The car ride back was silent, her arms folded defensively. He ignored the tear that trickled down her cheek from underneath her sunglasses.
A week later, she served him with divorce papers. He didn’t fight it. It was easier this way. She’d be better off. It was what they both wanted.
He’d drowned, unaware that he’d slipped beneath the surface.
And so here, now, he screamed as loud as he could. Tears prickled his eyes, and he was almost able to convince himself they came from the exertion. Spit flew from his mouth. His throat hurt.
When he could scream no longer, he put his face in his hands, shoulders shaking.
Hugo said, “It’s life, Wallace. Even when you’re dead, it’s still life. You exist. You’re real. You’re strong and brave, and I’m so happy to know you. Now, tell me what happened with Alan. All of it. Leave nothing out.”
Wallace told him everything.
* * *
The third stage of grief was bargaining, and it also came on the first night.
But it wasn’t Wallace who bargained.
It was Hugo.
He bargained by shouting, demanding the Manager show himself to explain what the hell he’d meant. Mei stood speechless. She hadn’t said a word since Hugo had told her and Nelson the truth. Nelson’s mouth was still hanging open, hands curled tightly around his cane.
“I’m calling you,” Hugo snapped as he paced the main room of the tea shop, glaring up at the ceiling. “I need to talk to you. I know you’re there. You’re always there. You owe me this. I never ask for anything, but I’m asking you to be here now. I’ll listen. I swear I’ll listen.”
Apollo trailed after him, back and forth, back and forth, ears alert as he listened to his owner grow angrier.
Wallace tried to stop Hugo, tried to tell him that it was fine, that it was okay, that he’d always known it would come to this. “This isn’t forever,” he said. “You know that. You told me that. It’s a stop, Hugo. One stop on a journey.”
But Hugo didn’t listen.
“Manager!” he cried. “Show yourself!”
The Manager didn’t come.
As the clock moved toward midnight, Mei convinced Hugo he needed to sleep. He argued bitterly, but in the end, he agreed. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow,” he told Wallace. “I’ll think of something. I don’t know what, but I’ll figure it out. You aren’t going anywhere if you don’t want to.”
Wallace nodded. “Go to bed. The day starts early.”
Hugo shook his head. Muttering under his breath, he climbed the stairs, Apollo following him.
Mei waited until the door slammed shut above them before she turned to Wallace. “He’ll do what he can,” she said quietly.
“I know,” Wallace said. “But I don’t know if he should.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What?”
He sighed as he looked away. “He has a job to do. Nothing is more important than that. He can’t throw it away because of me.”
“He’s not throwing anything away,” she said sharply. “He’s fighting to give you the time you deserve, to make your own choice about when you’re ready. Don’t you see that?”
“Does it matter?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m dead,” he said. “There’s no going back from that. A river only moves in one direction.”
“But—”
“It is what it is. You’ve all taught me that. I didn’t listen at first, but I learned. And it made me better because of it. Isn’t that the point?”
She sniffled. “Oh, Wallace. It’s more than that now.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe if things were different, we’d…” He couldn’t finish. “There’s still time left. The best thing I can do is to make the most of it.”
Soon after, she went to bed.
The clocked ticked, ticked, ticked the seconds and minutes and hours away.
Nelson said, “I’m glad you’re here.”
Wallace jerked his head up. “What?”
Nelson smiled sadly. “When you first arrived, I thought you were just another visitor. You’d stay for a little while, and then you’d see the light.” He chuckled. “Forgive the expression. Clichéd, I know. Hugo would do what he does, and you’d move on without muss or fuss, even though you were adamant you wouldn’t. You’d be like all the others who’d come before you.”
“I am.”
“Perhaps,” Nelson allowed. “But that doesn’t discount what you’ve done in your time here. The work you’ve put in to making yourself a better person.” He shuffled toward Wallace, setting the cane against the table Wallace was leaning on. Wallace didn’t flinch when Nelson reached up and cupped his face. His hands were warm. “Be proud of what you’ve accomplished, Wallace. You’ve earned that right.”
“I’m scared,” Wallace whispered. “I don’t mean to be, but I am.”
“I know you are,” Nelson said. “I am too. But as long as we’re together, we can help each other until the end. Our strength will be your strength. We won’t carry you because you don’t need us to. But we’ll be by your side.” Then, “Can I ask you something?”
Wallace nodded as Nelson dropped his hands.
“If things were different, and you were still … here. I don’t know how. Say you took a trip on your own, and you ended up in our little town. You found your way to this tea shop, and Hugo was as he was, and you were as you were. What would you do?”
Wallace laughed wetly. “I’d probably make a mess of things.”
“Of course you would. But that’s the beauty of it, don’t you think? Life is messy and terrible and wonderful, all at the same time. What would you do if Hugo was before you and there was nothing stopping you? Life or death or anything else. What would you do?”
Wallace closed his eyes. “Everything.”
* * *
Depression hit on the second morning, brief though it was. Wallace allowed himself the sadness that stirred within him, remembering how Hugo had told him grief wasn’t only for the living. He stood on the back deck, watching the sunrise. He could hear Hugo and Mei moving around in the kitchen. Hugo had wanted to close the shop for the day, but Wallace told him to go on as he always did. He had Mei on his side, and Hugo finally relented, though he wasn’t happy about it.
The sunlight filtered through the trees, melting the thin layer of frost on the ground. He gripped the railing as the light stretched toward him. It touched his hands first. And then his wrists, and arms, and finally his face. It warmed him. It calmed him. He hoped wherever he was going that there’d still be the sun and the moon and the stars. He’d spent a majority of his life with his head turned down. It seemed only fair that eternity would allow him to raise his face toward the sky.
The sadness receded, though it didn’t leave entirely. It still bubbled underneath the surface, but he floated on top of it now. This was a different kind of grief, he knew, but it was still his all the same.
He accepted that.
What will you do with the time you have left?