Cosima pinched the bridge of her nose so she wouldn’t cry. “I should’ve had a mom for a lot longer than I did. I’m barely thirty. I have so much ahead of me that I’ll need a mom for, and she won’t be there. She’s turning our Castle, our home, into a performing arts center! We’re being evicted, Duncan!”
He laughed, a sound stuck midway between resignation and gratitude. “I’ll always be nearby if you need me.”
“And I’m grateful, but neither of us got quite what we wanted, did we? Even though we always knew whatMomwanted.”
Duncan laughed again, watery now. “We did. Like it was our job.”
“Well, I don’t have that job anymore, and neither do you. For years, I’ve had this terrible pain, and I haven’t known what caused it. I couldn’t find a doctor to help me with it. I didn’t know if it would go away or if it would kill me. When she died, I thought I would know. I think I secretly thought the pain washer, or her drinking. But now I think the pain must have been secrets. You know, Duncan, I would rather have a greatbig bleeding wound on the outside, where I could take care of it and help it heal, than an ache inside that I’m afraid might kill me.”
Cosima heard his chair creak again. “I want you to know that I don’t regret my life with Phoebe. I would have married her. Even at the end, I would have.”
Cosima had never doubted it. “I think she thought she was keeping us safe from the worst of herself, but she didn’t ask us if we agreed with her plan.”
“Codependent, as you and my group have enlightened me.”
“I should go to one of these groups.” Cosima’s face felt hot against the glass of her phone.
“I think you should, yes.” Duncan cleared his throat again. “Cosima, darling?”
She knew he meant that he needed to know what to tell the PFS board. They were still good at having a full conversation without saying a word. But Cosima could look forward, now, to a future when they didn’t rely on silence and shorthand. Maybe someday they would even learn how to bicker.
She sighed, long and gusty. “I’d like to activate the board policy that deals with what to do in the event of incapacitation. I’m not keen on appointing an interim directly. That will invite power struggles later.”
She heard Duncan tapping on his keyboard. “In the section about CEO duty.”
“Yes. Wouldn’t that be Reggie?”
“The policy is that the most senior board member under the chair would serve as interim CEO, with certain limitations to powers… blah, blah, blah. Yes, Reggie. I think the only other time this was used was when Phoebe was quarantined in Romania after scouting locations with Gerwig and getting exposed to the measles.”
“I remember. Let’s get that started. Have the paperwork directed to my FileJoin account, and I’ll sign.”
“This only buys you ten business days. And you should know there are three new negotiated contracts on the table from the union, delivered yesterday. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to cause any panic about those jobs. Reggie won’t be able to touch those contracts, and you wouldn’t want him to. And the CFO’s office has concerns.”
“The stock price.” Cosima’s stomach buckled again.
“Perhaps if you could authorize your assistant to—”
“I know. I’ll send a soothing memo.”
“And do you suppose an additional, revised version of that soothing memo could be shared for me to circulate to the executive producer of our show? I’ve been stalling by authorizing a great deal of B-roll of the garden waving in the breeze and silhouetted by the sunset.”
“Yes.” Cosima forced her jaw to unclench. Shemeantthis yes, if only so there wouldn’t be a whiff of concern coming from the top to worry the people who needed their checks. The union would, rightfully, step in on their behalf as well if any concern went on too long.
The chair creaked. “Good. Good. I love you, Cosima.”
“I love you, too.”
After disconnecting, she closed her eyes, trying to focus on how Edie smiled when it was just for her. She wouldn’t think yet about how fast ten days would go by, or about the employees of PFS who depended on her presence and her decisions.
She put her hot phone in her back pocket and walked across the courtyard to where the plague burial pit had once been, now occupied by a patch of dormant grass shaded beneath a knobbly collection of lime trees.
“This is it, huh?” She stood as close as she could to Edie, whowas gazing at a mummified cat displayed vertically on bright silk, glassed in from the elements. The cat appeared to be leaping into the air, a bit of rope having trapped its front paw to hold it in place. The shapes of its bones were visible through its skin, and a mummified rat sat at its feet. “That is a grim spectacle.”
“It really looks like if you gave it some food and water, or wrapped it in a towel and took it to one of those rescue places, it would wake up and be okay.”
Cosima did not agree, but she saw no reason to say so. “I have to assume that if it was interred here, it was a loved cat, so there’s that.”
“According to the docent, it might have been someone’s idea of a joke. Because this place gets dug up so often, relatively speaking. A cat mummy might’ve been a way to freak out a priest or archaeologist.” She wrinkled her nose. “Or, another theory, it’s a black cat, so it might be here to ward off evil. They gave a dead cat a job.”
