Whit scrunches her face. “Umm, I played all four years in high school. You came to my games, but you still don’t get it?”

“Correct.”

Whit shakes her head. “You’re like the dumbest smart kid alive sometimes.”

We both crack up. And it feels good. And no, not feel-better-about-Q good, obviously. But a tiny reprieve.

A temporary stay.

“Also, I’d like to reenter into the record that I strongly disagree with you and Angeles’s decision to not know the sex. Like, it’s wrecking me, for real. Plus, there are clear advantages to knowing. For instance, I could be painting the nursery.”

She punches me again. “What’s the sex got to do with the paint color?”

I tilt my head. “Fair. My bad.”

She rubs her belly. I swear sometimes I see the baby’s face peering out at me, their tiny hands poking out. It’s so weird that humans, women, can grow life. Weirdly beautiful. And I get that at the end there’s unspeakable pain—a pain men will never understand—but women keep doing it, you know. Because, wow.

And now Whit’s due date is only two weeks away.

She’d already scheduled a C-section for the following week, in case the natural thing doesn’t happen naturally, she’d said.

Which means the baby could potentially be born the same day Q re-dies?

What would it mean—that forever my niece or nephew’s birthday would roll in tandem with the anniversary of my former friend’s second death?

Whit stretches her arms. “I admit in the beginning I was curious, but now . . . I already love her or him more than I can explain, you know?”

“I didn’t know it was real, but you have it. That pregnancy glow.”

“You hang around a lot of pregnant people?”

“I swear your silhouette’s shimmering.”

“Stop it.”

“You’re going to be the best mom ever.”

She lowers her eyes. Ping-pongs her coffee mug the two inches between her palms. “Not the best. There was only one of those.”

“You stop it,” I say.

We sit there, silent, letting our parents wash over us. We used to resist it, ward them off. We took turns being overcome; we’d rifle through cabinets, suddenly gripped by a desire for fruit snacks, cashews, anything so long as it distracted us. And when we ran out of things to open, when only our tear ducts were left, we’d scurry away, a sobbing mess. But now, we mostly let the ghosts do their thing.

This entire house a blurry time-lapse of their lives, a continuous loop of their hazy outlines walking the floor, marching upstairs, opening doors, flopping onto the couch, brushing their teeth—Mom and Dad, burned in, like negatives.