So, to save money, you agree on a particular scheme: the girls will be together every weekend and every Friday night. They must do one sport together—easy, they love soccer. If they want to change the living arrangement and be together all the time, you must do what it takes to honor their bond as sisters.

Both of you will agree a year later that this is one of the big regrets of your together-life. You should have taught them to compromise, you should have encouraged them to do the harder thing rather than to make things easier for you, because, later, when the worst happens, you won’t be crushed only by the loss, but by the weight of all the time they spent apart.

3

On the first day Ayanna saw the door open, she was seven and praying in front of it with her grandmother. At that time, she knew the following: like most things in this world, there were good and bad things about the door; it was where God lived; it might be where heaven was; if anyone wearing a uniform asked her if someone had gone inside it, she was supposed to say “never.” The door had never called on her family. If she ever felt like it was, if she heard music, or if she smelled her favorite things, Ayanna was supposed to tell her father immediately.

When the door opened, Ayanna said, in unison with everyone else gathered, “Thank you, we are ready to listen.” It had been three months since the last time it had let someone in. No one had died in eighteen months. Everyone was eager to gather new specimens, to draw maps, to further their theories, to see what had changed, to linger and hope to prove that their dead were not just voices and that the preacher in Australia was telling the truth. The people at that church wore blue shirts with the words death can be defeated! printed on the front and back. For the first time, there was no golden path through the entryway. Instead, rich blue sky, navy grass, a silver mountain in the distance. Something glowing baby pink.

It was a little disappointing to Ayanna. A year ago, her father had told her that the golden path in his stories was real. It was where God lived. Once many years ago, God had spoken to him, and he felt sure now that it meant God had wanted her and Olivia to be born. That was how special they were.