She sat frozen for what could have been a minute or an hour, and eventually she roused enough courage to pull the sheet from the typewriter and fold it. To slip it over the threshold and into the portal. Because that was the hardest part—sharing the words she wrote. Words that could splinter steel, exposing the soft places she preferred to hide.
Night fell. She lit a candle. She paced the flat. She told herself to eat something, to drink something, but she wasn’t hungry, even though she felt empty.
She thought she might be in shock, because she was numb and kept waiting for her mother to return home, to sweep in through the door.
Eventually, Iris stopped at the kitchen table. Her trench coat was draped over one of the chairs, and she gathered it into her arms, hiding her face in the worn fabric. She closed her eyes and breathed, realizing the coat smelled like spice and evergreen. It smelled like Roman Kitt, from when he had carried it all the way from the office to her home, to ensure she was all right.
She slipped it on and belted the coat tight at her waist, returning to her room.
A letter had arrived, the thickest one yet.
She lay on her bed and read by candlelight:
I rarely share this part of my life with others, but I want to tell it to you now. A piece of armor, because I trust you. A glint of falling steel, because I feel safe with you.
I had a little sister once.
My parents can hardly speak of her these days, but her name was Georgiana. I called her Del, because she liked her middle name Delaney best. I was eight when she was born, and I can still hear the rain that poured on the day she came into the world.
She grew up in a blink, as if the years were enchanted. I loved her fiercely. And while I had always been the obedient, reserved son who never needed discipline, she was full of curiosity and courage and whimsy, and my parents didn’t know how to raise such a spirited child in society.
On her seventh birthday, she wanted to go swimming in a pond not far from our house. Just beyond the gardens and through a stretch of woods, hidden from the bustle and sounds of the city. Our parents said no; they had planned a dinner gala for her birthday, which Del couldn’t care less about. So when she begged me to sneak out with her and go for a swim, with plenty of time to return before the party … I told her yes.
It was the heart of summer and sweltering hot. We stole from the house, barefooted and dew-eyed, and we ran through the gardens all the way to the pond. There was an old rope swing, fastened to an oak branch. We took turns, hurling ourselves out into the center of the pond, because that was where it was deepest, far from the rocks and sand of the shallows.
Eventually, I grew tired and waterlogged, and a storm was brewing overhead. “Let’s go back,” I told her, but Del begged me for a few minutes more. And I, weak brother that I was, couldn’t deny her. I conceded to sit on the shore and dry off as she continued to swing and swim. I closed my eyes for a moment, it seemed. Just a moment, with the last of the sunlight on my face, lulling me to rest.
It was the silence that made me open my eyes.
Somewhere in the distance was the thunder and the wind and the rush of rain, but the pond had fallen still. Del was floating facedown on the water, her long dark hair streaming around her. At first I thought she was playing, but then the panic cut through me, cold and sharp as a blade. I swam to her and turned her over. I rushed her to the shore; I screamed her name and breathed into her mouth and pumped her chest, but she was gone.
I had closed my eyes for a breath, and she had slipped away.
I hardly remember carrying her back to my parents. But I will never forget the wail of my mother, the tears of my father. I will never forget feeling my life rend in two: with Del and without Del.
That was four years ago. And grief is a long, difficult process, especially when it is so racked by guilt. I still blame myself—I should have said no to the pond. I should have kept my eyes open. I should have never closed them while she swam, not even for a breath.
A month after I lost my sister, I had a dream where a goddess came to me and said, “I can take away the pain of your loss. I will cut out the shape of your grief, but I will have to also cull the memories of your sister. It will be as if Del had never been born, as if her life had never twined with yours for seven years. Would you choose that, to ease your suffering? To be able to draw a full breath again, to live a carefree life once more?”
I didn’t even hesitate. I could barely look the goddess in the eye, but I firmly said, “No.”
Not even for a moment would I trade my pain to erase Del’s life.
This has gone longer than I anticipated, but I know what it feels like to lose someone you love. To feel as if you’re left behind, or like your life is in shambles and there’s no guidebook to tell you how to stitch it back together.
But time will slowly heal you, as it is doing for me. There are good days and there are difficult days. Your grief will never fully fade; it will always be with you—a shadow you carry in your soul—but it will become fainter as your life becomes brighter. You will learn to live outside of it again, as impossible as that may sound. Others who share your pain will also help you heal. Because you are not alone. Not in your fear or your grief or your hopes or your dreams.
You are not alone.
{13}
An Unfair Advantage
It was strange returning to the office.
Nothing about it had changed; her desk was still covered in classifieds and obituaries, the five teapots were brewing, the smoke still danced from editors’ fingertips, the typebars ticked like heartbeats. It was almost surreal to Iris, to return to something that felt outwardly so familiar when she felt inwardly so different.
Her life had been irrevocably altered, and she was still trying to adjust to what it would mean for her in the days to come. Living in that flat alone. Living without her mother. Living this new, unbalanced cycle, day in and day out.
Grief is a long, difficult process, especially when it is so racked by guilt.
She sat at her desk and prepared her typewriter, craving a distraction. Anything to keep her mind off of—
“You feeling better today, Winnow?” Sarah asked, stopping by on her way to Zeb’s office.
Iris nodded but kept her eyes on her paper. “Much. Thanks for asking, Prindle.”
She was relieved when Sarah moved on. Iris didn’t think she could with stand speaking about her mother just yet, so she set her focus like iron and worked. But she knew the moment Roman walked into the office. She knew it like a cord was bound between the two of them, even though she refused to look at him.
He must have sensed she was ignoring him. He eventually walked to her cubicle and leaned on the wood, watching her type.
“You look well today, Winnow.”
“Are you implying I looked ill before, Kitt?”
In the past, he would have returned her snark and left. But he continued to silently stand in her space, his eyes all but burning through her, and she knew he wanted her to look at him.
She cleared her throat, her attention riveted to her work. “You know, if you wanted to type up the classifieds so badly, you could just say so. You don’t have to hover over me.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked, and she was surprised he sounded irritated, or angry, or perhaps a mix of both.
“What do you mean?”