Now 1,113. I gouge it in with the metal scrap, drop it. It plinks onto the porch.
1,113 days.
Three years, and then some, on this island.
Now back to square one.
“This calls for a renaming of an era,” I say as U-me joins me. But life-after-life-after-Hubert sounds uninspiring, and frankly, not much has changed. The kitchen is the way I left it: empty jar on the counter, broken taro biscuits on the scuffed floor. I pick up the pieces, de-fluff them of mold, and begin refilling the jar. Don’t know why—pretty sure I can sicken and die from eating mold just as easily as not eating, but it’s something to do, and when I’m done refilling the jar, I wipe down the dust covering the countertops and check the water tank. The pipes run under the house and draw salt water from the sea, which is then passed through a solar-powered boiler that traps the steam and condenses it to fresh water. The system failing would seriously throw a wrench in my whole I-will-survive thing, so I’m relieved, as always, to find it still working. I turn on the valves and head to the bathroom to run a bath, shrug out of my sand-caked sweater and cargos as I wait for the porcelain tub to fill.
The water isn’t hot, but it’s warmer than the sea. Sighing, I slide under. My hair lifts from my scalp, buoyed. My thoughts jellify, and in the clear, semisolid silence, I find a memory.
“We shouldn’t,” Kay says under her breath. We’re standing in a glass elevator, facing forward, sandwiched between six other people. Light—dark—light—it flickers over our faces as we sink through the ground of one neighborhood and into the sky of the next. At each level, we stop, the curved doors hiss open, and people trickle off.
After a certain point, no one gets on.
People don’t know what they’re missing. As for the ones still on the elevator, I bet they’re all in their heads, reading the news in their minds’ eye or messaging colleagues. What’s the point of traveling somewhere in person if your brain is elsewhere?
But I shouldn’t judge so harshly. I know Kay would be devastated without her Intraface. I turn to her now that the elevator is emptier. “You’ve got to see it, love.”
She’s still in her school uniform, hair bobbed and unstyled. Freckles spangle her cheeks. Her mind is a diamond—unbreakable, and dazzling from every angle. Unlike me, she doesn’t need sequins to shine. Doesn’t need people or places to entertain her.
And now I can tell, from the slight wrinkle of her nose, that she doesn’t need this adventure, either. “I’ve seen the stratum,” she says.
“No, the ocean,” I quickly correct, then add, “Up close. It makes a world of difference.”
I’m worried Kay will think the idea is vapid.
The elevator comes to a stop.
Kay sighs. “All right. Just this once.”
* * *
I come up gasping for air.
Water streams down my temples. I squeeze my eyes shut and hold on to the image of Kay’s face, her mouth set straight like her bangs, her eyes black like coffee. I’d forgotten that.
Forgotten she had black-brown eyes.
And the ocean. In the memory, it felt like it was a stone’s throw away. Maybe it was right outside our door. Or city, floating above the sea like it does in my dreams.
I might be closer to Kay than I think.
My jaw tightens, my determination renewed. Tonight, I’ll rest. I’ll regroup. But tomorrow at the crack of dawn, we resume. Whatever it takes—another boat, another year—I’m going to find my sister. I can’t fail until I give up.
Water sloshes off me as I rise from the tub. I dry off with one of M.M.’s threadbare towels, monogrammed like so many other items in the house, and put on a chunky sweater with just two moth holes in the right sleeve. My stomach growling, I start for the kitchen before remembering I probably shouldn’t risk my second-chance-life on a moldy biscuit.
“Sorry, U-me.” She follows me into the living room. I tuck up onto the lumpy gingham couch beside the window, the carpet beneath it repurposed as my throw blanket. “We’ll have to make do without dinner tonight,” I say, swaddling myself in the coarse fabric. “I know it’s your favorite meal to watch me eat.”
“Agree.”
There might still be a couple of taro plants out back. Will have to check on them tomorrow, when I have the energy to worry about starving.
I settle in as night falls, resting my head against the couch arm with the window for a headboard. The blanket reeks of feet. Gross, but it reminds me of people, and when I’m lulled to sleep, I dream of them. Their voices fill the house, their laughter ringing, and over all the noise comes a knock. I open the front door.