I reach into the yellow envelope tucked inside the notebook on my lap and take out my passport, slipping it into my pocket. The papers go back. I close the notebook, let my fingers rest on the cover for a beat, then hand it to her.
“You told me to write,” I say, holding it out. “But maybe you’re the one who needs the words more than I do.”
She looks at it, then at me.
“Write a happy ending,” I add softly. “For her, and for you.”
She takes it carefully, like it might fall apart in her hands. Her eyes fill again, turning glassy with tears.
Love comes in so many forms. It shifts, changes, slips through your fingers before you even realize you’re holding it. But when it leaves, it always takes something with it.
And still… we choose it. Because even the smallest piece of it feels better than nothing at all.
She waits with me a little too long. When the bus finally comes, we say goodbye without many words. I step inside, glancing back while I stand in line to buy the ticket, but she is already walking away.
Dasha has said so many goodbyes. I’m just another one. Still, her heart, even when it seems cold, feels warmer than anything I have known. She was there for me when even my own family wasn’t. Not just now, but back then, too. She raised me whileeveryone else stayed absent. She never made rules or told stories with happy endings. She let me fall, then caught me, lifted me, and taught me how to keep going.
I look down at my hands, tracing the small scar as a faint pain moves through me. It’s what took the piano from me. I raise my head, push myself forward, and leave it behind.
“Ticket to Mendocino,” I say.
The driver looks at me, blinking once. “Bus goes to Santa Rosa.” He waits.
“Okay. To Santa Rosa, then.”
He keys in a few numbers on the small plastic machine beside him. It whirs, then spits out a stamped ticket. “Eight.”
I pull out a bill and hand it over, taking the ticket from his fingers.
“Take any seat that’s available.”
I move down the aisle and slide into a seat by the window. The bus is almost empty, so I leave the seat beside me untouched. I lift my blazer, slip the ticket into the inside pocket, then take out the photo of the little girl.
I look outside, watching everything slip past. The road stretches ahead, everything around it blurs into soft streaks, shrinking the further we go. I close my eyes, holding the picture still in my hand, and dark slowly comes to my eyelids. Little flashes come to me. I don’t know if they are memories or dreams trying to take shape.
Through the darkness I see a door. When I open it, I stand in a long corridor.
A little girl laughs somewhere ahead, and then I feel her hand in mine, tugging me forward.
“Hey, slow down,” I say, but she only giggles, pulling me into her room.
Inside, blue wallpaper wraps the walls. A dark wooden bed stands against one side, dressed in blue linens. In the middle, abeige carpet softens the floor, and on top of it sits a small table with a dollhouse.
The little girl turns to me, and I finally see her face. I don’t recognize her, but she looks exactly like the girl from the photo.
“Why are you so still, silly?” Her British accent wraps around the words as she grins. She holds out her hand to me. “My name is Lilly, silly. What’s yours?”
“Aurelia,” I say.
“Your name sounds lovely,” she giggles, already turning back to the dollhouse. “And this is a lovely house.”
“It is,” I step closer. “Is it yours?”
“No, silly.” She shakes her head. “This is just a dream. And this is just a lovely dolly house.”
I draw my brows together, looking at it more closely. Small dolls are scattered around, each one made from pieces of cloth, their heads shaped from chestnuts. She picks one up, places it carefully into a tiny bed, and begins to hum a lullaby. A lullaby my mother used to sing to me.
“Dilly, dilly, lavender’s blue,” she sings softly, then glances at me. “Sing, silly. Don’t you remember dilly-dilly?”
