“I’m sure you’ll find it,” he said, not for an instant believing that anything was missing at all. Doris’s children and grandchildren all thought she was far more senile than she really was, treating everything she said as if it were coming from someplace hopelessly foggy. It annoyed her no end, and they took her crankiness as further evidence of dementia.

Her grandson rolled her through the streets of the town, and when they came to a corner, she chanced to look up at the street signs.

They were at the corner of Severance and Blithe.

Although she had passed this intersection a thousand times since the accident, the spot was only painful when she paused to think about it, which she rarely did anymore. But today she felt a strange need to pay her respects, and so she had her grandson pause at the corner before crossing.

It was as she sat there, tallying the cost of a single tragic moment, that she felt a strange gripping sensation on her right wrist. She looked down to see that a yellow rose corsage had been slipped onto her hand. Not any corsage, but the corsage. She knew nothing of Everlost, or of Zin, who had just successfully crammed it into the living world, and had slipped it onto her hand—but Doris didn’t need to know. There was no question in her mind that this was the same corsage. In a sudden moment of intuition, Doris came to realize that the corsage had always been with her, then was briefly taken away, only to be presented back to her fully and completely. All these years it had been unable to live, but unable to die. Now it would do both.

Her grandson didn’t notice its appearance—his attention had drifted to two girls his own age farther down the street. He only noticed the corsage once the girls had turned the corner.

“Where did that come from?” he asked once he saw it.

“Billy gave it to me,” Doris said honestly. “He gave it to me the night of the prom.”

Her grandson glanced momentarily at the trash can on the corner beside them. “Of course he did, Grandma,” and he left it at that, making a mental note to keep her wheelchair a little farther away from trash cans.

By nightfall the corsage had begun to wilt, but that was fine. Doris knew it was the way of all things, and each falling petal was a gentle reminder that soon—maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next year—her time would come too. The tunnel would open for her, and she would make her journey into the light with a mind as crystal clear as the star-filled evening.

CHAPTER 24
It’s a Dog’s Life

Nick could tell there was something wrong in Nashville.