Gigi sighed and nodded, wincing as she leaned back again.
“I’m not saying goodbye—not yet. But I need to make sure everything is in order. I have to make things right. My curse …” She shook her head, unable to finish, her eyes pained.
Sadie couldn’t look at Seth. She couldn’t look at Gigi. The house was closing in around her, Gigi’s fate hanging in the air like a thick, acrid smoke that choked Sadie until drawing a breath was impossible.
“I’m going to carry her up to bed,” Seth said.
“Nonsense,” Gigi muttered, but she didn’t argue any further.
Sadie stood, lost in her own living room. Her eyes caught on the besom hanging on the front wall of the house. The twigs tied around the stick needed to be trimmed, the twine rewrapped. Gigi had taught the twins about the besom when they were little older than toddlers. The ginger moon shone through the lace curtains as Sadie got up and took the broom off the wall.
“Always start by the front door and sweep the dust inward,” she heard her brother say from the bottom of the stairs, where he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and a small smile playing about his lips.
“If you sweep outward, you’ll sweep your luck away,” she finished with her own sad smile. “I remember. I’d be in the kitchen doing homework sometimes, and she’d be sweeping. It always smelled like cinnamon. Like that dish soap she always made. She put cinnamon in everything. She said it brought even more luck into the house and that she knew it worked because that’s how she’d always done it, and she’d gotten to be our Gigi, which made her the luckiest grandma in the land.”
“It’s crazy, now, knowing how she got stuck with us.”
“I don’t think she sees it that way.”
“I know, but you know what I mean. I mean”—he shook his head—“I can’t even wrap my head around it. I don’t want to. I can’t think about it because it feels so disloyal to her. Gigi, I mean. Not … not our mother.”
“I can’t think of her being gone. I don’t know how. I just—” She blinked rapidly, trying to keep the sting of tears from her eyes.
“I know. But you can’t spend your last days with her like this. I know it’s hard, right? But let’s try to be happy, celebrating her and her life. I see the way she’s been looking at you. She’ll never say anything, but I have to. Don’t let your sorrow be her burden. Wait until she’s gone to mourn her. You know what she’s always told us: ‘Don’t borrow trouble.’”
It was the gentlest Seth had spoken to her in years. And that’s how she knew he meant it. And annoyingly, she knew he was right, as he so often was. She would be useful, cheerful, happy, even if it killed her. Even if it felt like little pieces of her were dying right along with Gigi.
The next day, Anne was the only other one awake when Sadie ambled blearily downstairs, following the scent of fresh coffee. She’d spent half the night choking back tears and the other half letting them flow. Her eyes were puffy, and her hair settled in a wild halo, making her look like a Botticelli painting come to life.
Anne wordlessly poured a second cup of coffee.
They sat at the bar, and her aunt was still uncharacteristically quiet. Normally, her words came at the speed of thought, her internal monologue flowing out like a constant conversation with herself.
“Did you sleep?” Sadie asked her.
“Of course not,” Anne answered. “I never sleep anyway.”
“I’m going to the farmer’s market. Do you want to go with me?” Sadie surprised herself by asking. It was usually one of the things she reveled in doing alone. Perusing the vegetables like she was picking out a dinner date; chatting with the stall proprietors; letting Jim, the potato seller, badger her about opening up her own stall.
“Absolutely,” Anne answered without hesitating. “I need to get out of this house.”
The sun was still cold, the morning breeze rustling through the ponderosas like whispers and secrets as they caught themselves on the sharp points of the pine needles. Anne turned the heater on and rolled down her window. Warmth and chill played across Sadie’s skin, and Joni Mitchell’s “Circle” blared on the radio. Her hand was out the window, the wind gliding smooth over her fingers, buffeting them like a wave, and she smiled, her head tilted back against the headrest. In that moment, she was happy. And the realization made her guilty, snatching away the slice of joy as sure as the wind whipped it from her fingers, carried away by the undertow until she drew her hand back in, and the lyrics of the song washed over her.