“Grammy’s cough is bleeding again,” MJ said.

Leni pulled a tissue from the box by her mother’s bed and leaned close to dab the blood from her mother’s face. “Give Grammy’s hand a kiss and go, MJ. Grandpop has a new model airplane for you guys to put together.”

Mama’s hand fluttered up from the bed. The whole back of her hand was bruised from IVs.

MJ leaned close, banging the bed so hard it jostled her mother, clanging a knee into the oxygen tank. He kissed the bruised hand carefully.

When he was gone, Mama sighed, lay back into the pillows. “The kid is a bull moose. You should get him into ballet or gymnastics.” Her voice was almost too quiet to hear. Leni had to lean close.

“Yeah,” Leni said. “How are you?”

“I’m tired, baby girl.”

“I know.”

“I’m so tired, but … I can’t leave you. I … can’t. I don’t know how. You are it for me, you know. The great love of my life.”

“Peas in a pod,” Leni whispered.

“Two of a kind.” Mama coughed. “The thought of you being alone, without me…”

Leni leaned down, kissed her mother’s soft forehead. She knew what she had to say now, what her mother needed. One always knew when to be strong for the other. “I’m okay, Mama. I know you’ll be with me.”

“Always,” Mama whispered, her voice barely heard. She reached up, her hand shaking, and touched Leni’s cheek. Her skin was cold. The effort it took for that single motion was evident.

“You can go,” Leni whispered.

Mama sighed deeply. In the sound, Leni heard how long and how hard her mother had been fighting this moment. Mama’s hand fell from Leni’s face, thumped to the bed. It opened like a flower, revealing a bloody wad of tissue. “Ah, Leni … you’re the love of my life … I worry…”

“I’ll be okay,” Leni lied. Tears slid down her cheeks. “I love you, Mama.”

Don’t go, Mama. I can’t be in the world without you.

Mama’s eyelids fluttered shut. “Loved … you … my baby girl.”

Leni could barely hear those last, whispered words. She felt her mother’s last breath as deeply as if she’d drawn it herself.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

TWENTY-NINE

“She wanted you to have this.”

Grandma stood in the open doorway to Leni’s old bedroom, dressed in all black. She managed to make mourning look elegant. It was the kind of thing that Mama would have made fun of long ago—she would have looked down on a woman concerned with appearances. But Leni knew that sometimes you grabbed hold of whatever you could to stay afloat. And maybe all that black was a shield, a way to say to people: Don’t talk to me, don’t approach me, don’t ask your ordinary, everyday questions when my world has exploded.