The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic(70)

Gail came with stories of misspent youth and long-forgotten memories until they were all laughing through their tears.

Lavender and Lace dropped off salted chocolate truffle ice cream that tasted like sorrow.

Mayor Elias and Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez were there. There were people Sadie knew by name, and others she only knew by sight. All of them with hugs and tears and words that left Sadie’s mouth dry.

Mr. and Mrs. Abassi brought a basket of sweets and nuts.

“What will we do without her?” Mr. Abassi asked in a choked voice.

“She left me the recipe for your arthritis. I promise you’ll never be without it,” Sadie said around the tightness in her throat.

Meera Shaan and Akshay came with a biryani layered with fragrant rice, chicken, and vegetables in a riot of color. Before they left, Akshay slipped a piece of paper into Sadie’s hand. After they left, she unfolded the smudged paper, and her tears fell onto a drawing of the little boy asleep in his bed with a red-haired angel watching over him.

There were moments where Sadie was sure she would break. For so many years she’d tamped down her feelings that now it seemed there was no outlet for them. It was too hard to sort through the jagged pain. It threaded through her body, made her limbs weak, her heart heavy as quartz. Dull. Everything was dull and muted and on autopilot. She smiled mechanically at the sympathetic neighbors and friends who came to call.

Cindy mowed their front lawn and brought over fresh coffee.

Pastor Jay stopped by and said a prayer for the family.

The Cavendish, Madizza, Tova, and Delvaux families all arrived together to pay their respects. They wore black and set up a small altar with white candles for peace, a palm stone of banded agate for courage, and sprigs of rosemary to signify a new beginning. They said a prayer and offered condolences, and their tears fell black as night.

Jake came. She knew it was him before she opened the door because the grandfather clock warned her with a long, deep note that sounded, somehow, like it belonged to him. She hadn’t cried in hours, but seeing him there on the threshold, she remembered the way Gigi would pat his side when he hugged her, and laugh at his compliments, and the grief felt like a fresh wound. But when he opened his arms, she stepped into to his embrace, and it felt a little easier to breathe. They sat on the front-porch swing, and he pulled a small red box out of his jacket pocket before shrugging out of it and draping it over Sadie’s shivering shoulders.

“I went to Hawaii,” he said quietly. “To Kona.”

Sadie opened the box, and nestled inside was another small silver spoon with a filigree pineapple at the top and “Aloha Hawaii” stamped in tiny letters along the handle.

“I love it,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“It’s just a spoon,” he said, even though they both knew that was a lie.

He sat with her until her tears slowed to a trickle, rubbing soothing circles on her back and holding her hand like it was his anchor to this world. Ten years ago, she had loved his acerbic wit and sarcasm. She had reveled in their physical sparring matches, loved to be the object of his incessant teasing. But this softening had her falling for a different side of him, one she hadn’t even known she needed.

“Hey, Sade?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you know that pet theft can get you charged with a misdemeanor and has penalties of fines and possibly jail time?”

A strangled laugh bubbled out of her.

“I’ll risk it,” she said.

When he left, she was still clutching the spoon in her hand.

And every day her magic caused some kind of minor catastrophe.

The upstairs bathroom flooding when she tried to wash her face.

The coffee urn shattering when she filled the filter with ground coffee.

She would wake to find dirt in her bed with no idea as to how it got there.

And always there was an internal clock counting down the days until the full moon.

On the one-week anniversary of Gigi’s passing, Sadie woke on the verge of retching. Her breath came in hitches as the panic made her vision go blurry in the early dawn light. She had dreamed of the full moon, of Seth dead and cold on the ground after they’d been unable to find a way to satisfy the curse. He’d sacrificed himself, and it broke Sadie’s heart. She wept and where her tears fell in the frosted grass, black obsidian sprouted up. She tried to bring him back, but his death was the fourth heartbreak, and her magic was gone. Her stomach churned as she tried to rid herself of the images.

Twenty-three days, Sadie thought. Twenty-three days, and I might never hear that voice again.

They took turns being strong. But it was hard, in that first week, to become accustomed to the truth of death, the reality of it.

Tava, Brian, and Suzy went home, promising to return when Seth had collected Gigi’s ashes.

“Where are you going,” Sadie had demanded wildly. She needed them there. Needed the anchor.

“We’ll be back,” Suzy said again. “We don’t want to spoil the surprise. But it’s a good thing, I promise.”

Kay and Anne stayed.

“I’m sure you’re tired of people asking,” Raquel said one afternoon, “but how are you doing? Really? Slow descent into madness?”

“I don’t know,” Sadie answered honestly. “It’s like I don’t know how to feel. Or maybe I forgot how to feel. But I know that can’t be true because it hurts. All the time, it hurts.”