She’s smiling again, the tears gone. She’s not an adult, not yet. I forget how malleable this age is, monstrous feelings arising out of the blue to consume you before they disappear in a puff of smoke, replaced by some other equally compelling but contradictory emotion. She grabs my hand and we inch down the hall in an exaggerated tiptoe, avoiding the creaky floorboard by the bathroom door, stepping over a pile of towels Rorie’s dumped in a mildewy heap outside her bedroom door for the laundry fairy to scoop up and resuscitate. We reach Beau’s room and crack the door—it creaks too, unless you open it an infinitesimal bit at a time—and once it’s fully open, Rorie precedes me into the room to gaze upon Beau’s twin bed.

In another universe, this room would be a shrine, Beau’s bed a time capsule from the night he got sick, all his toys and books scattered as he’d left them that last day. In this universe, though, he’s asleep in the bed, curled on his side the way he always is when he sleeps, his slight figure barely a rise under his puffy down comforter. His curls have been cut, sadly; he insisted on it in the middle of second grade, wanting to look like some British footballer or other, but we can see the still-childish curve of his cheek and the curl of his lashes and the bottom half of his top two teeth. He breathes deeply, contentedly, dreaming of some Beau-ish thing: exploring the ruins of a castle with a pack of friends, maybe, or rescuing a changeling baby from a river, or who knows what.

“He’s pretty cute,” whispers Rorie, gazing on her sleeping brother. Something in me cracks open, its hard edges softening and dissolving and spreading through my bloodstream to every corner of my being. It takes me a moment to recognize what I’m feeling, but then I get it: It’s relief. It’s gratitude.

It’s joy.

“He is,” I whisper back, reaching for her hand. “He is.”

Epilogue

Familiar Behavior Patterns

KIRA

TANGIER, MOROCCO

September of the Following Year