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Chapters (47)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraphs
  5. Prologue
  6. Part One
  7. ONE
  8. TWO
  9. THREE
  10. FOUR
  11. FIVE
  12. SIX
  13. SEVEN
  14. EIGHT
  15. NINE
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. Part Two
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. THIRTY
  38. THIRTY-ONE
  39. THIRTY-TWO
  40. THIRTY-THREE
  41. THIRTY-FOUR
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. Acknowledgments
  46. About the Author
  47. Newsletter Sign-up

“And you’d laugh when you saw them fly, because they moved around like they were drunk?” It was remarkable to watch her mood change before she’d ended her sentence. She smiled, then slapped her arms to her sides in frustration. “I can’t believe I’m standing here at Marconi Station with you and we’re talking about goddamn birds! They’re dead, Michael. Dead!”

Michael winced. The Gordons weren’t the only parents he’d lost; now he was—what? A double orphan? He remembered when he’d stood at his mother’s side, holding her hand, his ear on her bony chest, willing her heart to keep thump, thump, thumping. She wasn’t alone; the hospital was filled with people with HIV. He watched as they dropped away from the poisoning, one by one. It felt like it still should have been news, an outrage, a national crisis. Instead, it was a quiet die-off. Nobody seemed to care anymore. When his mother finally took her last, raspy breath, the nurse, obviously sorry for him, looked from the IV bag to Michael. He knew from the way the room changed as soon as she’d died, the way it felt like a little bit of air had been sucked out of it, that the entire universe would always feel different. The nurse—he still remembered her name was Yvonne—was the only person who seemed to care. “She’s with the other angels now, honey.” Michael didn’t cry. He just shook his head: no, no, no. Now he was doing it again, only this time he wasn’t entirely alone in his grief, and that—well, that was some kind of comfort, he supposed.

“I’ve been in this fog for months,” Poppy said. “I miss them so much. We, like, have conversations in my head and I find myself narrating my life for them. Or you know what’s weirder? They have conversations with each other, like I’m not even there! I know it sounds crazy, but they’re like the people who sit in the booth next to you at a restaurant and you can’t help but listen in on what they are saying.”

“That doesn’t sound crazy,” Michael said. But he was thinking about how, all these years, he’d silently narrated his life for Ann.

“You think I’m nuts. Everyone does.”

Michael smiled. “You’re just more aware than most people.”