“Is your mother dead too?” she said timidly.
“Yes.”
“My mother’s been dead for—” she stopped and thought—“I can’t remember. She died after my spring holidays from school one year, so I had spring holidays off and the week after spring holidays too. And there was a field trip we were supposed to go on, to the Botanical Gardens, and I didn’t get to go. I miss her.”
“What’d she die of?”
“She got sick. Was your mother sick too?”
“No. It was an accident.” And then—not wanting to venture more upon this subject: “Anyway, she loved horses a lot, my mother. When she was growing up she had a horse she said got lonely sometimes? and he liked to come right up to the house and put his head in at the window to see what was going on.”
“What was his name?”
“Paintbox.” I’d loved it when my mother told me about the stables back in Kansas: owls and bats in the rafters, horses nickering and blowing. I knew the names of all her childhood horses and dogs.
“Paintbox! Was he all different colors?”
“He was spotted, sort of. I’ve seen pictures of him. Sometimes—in the summer—he’d come and look in on her while she was having her afternoon nap. She could hear him breathing, you know, just inside the curtains.”
“That’s so nice! I like horses. It’s just—”
“What?”
“I’d rather stay here!” All at once she seemed close to tears. “I don’t know why I have to go.”
“You should tell them you want to stay.” When did our hands start touching? Why was her hand so hot?
“I did tell them! Except everyone thinks it’ll be better there.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said fretfully. “Quieter, they said. But I don’t like the quiet, I like it when there’s lots of stuff to hear.”
“They’re going to make me leave, too.”
She pushed up on her elbow. “No!” she said, looking alarmed. “When?”
“I don’t know. Soon, I guess. I have to go live with my grandparents.”
“Oh,” she said longingly, falling back on the pillow. “I don’t have any grandparents.”
I threaded my fingers through hers. “Mine aren’t very nice.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I said, in as normal a voice as I could, though my heart was pounding so hard that I could feel my pulse jumping in my finger-tips. Her hand, in mine, was velvety and fever-hot, just the slightest bit sticky.
“Don’t you have any other family?” Her eyes were so dark in the wan light from the window that they looked black.
“No. Well—” Did my father count? “No.”
There followed a long silence. We were still connected by the earbuds: one in her ear, one in mine. Seashells singing. Angel choirs and pearls. Things had gotten way too slow all of a sudden; it was as if I’d forgotten how to breathe properly; over and over I found myself holding my breath, then exhaling raggedly and too loud.
“What did you say this music was?” I asked, just for something to say.
She smiled sleepily, and reached for a pointed, unappetizing-looking lollipop that lay atop a foil wrapper on her nightstand.
“Palestrina,” she said, around the stick in her mouth. “High mass. Or something. They’re all a lot alike.”
“Do you like her?” I said. “Your aunt?”
She looked at me for several long beats. Then she put the lollipop carefully back on the wrapper and said: “She seems nice. I guess. Only I don’t really know her. It’s weird.”
“Why do you? Have to go?”
“It’s about money. Hobie can’t do anything—he isn’t my real uncle. My pretend uncle, she calls him.”
“I wish he was your real uncle,” I said. “I want you to stay.”
Suddenly she sat up, and put her arms around me, and kissed me; and all the blood rushed from my head, a long sweep, like I was falling off a cliff.
“I—” Terror struck me. In a daze, by reflex, I reached to wipe the kiss away—only this wasn’t soggy, or gross, I could feel a trace of it glowing all along the back of my hand.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to, either.”
“Do you remember seeing me?”
“When?”
“Right before.”
“No.”
“I remember you,” I said. Somehow my hand had found its way to her cheek, and clumsily I pulled it back and forced it to my side, making a fist, practically sitting on it. “I was there.” It was then I realized that Hobie was in the door.