Dahlia Bell: Is that okay?
OS: Sure.
Verity Bell: We want to tell a story about Trey Foxberry, and we were both there when it happened.
OS: Is this something recent that pertains to the murder investigation?
VB: Was he murdered?
OS: We believe so.
DB: Oh okay. Well, no. This happened when I was seven and Verity was nine.
OS: And how old are you now?
VB: Twenty-eight.
DB: Twenty-six.
OS: All right…um, sure. Go ahead and tell me what happened.
DB: Trey Foxberry was the first boy who ever said something nasty to me. I ran out of the front door chasing Verity around back so we could go swimming, and Trey was walking past with his friends. We were in our bathing suits, and he told us to pull them down and show him— VB: He used filthy words. Do we have to say them? I refuse to say them.
OS: You don’t have to say them if you don’t want to. I think I get your point.
DB: One starts with a c.
VB: Dahlia! Don’t!
DB: I’m not. I only said one letter!
OS: That’s plenty. That’s all right.
DB: Trey was fourteen. I remember because our brother, Leo, was fourteen too. Well, you know that. You’re friends with Leo, right?
OS: Absolutely. I’m glad he’s back in town for a while.
VB: Me too. We put him to work at the bookshop, but he’s easily distracted. He’ll see someone he knows walking past and poof—he’s gone! He’s always been like that. He’s like a bunny or something.
OS: I’ll remember to call him that the next time I see him.
DB: He’ll know you’ve been talking to us, then. Call him Bunny Bell! That’s what we do.
OS: Leo Bunny Bell.
DB: Yep.
VB: I know it doesn’t matter if Trey said something nasty to us when he was a teenager, but if it helps Caroline for us to come and tell you things like this, to prove he without a doubt could be the kind of person who could do awful things…who could put her in the hospital…
DB: I mean, no matter how he died…it seems like God would only let him act like that for so long…
OS: Yeah, your mom said sort of the same thing when she came down, and she wasn’t the only one.
VB: I mean, if I had to choose between Trey or Caroline being alive…all I’m saying is that I’m super glad Caroline is alive.
DB: Right? I’m so glad she’s alive.
OS: I can’t argue with either of you there.
48
Rosemarie
Esme was shaking her head, on the phone with her brother in Rosemarie’s hospital room.
“Rosie, he says the pharmacy claims you never picked up the prescriptions? Here, you talk to him,” Esme said.
There was a small gap between Esme’s front teeth, and Rosemarie had remarked on it within five minutes of meeting her for the first time; she loved that little gap. She’d missed that little gap. She’d missed her face, the pale coral blush of her cheeks. Esme was wearing a loose-collar T-shirt the same color of her blushes. Rosemarie had missed her stylish black glasses and the thin slip of prematurely gray-white hair she kept tucked behind her left ear. And she missed how she smelled—like some sort of biblical fruit and musk Rosemarie could never place, and Esme couldn’t tell whether it was her shampoo or her soap or a mix of both, so the smell was a mystery. A chemical reaction that only happened when they both met Esme’s soft, tawny skin.
“Hello, Dr. Eden, how are you this afternoon? Your sister got here five minutes ago and she’s already ordering me around. Can you please inform her I’m busy dying?” Rosemarie said, looking at Esme the whole time she was talking. Esme took the hand that wasn’t holding the phone.
“Rosemarie, the medicine can make you feel better. It will make you feel better, but you have to take it,” Esme’s brother, Ambrose, said gently.
“You know I know that, right? I also know you’re just doing your job,” Rosemarie said to him.
“And I love you,” he said.
“I love you too, Ambrose. You’re an excellent doctor. Thank you for calling in my medicine and for taking the time out of your busy day to talk to me on the phone because your sister refuses to let me die in peace,” Rosemarie said.
“I don’t like your jokes,” Esme said.
“I know you don’t, and I like that you don’t like them. It’s how we work,” Rosemarie said.
“Please go pick up the pills, and let everyone take care of you while you’re in the hospital. Let me know if they need anything else. Your doctor out there is the best. Are you comfortable right now?” Ambrose asked with extra tenderness.
“I am. I am happy to be looking into your sister’s big brown eyes, and the curtains are open. The room is filled with sunlight. My friends left to let me get some sleep when Esme showed up, and I’m going to take a nap on her. I love sleeping on people,” Rosemarie said.
“Good. Sleep on her a lot, okay?” Ambrose said.
“Talk soon,” Rosemarie said, handing the phone back to Esme.
When Esme was off the phone with her brother, she got into the bed carefully with Rosemarie, and Rosemarie put her ear on her chest, listening to her heartbeat. Esme put her hand on Rosemarie’s head.
“I finally get to meet Leo today?”
“Yes. He’ll be back up here soon. He slept in that chair all night,” Rosemarie said, moving her head a little.
“How are you feeling right at this moment?”
“Like I’m dying,” Rosemarie said. She’d been inching that way for a while, but the stress of the past week or so had definitely fast-forwarded her pain and feelings. She accepted the fact that cancer would kill her as soon as Ambrose said the word metastatic right after Christmas. She responded, Happy New Year, and sat there looking at him across the desk. Esme was next to her, holding her hand. Rosemarie told Esme she’d never speak to her again if she pressed Pause to come to Goldie with her and not finish her film. She’d worked so hard, and Rosemarie was more than well taken care of when she was near her parents and Leo, with the added bonus of being back in town with Ada and Caroline, and now even Kasey too. She never had to worry about a thing with her real and chosen family so close, besides dying of the cancer that stalked the women in her family.
Rosemarie couldn’t say exactly what dying felt like for her, but it didn’t feel the way she’d thought it’d feel. Her bones ached and sometimes she couldn’t eat for days. She was overly thirsty, and occasionally her heart would flutter like a small bird taking flight. She’d slowly become more photosensitive than she’d ever been in her life, so much so that sometimes she had to wear sunglasses inside, but she loved the sun anyway and refused to give it up. The hospital room was a tad too bright, but Rosemarie relished the discomfort. She was cold sometimes, even in the hell-hot Goldie summer, but she’d taught herself to be thankful for that, because soon she wouldn’t be there to feel it.
Soon her soul would escape her human body like smoke.
This whole slowly dying thing was more useful than she’d thought it’d be. The bare fact of it had eclipsed the fear that at any second, the cops could show up and handcuff her skinny wrists to the hospital bed for killing Trey, now that they’d opened a murder investigation.