been closed every night for months now, like she's sealing something off.
I reach over and turn the movie off.
The room goes dark and quiet, and somewhere in my dresser drawer, a pink crystal pendant sits.
Some things, just like the necklace, once cut, don't reattach.
