In these thousand years, I see a math equation. A question of physics and geometry. Time and distance, speed and motion. Either I’ll strike her first with the poker, or she’ll slice though my belly, unprotected and stretched outward toward the knife, inviting disembowelment.

I have so much time but I struggle to solve the equation. I was never very good with math. Cora was better, another way we’re different. Right-brained versus left-brained. Emotional versus calculating. Empathy versus sociopathy.

I can’t do the math, so I have to rely on faith. Faith that I deserve life more than her.

I keep swinging, Cora keeps lunging.

And then the thousand years comes to a sudden end. Her swipe ends with her blade whooshing centimeters from my stomach. My swing ends with the iron poker shattering my big sister’s skull. Shock waves through my arms, a million needles.

The sound is grotesque, like stepping on a swarm of roaches.

I let go of the poker, but the poker doesn’t let go of Cora.

It’s lodged in her head, the fleur-de-lis tip buried in the upper hemisphere of her brain.

She falls, first to her knees. The blood hasn’t even begun to spill, but the opening in her head is clear and irreversible. For a moment, a whisk of a moment, I think how she’d hate to see herself like this. Not beautiful. Not perfect. Yet, in the strangest of ways, it’s the most human she’s ever looked.

The knife falls to the floor, scattering.

Cora falls next, face-first, the impact almost dislodging the weapon from her skull.

Almost.

The bleeding now starts, furious.

She breathes. She breathes. Not with ease, not with comfort.

My father says nothing.

I kneel next to her, grab her hand. I squeeze, she squeezes back.

“Call 911,” I say numbly, not even sure if I mean it but knowing it was what I said twenty-two years ago, when another life was on the brink of permanent departure.

“No,” my father replies.

I don’t argue, and that’s why I’m still a Yates.

I hold my sister’s hand and feel the grip loosen. Listen to her breath become shallow and distant. Watch her eyes flutter before settling.

And then, that grin on her face, the wan smile worn by Caleb Benner. Assurances of something better in the distance.

“Touch it,” I whisper, thinking of the rainbow in the cornfield, the storm in the distance, the sun brilliant and affirming. “It’s like taffy.”

The smile remains, but seconds later, the energy is gone. Just like with Caleb. With Riley. The fruit of my sister is gone, and just the husk remains.

This is when I cry. Cry for all I’ve done and all I haven’t done.

And cry for what I still need to do.

Sixty

November 17

8:24 a.m.

I wake.

Brilliant sunlight streams in the room, filtered through white-lace sheers, rendering my surroundings like the inside of a cloud. The room is familiar, but my brain is so heavy it can’t place it. I stretch, roll onto my side, blink a few times. For a moment, it’s peaceful.