All sounds stopped in the teachers’ lounge.
Florence looked up, a fork of noodles halfway to her mouth.
Beck stopped chomping his snack.
Phillip splayed his hands across his rib cage, widened his eyes, raised his eyebrows, and made a weird pout with his lips.
Nobody spoke.
Sylvie knew they all cared for her and wished her the best. And Simonwasthe best. She loved his accent and his birding and his broad chest and the way he smelled. Once, Simon had said, “I saw a Flame Robin in Tasmania and her feathers glowed just like your hair.” Sylvie (like both her sisters) had hated her orange locks…until that moment.
After getting engaged on Friday evening, Sylvie and Simon had spent the weekend making love and reading. Simon slept with his arm across Sylvie and his face nestled in the crook of her neck. Sometimes, she woke to kisses below her ear, down her neck, and she rolled toward Simon….
Finally, Phillip broke the silence. “Oh. My. God,” he said. He placed his Shakeology container on the table. “I’m so excited,” he said, not sounding excited in the least.
“Um, Sylvie, just wondering…have you heard about internet scammers?” said Beck.
“Yeah, abird photographer?” added Phillip. “That doesn’t sound like an actual job. No offense.”
“He just finished an assignment forAudubon,” said Sylvie. She had to admit that she had no proof Simon wasn’t just a nut jobpretendingto be on assignment forAudubon.
Her friends shot one another worried glances, as if Sylvie couldn’t see. Florence shook her head, ringlets bouncing. “Isn’t this a little quick, Syl?” she ventured. “I haven’t even met him yet! And I’m your best friend! Aren’t I?”
It was a little quick.
It wasa lot quick,Sylvie knew it. But she didn’t honestly care.The deadening fog she usually felt had been lifted a bit. For ten years, everything had seemed leeched with gray, but now there was some color. And it was such a relief! What happened next had to be better than where she’d been. No one who hadn’t felt the weight of grief would understand. Good idea versus bad idea was not a part of her formula anymore. Less grief won; it always won, and that was that.
“I thought you would be happy for me,” said Sylvie, her voice cracking.
Phillip rushed to hug her, and Florence rose, joined in. Beck, uncomfortable with touching and being touched, patted Sylvie on the back. “I deserve something good,” said Sylvie.
“Nobody’s saying you don’t,” said Florence.
“She does deserve something good,” noted Beck.
—
When she returned to her library, Sylvie had four minutes before the second graders arrived; she scrolled through her phone, seeing that she had a voice message from Simon:
“Hey, Syl, it’s me. You’re my fiancée! I told my father. We call him Mac, by the way—he’s Scottish, and met my mother when he moved to Mumberton as a young veterinarian. She asked him to come to the castle and castrate their bears! Which he did, and they fell in love.
“Anyway, Sylvie, my dad started crying. In a happy way. I haven’t heard him excited about anything since he was diagnosed. Before then, even. He’s speaking with the wedding team right away. Did I tell you Mumberton has a wedding team? It’s really just Louisa, the librarian, and her friends down at the Ratty Arms pub. But anyway, thank you. I just wanted to say thank you. I know this is rushed. But it was so wonderful to hear my father…to give him something to look forward to. I’ll ring you later. It’s Simon, did I say that already? I…love you. It’s Simon, your fiancé.”
The second-grade teacher, Kendall, rushed into the library, trailed by twenty-three seven-year-olds. “You’re getting married,” she cried, crushing Sylvie in a warm embrace, and the kids began hooting and screaming.
That night, Sylvie went home to Willie. Sylvie was sure Willie had been abused in her previous life as a racing greyhound—she was awful around other animals—barking, growling. Willie had emotional damage—that was just the way she was.
Sylvie could relate. Since Alexander’s death, Sylvie had maintained a cabinet of pills to help her sleep: Lexapro, Lunesta, Trazodone, and (in a pinch) Xanax. Her doctor called it “hypervigilance,” this constant feeling that something awful was about to happen. Because something awfulhadhappened, andcouldhappen at any time. How were you supposed to go back to peacefulness once you knew?
Well, pills.
Sylvie made herself pasta. She sat at the table she’d once shared with Alexander, shook out a linen napkin from a set they’d received as a wedding gift. Alexander’s place was empty, as it had been for ten years, since that night when he’d stood up in the middle of watching Thursday nightERand said, “I’m going for a drive, Syl. I need…some air.”
She had wondered about those two words for a decade.
Some.
Air.
