I am not the whole, pretty, curious little thing you once enjoyed having by your side. And you: I see so little of the man I loved—the man who found wonder everywhere. You are unhinged, asking me to stay inside this room—to never face inconvenient truths. Thinking that will help.

CLIENT 2 / MAN ON THE MOON

(sadly)

I see. If that’s how you feel …

WHITE FOX

It is. Now will you be quiet and listen to the rest of my story?

Client 2 / Man on the Moon nods.

WHITE FOX

The bleeding came back with a vengeance. But I found one more way of solving it, at least temporarily. The next person I met had a useful way of dealing with my bleeding.

As the section ends, my fingers have turned to ice. Like I do every time, I flip through the stained packet, urgently in need of more pages, of more words, of more her.

But this is all there is.

“Oh. It’s your dad,” whispers Saxim. “Isn’t it?”

What’s still warm in my body quivers uncontrollably. Because she’s right. Of course it’s him—we’ve known it all along. Brilliant. Kind at heart. Oblivious to those shadowy creatures who haunted her whenever she left his side.

The Man on the Moon is no stretch. But self-centered, pathetic Client 2?

Every time I read it, I feel this stabbing pressure in my head, this scratchy knot in my throat. What does it mean that White Fox was “saved” by a man she parted ways with? What should I think of White Fox’s contempt for him, and their wildly different views of the past?

There must have been so much pain between them. Pain and poor communication, clouding the love they once felt so it more closely resembled … hate.

It’s not enough to know that Mama valued everything about Dad that I do: his view of the world and the magic in it (science to him, of course), and how it could expand your own view. His once-contagious enthusiasm.

It’s not enough, because the darkness overshadows the light.

This can’t be all that’s left. It’s wrong. It’s all so wrong that I find myself suffocating on the stuffy air, scrabbling from the room, desperate to be free of the dark.

Saxim comes with me to fill a cup with water in the kitchen. It overflows, cascading onto my hands and their chipped-off manicure, and after several long seconds, she turns off the tap.

“Tai, I noticed something strange—” she starts, and then I hear a tinny, disembodied sound, emerging from the hall to Dad’s sickroom. Saxim’s eyes flick to mine: She recognizes it, too.

It’s a voice I know so well: steady, authoritative. Measured but … rich.

A giddiness rolls through my body—for one disorienting moment, I’m a kid again.