I let it ring four tis. Five. Six. My thumb hovered between the green button and the red one. On the seventh ring, I answered.
"Isaiah." Her voice was warm the way it always was, the kind of warm that made you forget she’d stolen grocery money and disappeared for two years. "You answered."
"I answered."
"I wasn’t sure you would."
"Neither was I."
Silence filled the line. I could hear sothing in the background, traffic maybe, or wind. She was outside sowhere. I imagined her standing on a California sidewalk with her hair blowing in that effortless way she had, looking twenty-eight instead of thirty-six, looking like soone who’d never abandoned two kids in a Kensington apartnt with three hundred dollars less than they’d started with.
"I’m staying at the Kensington Inn," she said. "Room 214. I wanted you to know where I am."
"Okay."
"In case you want to talk. Or Iris wants to talk. I’m here through Wednesday."
Through Wednesday. Four days. She’d given herself a deadline, which was either responsible planning or a countdown to the next disappearance. With Diana it was impossible to tell.
"Iris wants to see you," I said, because it was true and because denying it would only punish Iris for Diana’s failures. "She ntioned lunch tomorrow."
"Tomorrow. Yes. I’d love that, baby."
The word baby landed on sothing raw inside my chest. She’d called that when I was six and scared of thunderstorms. She’d called that when I was ten and she was leaving for a date with whatever man of the month had promised to fix everything. She’d called that in the text ssage she sent from California, the one that said You’ll be fine. You always are.
"Don’t call that."
"Isaiah, I’m sor-"
"Noon. The diner on Frankford. Iris likes their pancakes."
"Noon. Okay. Isaiah, can we-"
"I’ll let Iris know."
I hung up.
The ceiling stared back at . The water stain in the corner had grown since last week, spreading outward in a slow brown bloom that the landlord would never fix because the landlord believed in the healing power of ignoring problems until they beca soone else’s responsibility. A philosophy Diana had apparently internalized at the genetic level.
Iris appeared in the living room doorway. She’d changed into pajamas already, one of my old Queen shirts hanging to her knees, fuzzy socks with cats on them.
"That was Mom."
"That was Diana."
Iris let the distinction pass without comnt. She’d learned to read the weather of my moods the sa way sailors read the sky, and right now the forecast called for heavy silence with a chance of emotional collapse.
"Noon tomorrow?" she asked.
"Frankford diner. Your pancakes."
"You’re coming?"
"Soone has to make sure she actually shows up."
Iris crossed the living room and sat on the arm of the couch. Gerald’s horn poked into her ribs but she didn’t adjust. She just sat there, fourteen years old and wiser than any kid should be, looking at with those dark eyes we shared.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don’t thank yet."
"Thank you for answering the phone. I know you didn’t want to."
She slid off the arm of the couch and padded back toward her room, Gerald forgotten on the cushion beside . The apartnt settled around us in its familiar sounds. Pipes groaning. Traffic outside. The specific hum of our refrigerator that had developed a personality disorder around month six and now alternated between purring and screaming at random intervals.
I closed my eyes. My phone lit up.
The group chat. Vivienne had sent a detailed itinerary for the festival week with color-coded ti blocks for setup, rehearsal, and the actual event. Harlow had responded with forty-seven heart emojis and a question about whether the fog machine needed a specific type of liquid. Cassidy sent a single ssage: I will wear whatever I want, Vivienne.
Sabrina sent nothing to the group. Instead, a private ssage appeared.
How was the drive.
I typed back: Long. Quiet. Iris nad the unicorn Gerald.
A good na. How is the apartnt.
The sa. Water stain grew.
Three dots appeared and disappeared. Appeared again.
Your mother called.
The sentence sat on my screen for a long ti. I read it four tis. She hadn’t asked a question, which ant she already knew the answer. Because Sabrina always knew the answer. She collected information the way other people collected hobbies, passively and constantly, until the accumulation ford a picture that nobody else could see.
Yeah. She’s here through Wednesday.
Three dots.
Do you want company.
The question hit differently than it would have a week ago. Before the car confession and the breakfast chaos and the alcove and all the rest of it, company from Sabrina ant a book and silence and the comfortable nothing of two people existing in the sa space. Now it ant sothing else. Sothing bigger. Sothing that included Cassidy’s teeth on my lip and Harlow’s voice note and Vivienne’s fingers on my collar and whatever Sabrina herself was building between us with her stolen security footage and her careful, quiet patience.
I’m okay.
I know. I didn’t ask if you were okay. I asked if you wanted company.
The distinction mattered. Sabrina’s distinctions always mattered.
Maybe later.
I’ll be here.
I set the phone on the coffee table and stared at the ceiling. Four girls. One mom. One sister. One apartnt with a water stain spreading across the ceiling like a map of every problem I couldn’t solve with graph paper and poker chips.
Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Five days until the festival. Five days of setup and rehearsal and fog machines and vampire costus and whatever chaos the Valentine sisters were engineering in my absence.
Five days of tutoring Cassidy through practice problems via FaceTi while she wore those glasses that made her eyes look bigger and more dangerous. Five days of Harlow sending photos of costu alterations and asking for my opinion on the placent of cape clasps with the seriousness of a NATO summit.
Five days of Vivienne emailing revised schedules at midnight with subject lines like FINAL VERSION (v.17) and passive-aggressive notes about response ti expectations. Five days of Sabrina sending exactly one ssage per day, always at the sa ti, always saying exactly enough and never more.
The week happened whether I was ready for it or not.
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