“I don’t know about that,” Raj said. “Sanjit got married this morning, remember?” He scrambled a beer from the six-pack.
“Oh, that’s right!” Nora said, reaching out to stroke his back. “That must have been so beautiful. So sorry we couldn’t be there.”
Raj took a swig. “My brother married his longtime love today,” he explained. “Couple hundred people dancing and eating for days. Incredible live music and singing. Lavish gifts. Thousands of flowers everywhere. You’ve been to one yourself, I think.” He winked at Nora.
“You miss a lot on these assignments,” Wyatt said. “Weddings, funerals, birthdays. Just the name of the game out here. Missing big family moments is something you have to live with.”
Nora mixed herself a Kool-Aid margarita. “But you have to make sacrifices to get anywhere, especially for what we do. And we’ve collected a lot of great data, haven’t we, Raj?” She sat up, tucking her knees tight to her body. “And now, this amazing thing is happening inside our kitchen, this miraculous moment is coming…”
Raj put his arm around her, squeezed her shoulders. “Nora, take it easy.”
She smiled, but shrank a bit from his touch. “Come on, Raj, think about it! Maybe it’s not just my birthday today, you know?”
He shook his head and gazed out at the desolate horizon, his glasses reflecting the golden light like two more suns.
Nora said, “What good does it do to be negative? I’ve been praying for him. I’ve been praying for him since the second I saw him.”
“So have I, love.”
Jeanne appeared below us with a new tray of soup. Peanut butter sandwiches this time.
“Jeanne, you are incredible, and I’m a klutz,” Nora said. “Thank you for this beautiful spread.”
“No worries,” she said.
Raj and I jumped up to grab the tray out of Jeanne’s hands so she could climb the ladder.
Wyatt watched the proceedings with a kingly air. “I see no reason why we shouldn’t all be hopeful. It happened once. It can happen again. I’ve got some new data, from blood work, from Sigrid and Odin, too, that’s taking me in a new direction with my research. I feel like I’m this close to the answer, you know?” He took another swig from his jelly jar. “Like”—he swept his hand across the boundless vista—“all this was meant to be. Fate. Us. All of us. Sitting on this roof, just like this, in the middle of nowhere, on the cusp of something so remarkable, so life changing. World changing. Friggin’ teamwork, man, that’s what it’s all about, right, Jeanne?”
She chuckled and clicked the top off a beer, sat down for a rare break. “Whatever you say, Wyatt.”
“All I know is, that ice in the kitchen is melting fast. I’d say eight, nine hours tops. We’re going to have to be paying attention.” He turned his beneficence in my direction. “So tell us, Val, how’s the young lady doing this morning?”
I washed down a bite of dry peanut butter sandwich with my margarita, said, “She’s got a bad headache, I think. Otherwise she’s better. No fever.”
“Could have sworn I heard you two talking last night,” Jeanne said. “You guys making progress?”
I swirled my drink in my cup. “Here and there. I was listening to recordings. Old Norse, West Greenlandic. Dialects. That sort of thing.”
Wyatt set his guitar aside. Picked up the tequila bottle and had a taste. “You seem like best buds to me these days. No new words to report?”
Heat flushed up my neck, sweat gathering at my hairline under my hat. “No, sorry to say.”
“Well, there’s a terrible shame, don’t you think? For me, for you”—he swung the bottle around—“for all of us. I get it, Val. You’re putting the time in, but—Hey, you know, doesn’t matter. Because—that little boy in the kitchen? He’s the missing piece, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’m going to go check on Sigrid,” I said.
Nora said, “I’ll come with you.”
As I bent to pick up a plate, I glanced down at the hummock of snow where Andy had been found. He lay in the fetal position, dressed in the tuxedo he wore to my wedding, his bare feet black with frostbite.
I blinked, and he was gone; just elongated shadows marked the place his body had been.
* * *
THE LUMP UNDER the blankets didn’t move. In the air, an acidic, greasy tang. Nora walked around the bed, knelt down to a small, glistening pile.