And then Owen died and everything went to hell.
I'd planned to stay a few weeks after the funeral. Help Nia through those first impossible days, meet baby Maeve, make sure they were stable before heading back to New York and my carefully constructed life of emotional avoidance.
Then six months ago, Nia got the diagnosis.
Stage four. Some rare cancer with a name I still can't pronounce, the kind that grows silent and vicious until it's too late to do anything but manage the pain. The doctors gave her a year, maybe less. She'd been feeling tired, losing weight, but she'd blamed it on new motherhood and grief and all the other reasonable explanations that turned out to be her body eating itself from the inside.
I haven't left since.
My shift finally ends just past midnight. Ava's still working the college boys, laughing too loud at something that probably isn't funny, and I slip out the back without saying goodbye. TheJune air is thick and warm, clinging to my skin as I walk the six blocks to Storybound Books.
Nia's bookstore.
Even after all these years, thinking of it as hers makes something warm uncurl in my chest. She'd dreamed about this place since we were kids—a real neighborhood bookstore with actual wooden shelves and reading nooks and a children's section where she could host story time. When she finally opened it, I came in from New York for the launch party, watching her stand in the middle of her dream made real with Owen's arm around her waist and tears streaming down her face.
"We did it," she'd whispered to me later, both of us sitting in the empty store after everyone left. "You and me. Just like we planned."
"You did it," I'd corrected. "I'm just the supporting character in your success story."
"Bullshit. I wouldn't have made it through business school without you. Wouldn't have had the guts to take out the loan, wouldn't have—" She'd grabbed my hand, squeezed hard. "This is ours, Z. Always."
Now I unlock the front door with the spare key Nia gave me, stepping into the familiar smell of old paper and cedar shelves. The store is dark except for the small lamp Nia always leaves on by the register, casting everything in soft golden shadows. I lock the door behind me and head for the back staircase that leads up to the apartment.
Home. At least for now.
The apartment is quiet when I push through the door. Serena, the night nurse, is sitting in the living room reading something on her tablet. She looks up when I enter, gives me a small nod. "She's sleeping. Maeve's been down since eight."
"Any problems?"
"Ate half her dinner. Threw the other half on the floor." Serena stands, gathering her things. "Pretty standard eight-month-old behavior."
"And Nia?"
Something shifts in Serena's expression—not quite pity, but close enough to make my chest tighten. "She had a good day. Alert, kept some soup down. But she's weaker, Zola. Every day she's a little weaker."
I nod because there's nothing else to do. Nothing else to say. We've been having this same conversation for weeks now, watching Nia fade by increments so small they'd be imperceptible if I didn't know her body as well as my own.
Serena leaves and I stand in the dim living room, surrounded by all of Nia's things. The framed photos covering every surface—her and Owen on their wedding day, baby Maeve sleeping on Owen's chest, the three of us as teenagers making stupid faces at the camera. The quilts draped over furniture, the books stacked on every available surface, the plants that are somehow still alive despite my black thumb because Nia has detailed care instructions and I follow them religiously.
This apartment is so completelyherthat walking through it feels like moving through her memories, her love made physical.
I check on Maeve first. She's sprawled in her crib, arms thrown up beside her head, mouth slightly open. Her dark curls are a mess, one chubby fist clutching the elephant blanket Nia made before she got too sick to hold a needle steady. She looks so much like Nia it physically hurts—same rich brown skin, same perfect bone structure, same way of pursing her lips even in sleep.
This baby will grow up without her mother.
The thought hits me like it does every night, sharp and vicious. Maeve won't remember Nia's laugh or the way she hummed while cooking or how she could make anyone feel seenwith just a look. She never got to meet a father who wept when he found out she was coming. She'll only have photos, stories, secondhand memories that will never be enough.
I force myself to turn away, to move down the short hallway to Nia's room.
She's awake despite what Serena said. I can tell by her breathing, the particular quality of stillness that means she's lying there thinking instead of sleeping. I push the door open slowly and her eyes find mine in the darkness.
"Hey." Her voice is paper-thin, barely there.
"Hey yourself." I sit on the edge of her bed carefully, hyperaware of how fragile she's become. Six months ago she was still recognizably herself—a little thinner, a little tired, but fundamentally Nia. Now she's all sharp angles and translucent skin, her beautiful coily hair covered by a soft wrap because chemo took what cancer hadn't already stolen.
"How was work?"
"Ava tried to set me up with a married guy."
