Sunday, November 1, 2020

On the Sunday six days before she stepped into her own, Wilhelmina woke from a dream that was unmemorable, except that Frankie was about to arrive, and never did.

She felt under the covers for her phone. No new messages. It was cloudy, one of those days with clouds so thick and low that the sky was formless and it was hard to believe the sun was out there somewhere. It was also the first day of Standard Time. That meant Wilhelmina got an extra hour today, but she didn't want an extra hour. Not if it meant the sun setting at four in the afternoon all winter long.

Wait, no—as Wilhelmina sat up in bed, she remembered that there had been more to her dream. Frankie had never arrived, true. But James Fang had arrived, walking toward her with a living owl sitting on his head. The dream had taken place in the cemetery. He and the owl had been soaked through, because it had just stopped pouring rain, though Wilhelmina was dry, and warm, and could only remember blue, sunny skies.

"Excuse me," said James, "but I'm freezing in these wet clothes." Then he'd removed the owl as if it were a top hat, and placed it on a nearby gravestone, where it sat looking soggy but inscrutable, water dripping from its eyebrow feathers. He'd removed his coat. Then he'd hooked his fingers around the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head so that he was standing there shirtless, and suddenly, the feeling of the dream had changed.

"Oh my god!" said Wilhelmina to the air of her room. Blundering out from under her blankets, she pulled the cord on her lamp and groped for her glasses. When the room sprang into view, she saw that Delia was up. That was good. She wouldn't have to explain her exclamation, or answer Julie's questions about why she was having a hot flash.

Deliberately, she focused on her room: her boring, unsexy room. This room had been Wilhelmina's once, all Wilhelmina's. She'd used it for homework, reading, planning, daydreaming. For Julie and Bee. When Delia wasn't in here, she could almost imagine it hers again, if she did a little selective observing. Her room was under there, if you took away Delia's bed and Delia's piles. But her old life wasn't under there anymore.

On her dresser, Wilhelmina's big tin of makeup supplies collected dust. Wilhelmina liked trying unexpected things, like a smudge of yellow right in the middle of her eyelids or a silver eyeliner, and she also liked the challenge of understated makeup that looked like you weren't wearing any makeup at all. But the effort felt pointless if most of her face was always covered, and if Julie and Bee weren't there to appreciate it. Lipstick. Wilhelmina missed lipstick!

She supposed that at least she could dust her supplies. That would calm her down. Pushing out of bed, she found her fluffy purple bathrobe and pulled it on, fastening it around her middle. Then, from a nearby hill of clothes, she selected a nice soft T-shirt of Delia's. If Delia was going to ruin Wilhelmina's life, Wilhelmina was going to use her shirt as a dustcloth.

Wilhelmina's dresser was one of those squat, wide affairs with a broad mirror on top framed in wooden curlicues. Long ago, she'd placed a single tarot card into the top edge of the mirror. It was Temperance, and Wilhelmina couldn't remember why she'd put it there. Frankie had told her once, eons ago, that Temperance was her favorite card in the deck; soon after, she'd given Wilhelmina her deck. Given Wilhelmina her own beloved tarot deck! Which Wilhelmina had stored in the desk that was tucked under rows of hanging bookshelves in her Pennsylvania bedroom, leaving it safely with Frankie and the aunts whenever she returned home at the start of every school year—except for this one card, Temperance, which she'd slipped into her suitcase, then stuck in her mirror, where she could always see it. The big blond angel with his cups of pouring water had meant something to her once, something she'd wanted to remember year-round. About the magic all around her? Which had been fine, she supposed, until Frankie had died. The election had happened, then, less than two years later, Frankie had died. Where was the magic now? This angel had abandoned them.

"Frankie loved you," she said to him. Then, grudgingly, she dusted him with Delia's shirt. "That's the only reason I'm leaving you there."

Before her eyes, the angel in the card changed. That was the only way to describe it: He changed. His angel shape morphed into a sort of beak-mouthed bird-woman like the fortune teller in Harvard Square, and below his feet, the word Temperance changed too. Trust Ray it said instead, in tiny sparkles, like fireflies.

Wilhelmina cried out, then fell back onto Delia's bed. Then, angry, she surged up again, ready to confront the bird figure in the card; but the card was normal. The angel stared down at the cups in his hands serenely, that silly triangle on his chest. Temperance, said the letters under his feet. When she blinked, she could see the words Trust Ray burnt into her retinas. She closed her eyes, trying to hold on to it, but as she grasped at it, Trust Ray dissolved into blackness.

Suddenly, Wilhelmina was furious, so furious that she was shaking. "Enough," she said. "No more bullshit! Enough!" She found a giant, ratty, button-down shirt she wore when she was cleaning, and flung it over the mirror. She barged out of the room and marched toward the bathroom. As she neared it, Aunt Margaret emerged in a cloud of steam wearing goggles.

"Good morning, dear!" said Aunt Margaret.

"Good morning," said Wilhelmina, pressing past her into the bathroom and slamming the door. Every surface was dripping with condensation and Julie's furnace was shaking the floor. Wilhelmina needed to leave. If she didn't leave, she was going to start screaming. It was Sunday, her least favorite day for running this particular errand, but Wilhelmina was desperate. She would do the groceries.

It was a short drive to the grocery store, but it involved one snaggly traffic circle and at least one intersection where no one followed the rules. Not that this was a problem; Wilhelmina knew how to deal with it.

She and Julie had learned to drive together, in the spring of 2018, as soon as they'd both turned sixteen. Wilhelmina's dad and Julie's mom had taken turns as instructors. It seemed like a decade ago now, because of the way the pandemic stretched time out. Or maybe it's because those earliest lessons were just before Frankie died, thought Wilhelmina as she drove.

Julie's mom, Maya, a science teacher who taught kids the properties of physics, had given them straightforward advice. "Line the left edge of the car up with the center line in your own line of sight, Wilhelmina. That centers you in the lane. Yes, that's it, good! Now, when you're in a two-lane traffic circle, girls, it's just like any other two-lane road. You don't change lanes until you've checked you're clear. Right? Excellent!"

Theo, on the other hand, had always reached for metaphors. "Think of yourself as a hawk riding a current of air," he said once while Julie was driving. Wilhelmina, in the back seat, shot her eyes to Julie's in the rearview mirror, then covered her mouth with a hand to discourage her own snort. "Peaceful and serene, in control of your movement, but ready to make a quick adjustment if the air changes, or if you spot a mouse."

"Super-helpful advice, Mr. Hart," said Julie.

"Think of yourself as Schr?dinger's cat," he said another time. "You might hit the correct exit lane or you might miss it, but it's no big deal. Don't try to make dramatic corrections in real time. Just keep going, and options will arise to get yourself back on track."

There was a brief silence. Then, from the back seat, because Wilhelmina was driving this time, Julie said, "That seems like a tenuous analogy, Mr. Hart."

"Yeah," said Wilhelmina. "And don't you think it is a big deal for the dead cat?"

"It worked better in my head," said Theo. "Listen, if you find yourself taking the wrong exit, just go with it, okay? It's dangerous to make last-minute decisions!"

After their lessons with Theo, Wilhelmina and Julie would climb the steps to Julie's room together, clasping each other and laughing. "Think of yourself as El Ni?o," Julie would say. "Think of yourself as the national anthem."

It helped to laugh, because Wilhelmina was honestly kind of scared of driving, and Julie was too. It was fine when they managed a stretch alone on an empty road somewhere. But Boston traffic was so unpredictable, other drivers made unbelievably terrible decisions, and the intersections through which Wilhelmina's parents had been driving her for her whole life suddenly made no sense. When two different sets of lights were aimed basically at you, and you weren't sure which was meant for you and one was red and one was green, at an intersection where five roads came together at bizarre angles and the lanes were unmarked and everyone laid on their horns if you hesitated, what were you supposed to do? Just close your eyes and go?

And yet they wanted to learn, so badly. They wanted to be free.

Then their phones would buzz, both at the same time, because Bee would be texting to ask how the lesson had gone. Bee had been fifteen that spring; he hadn't turned sixteen until September. Wilhelmina couldn't even remember Bee turning sixteen, actually, now that she was thinking about it, though they must've made some sort of fuss. Some party Wilhelmina had sleepwalked her way through? Frankie had died at the end of June.

Wilhelmina had almost reached the grocery store. While she was braking for a red light, a pickup truck roared past her, making her jump. It was flying a Blue Lives Matter flag. A sign on its tailgate said This Is My America.

Inside the store, indecisive people clogged the one-way aisles, and the checkout lines were long. She waited in line forever, then paid, then drove home feeling irritable and unappreciated. When her father came running out to help her haul the bags in, she bristled, because she wanted to be alone.

"Is Esther on the stairs with Esther?" she asked him.

"She is," he said. "Should I tell her you're looking for her?"

"No," said Wilhelmina, who was not looking for Esther. She was looking for a path through her day that would allow her to avoid having to pretend to be friendly to any more humans than necessary, because Wilhelmina knew she was poisonous today. Esther never visited Esther for long. She would wait outside.

The small yard sloped steeply downhill. Wilhelmina walked its perimeter, trying to appreciate the desultory, mostly dead flowers. The landlord hired landscapers to come by now and then and blast everything with leaf blowers. Every time, Wilhelmina felt like someone was screaming at her soul. She also worried about the ears of the men doing the blasting. And she thought of all the trees at the aunts' Pennsylvania house, and the rakes and wheelbarrow that had always lived in their shed. "Do you push that wheelbarrow around?" she'd asked Frankie once, imagining her small aunt trundling along behind a massive pile of autumn leaves.

Frankie had laughed. "I used to," she said. "Now we hire a pair of young women who live in town. We pay them double so they won't use leaf blowers."

Wilhelmina's neck and shoulders were hurting. As she returned to the front of the house, she propped one forearm upright against a pilaster on the porch and pressed that arm back like an angel's wing, reveling in the deep sensation of relief that stretching brought to her chest and neck sometimes. After thirty seconds, she switched to the other side. A crow had perched itself high in one of the tall hedges that grew against the house, shifting its head back and forth, looking down at her. It was enormous. Wilhelmina forgot sometimes how big crows could get.

A glitter caught her eye. This crow held something sparkly in its beak. The moment Wilhelmina saw it, she recognized it: a gray enamel elephant with red and orange wings, on a shiny gold chain. It was Julie's necklace.

With a cry, Wilhelmina stepped toward the bird. As she did so, the crow dropped the necklace. The chain snagged on a lower part of the hedge very near Wilhelmina, and the crow cawed, jumping and flapping, then landing again in the same high spot. Wilhelmina wasn't afraid of the crow. Maybe she should've been, but she wasn't. She knew this moment was her chance to reach out a hand and retrieve Julie's necklace.

It must've been some instinct besides fear, then, that held her body still, waiting for the very thing that happened: the crow dove to the lower branch, snatched the necklace firmly in its beak, and flew off.

Inside, Theo was putting the groceries away. "I got it, hon," he said, when she tried to help. "You relax."

The aunts were at the kitchen table, drinking tea. Philip sat in Esther's lap happily shoving into his mouth one of the bananas Wilhelmina had just brought home. His hair, chipmunk-colored like Cleo's, stood up around his head as if he'd just pulled on a staticky shirt. "Want some tea, W'mina?" he said.

Wilhelmina's phone dinged, then dinged some more. "No thank you," she said, pulling it out of her pocket. Julie. We're in the square again. You anywhere nearby?

"Sit down if you like, Wilhelmina," said Aunt Margaret, who'd changed out of her goggles and into her eye patch.

Wilhelmina's phone was still dinging. "No thanks," she said, checking her messages again. We're kid-free. We might get hot chocolate

"We're discussing what to do if our ballots don't arrive tomorrow, Wilhelmina," said Esther. "Any thoughts?"

Wilhelmina was feeling pulled in too many directions. "Don't your votes count even if you postmark them Tuesday?"

"Yes, as long as they reach Pennsylvania by Friday," said Esther. "But what if we don't get them by Tuesday?"

"Yeah, I don't know," said Wilhelmina, just as her phone dinged three times. Her father dropped a can of kidney beans that rolled against her foot; Philip squirmed out of Esther's lap and dove for it. In her peripheral vision, she saw her mother entering the room, wearing a blanket cape. Wilhelmina was going to start screaming again. "Does anyone need the car?"

Theo shot her a curious look. "I don't think so, hon," he said. "You can take it."

Wilhelmina blazed a path to Harvard Square.

A line outside the chocolate shopstretched down the block. Wilhelmina saw Bee first, probably because he was tall, though he had a feeling to him too that Wilhelmina could always find in a crowd. It was a kind of rooted solidness, like a tree you could lean against. A sweet, sad tree.

When Wilhelmina and Julie were about to start high school and Bee eighth grade—the summer of 2016—Bee's dad died. Tobey Sloane had taken stimulants during his ER shifts sometimes, to keep awake. He'd taken opioids for pain. Then, when his shifts had ended in the middle of the night, sometimes he'd gone out partying with colleagues. One night, it had killed him: polydrug intoxication. Bee knew that was what he'd died of, partly because he knew some of the things his dad did, but also because Tobey had been brought to his own hospital in cardiogenic shock and Bee had overheard the attending doctor, a bald man Bee had seen at parties at his own house, tell his mother so.

"You mean he had a heart attack?" Bee's mother had said.

"Well, Cindy," said the man, whose face was wet with tears, "multiple drugs were found in his system. Alcohol. Opiates. Cocaine."

"But he had a heart attack?" said Bee's mother.

"Well," the doctor said again, "ultimately, he did experience cardiac arrest."

After that, Bee's mother had started telling people about her late husband's surprise heart attack. She even talked about how worried she was that Bee might've inherited Tobey's bad heart. "Make sure you're getting tested for heart disease," she told people.

If Bee ever alluded to what had really killed Tobey, she became shrill with indignation. "She's so focused on defending him about that, like that's what's shameful," Bee had told Wilhelmina. "Who the hell cares if he had drug problems? He broke my arm once, Wil. He did that while he was sober. You know how many times she's gotten mad at me for bringing that up? Zero. Because she turns off if I mention it. She goes instantly deaf and walks out of the room. I don't even exist, if it means she has to acknowledge that that ever happened."

"Remind me of the spot," said Wilhelmina. It was a few weeks after Tobey's death. They were sitting in Wilhelmina and Julie's steep backyard, in a couple of tottery lawn chairs Theo had put out there because Cleo was pregnant and kept needing fresh air.

When Bee held up his left forearm and pointed to a place near his elbow, Wilhelmina remembered the purple cast he'd worn there some four years ago. She also remembered an overheard conversation: Cleo had reported the incident to the Department of Children and Families. Cleo had also tried to talk to Bee's mom about it. But nothing had changed.

Reaching out to Bee's arm, Wilhelmina touched the place too. "I acknowledge that your dad broke your arm," she said. "While sober."

Bee spoke with tears in his voice. "Thank you."

Then Julie appeared around the corner, and Wilhelmina's heart reached out to pull her in too. "Hey," said Julie. "Saw you from my window seat. You doing okay, Bee?"

"Yeah," he said, wiping his face with his wrist. "My mom won't talk about my dad. Not in an honest way."

"You can tell us anything," said Julie, coming and touching her hand gently to the top of Wilhelmina's head. It made Wilhelmina feel like they were a net for Bee to fall into. "We believe you."

Now here they were, Bee towering beside Julie in the hot chocolate line. The two of them wore their matching pale pink again. Julie's hair was in a twist-out. Bee's was wispy in a calculatedly careless manner that felt very Bee to her, but she wished—almost desperately—that she could see their faces.

Then she noticed a couple of familiar people ahead of them in line and realized she wasn't the only person Julie and Bee had invited. One was a guy named Zach who'd graduated with Julie and Wilhelmina and had played soccer on the school team with Bee. The other was Eloisa Cruz, James Fang's friend, the one who starred in all the school musicals, or used to, when the school had done things like musicals—the one Wilhelmina had specifically asked Julie not to pump for information.

Wilhelmina almost couldn't believe it. Her disbelief—and something else too, something more painful—almost turned her right around. But then Bee saw her and waved.

He was in the middle of a conversation. "I mean, there's value in understanding people," she heard him say. "Hey, Wil!"

"Limited value, in some cases," said Julie. "Hey, Wil! Bee's trying to understand people again. Look, we ran into Zach and Eloisa."

It was like an infusion of sweet air: Julie and Bee hadn't invited Zach and Eloisa. And of course they hadn't. Bee didn't even like Zach all that much, and Julie would never have intentionally invited the one person Wilhelmina had asked her not to talk to. As sense returned to Wilhelmina, she was ashamed of herself.

"I mean, take the people who believe his lies," said Bee. "I feel like it's worth knowing whether they really believe him, or if they're only pretending to believe him because it suits them. Like, if you hate liberals enough, then any weird lie is justified. Is that it? Or do they really not see the holes in his logic? I get uncomfortable every time I come to the conclusion they're stupid."

"I'm comfortable with that," said Zach, who stood in line six feet ahead of Julie and Bee, his longish hair pulled into a blond ponytail that bounced on top of his head. Eloisa stood six feet ahead of Zach, which put her quite some distance from Wilhelmina. Nonetheless, Wilhelmina thought Eloisa might be touching her with curious dark eyes.

"It's reductive," said Bee.

"Whatever the reason, it makes them rally around a white supremacist," said Julie. "I mean, I don't think the explanation is going to make us comfortable. How you doing, Wil?"

"Fine, I guess," said Wilhelmina, who didn't want to be having this conversation with people she didn't know. "How are you?"

"Excuse me," called Zach. "Would you mind putting on your masks?"

It took a moment to figure out that he was speaking to the man and woman ahead of Eloisa in line. The man glanced back.

"We'll wear them when we get to the door," he said. "We're outside now."

"You're supposed to be wearing them now," said Zach, speaking across Eloisa, who was staring back at Zach with big, frozen eyes that made Wilhelmina wonder if they were friends, or just acquaintances. Eloisa looked trapped. "It's the law in Cambridge."

"My wife is uncomfortable when she wears a mask," said the man. "We're just trying to get some hot chocolate."

"And I'm just trying to protect my sick dad!" said Zach, who was suddenly shouting. "All I'm asking you to do is put a piece of cloth in front of the holes on your face. You selfish prick!"

"Okay, whoa!" said Bee, stepping toward Zach. "Zach! Lower your voice."

"It's a fucking pandemic!" Zach shouted. "The rules exist for a reason!"

"I know," said Bee. "You're right. But you can't be yelling at people on the street."

"Not even to protect my dad from selfish pricks?" yelled Zach.

Julie and Eloisa had pulled together into a unit, stepping out of line and off to the side. "I'm the one who was near them," she heard Eloisa say to Julie.

"Yeah," said Julie. "That was awkward for you."

Wilhelmina knew she could join Julie and Eloisa. She wanted to. But Zach was still shouting, still spewing all his anxiety into the atmosphere. Wilhelmina was dizzy with it. She turned around, walked back to her car, and shut herself inside.

As she entered the cemetery, the texts started coming in.

Wilhelmina drove the winding roads, trying to ignore the phone, trying to bury her own thoughts. Looking for some place deep inside this labyrinth of paths where nothing could touch her. But every ding was a sharp little strike against the bell of her conscience.

She pulled over.

Hey,Julie wrote. What happened? You left us alone with that

I'm really sorry,Wilhelmina responded. I shouldn't have bailed like that. But I was going to lose my shit

It's okay,texted Julie immediately. But what happened?

It's like he was dumping his stress on everyone else,said Wilhelmina. You know? We're all stressed out, but with him, he was hurling it around at everyone else. I just needed to go

It was a minute before Julie responded. Wilhelmina peered out of the car, craning her neck to see the trees and graves all around, pretending to herself that she wasn't looking for James Fang. A raindrop plopped onto the windshield.

Her phone dinged.

Wil? What's going on with you?asked Julie.

Wilhelmina didn't know why her eyes were suddenly filling with tears. Nothing

Is it the weird shit you and James are seeing?Julie asked.

She knew it wasn't that, not really, or anyway, not entirely. Yeah, she said.

Her phone rang. Julie. "Hey," said Wilhelmina.

"Hey, elephant," said Julie. "Listen, you're not going to like this. But maybe it's time for you to talk to someone."

Who?thought Wilhelmina. You? There's no one. "What do you mean?" she said. "Like my therapist mother?"

"You're seeing weird shit that isn't there, Wil."

That's not the problem."James Fang is seeing the weird shit too," she said.

"Okay, how about I text James and ask him what he's seen?"

Wilhelmina understood Julie's logic. Julie was worried about Wilhelmina's grasp on reality. As such, Julie knew that if Wilhelmina was seeing things that weren't there, then she could also be seeing James seeing things that weren't there. If James could verify the sightings independently, it would prove that the problem wasn't inside Wilhelmina.

But of course the problem was inside Wilhelmina. All the problems were. "Let me think about it," she said. "Okay? Let me think about it and text you."

"When?" said Julie.

"What do you mean, when?"

"I want a deadline. Please, Wil? Give me a deadline."

"After which, what?"

"I don't know what. I'm worried about you. You seem like you're shutting down."

"What does that mean?" said Wilhelmina. "Are you going to tell my parents or something?"

"Elephant!" said Julie. "Of course not! I don't go behind your back."

"Okay," said Wilhelmina, ashamed again. "Sorry. I knew that."

"How about six?"

"Six?"

"O'clock," said Julie. "Decide by six o'clock if I can text James. Okay?"

"Okay," said Wilhelmina miserably. "Julie? Are you okay?"

Julie let out a short sigh. "I'm fine. I'm hanging out with Eloisa while Bee has a heart-to-heart with Zach about how to get his head out of his butt. We're walking along the river. Don't worry, Eloisa can't hear me right now, and I haven't said anything about James. Honestly, it's great out here. It's amazing not to have Teeny's voice in my ear every second."

Both of Julie's parents were teachers, and both were pushing through the most overwhelming school year of their lives. Like Wilhelmina, Julie had delayed college, mostly to help take care of Tina during the pandemic.

Wilhelmina's eyes were filling with tears again. "I miss you, elephant."

"I miss you too. Listen, it's starting to rain. I should go."

"Okay."

"Six o'clock!"

"Six o'clock."

Outside the car, the drizzle was thickening. Wilhelmina stared at her phone for a minute. When no more calls or texts came in, she pulled onto the road and wound her way deeper into the cemetery, peering carefully through the falling rain, not finding what she was looking for. Raindrops made a nice thrumming sound on the roof. It was comforting to be inside a watery cave. She had a vision of driving alone across America, watching the world happen from the safety of her car. For some reason, another vision kept breaking through: her own self, standing still, waiting for that crow to take Julie's necklace away.

When Wilhelmina got home, there was a stillness to the apartment, so unusual that she stepped inside almost with a sense of disorientation.

She found Theo in the kitchen with a cutting board, a bowl of potatoes, a knife, and the food processor. The slow cooker bubbled. Wilhelmina smelled onions, tomatoes, peppers.

"Are you making ropa vieja and latkes?" she demanded. These were Esther specialties, and Wilhelmina was surprised to see Theo attempting them.

"Oh, hi, honey!" he said, his flushed face lighting up as he turned to her. "Yes, I am. The aunts'll move back home someday, you know, and I'll wish I learned it while I could."

"Fun to have latkes outside of Hanukkah," said Wilhelmina approvingly.

"Mm-hm. How was your outing?"

He asked that question a little too casually, with a sidelong glance that was a little too curious. "Rainy," Wilhelmina said.

"Well," said Theo, "you should enjoy the quiet house while you can. Your mother's asleep and the aunts somehow convinced both Delia and Philip to take a walk. They even brought umbrellas. But you never know how long they'll hold out."

"Right," said Wilhelmina. "Thanks."

She went to her bedroom. There, she tried watching a hair video on her laptop, but the covered mirror kept distracting her. Wilhelmina couldn't subdue the part of her that wanted to check on the Temperance card to see what it looked like.

Pulling her purple bathrobe on over her clothes, she moved to the empty living room and chose a chair by one of the windows, where she could watch the rain. Frankie's treasures still sat on the windowsill. Wilhelmina bobbed the head of the plastic snow goose gently, looking into its dark, clever eyes. Frankie? she thought, then didn't know what to say next.

Her hand touched the elephant necklace at her throat. For her own necklace, she'd chosen an elephant with lilies sprouting from the end of its trunk, because Frankie had grown tall lilies along the edges of the yard, white, gold, and pink. She couldn't imagine a world without Frankie's lilies.

Frankie?she thought, almost with a strange, exhausted surrender. What should I do? Then she asked another question. Frankie? Why did you leave me?

She thought of the time Frankie's teacher Mrs. Mancusi had died. She remembered that Frankie had pulled out the Empress tarot card, because the Empress was a nurturer like Mrs. Mancusi, glowing with magic. The woman in that card was powerful, peaceful, and surrounded by life, wearing a gown with a print of pomegranates, with a crown of stars on her head. And what other cards had Frankie pulled? The Wheel of Fortune? When Frankie had died, Wilhelmina had lost her own empress. The Wheel had taken her empress away. Why? Cancer? What a stupid, arbitrary waste of a person who was made of goodness.

At Frankie's memorial service, Wilhelmina had finally learned—after years of not knowing—why Frankie had left home as a teenager. It was because the priest in her parish had gotten one of her friends pregnant, so Frankie had driven her to nearby New York City to get an abortion. Then, after that, she'd started helping other women get to New York for abortions. It had been the early 1960s, the decade before abortion was legalized; there were women and girls all over Pennsylvania who needed help. Frankie met women at the bus stop and told them the passwords and addresses they would need once they got to the city. Sometimes she even drove them to the city herself, in her father's car. She was a young, slight, plain, Italian-American girl. Though she was eighteen, she looked about fifteen. No one who saw her thought twice about her. She lied to her parents about going to study with friends; she lied about going to the library. She learned how to set the odometer back on the car so her father wouldn't guess how far she'd been driving.

One day, Frankie's parents got a call from the local police because Frankie had been arrested.

"Arrested for what?" her father shouted into the phone.

"For assisting with an illegal abortion racket," said the police.

"Ridiculous!" shouted Frankie's father.

But when the police finally released her for lack of evidence, and when she came home and stood before her horrified, mortified parents, Frankie made herself as tall as she could, threw her shoulders back, and refused to deny it. She believed in what she was doing. "I'm helping oppressed people," she told them, over and over, "just as you've taught me to do."

After that, Frankie's family bore down hard with rules and restrictions, threats and imprecations, and especially guilt. Her father was a shouter, which was hard to bear, but then his anger would fizzle, and he would become sad and bewildered. Frankie's mother was neither sad nor bewildered, and she knew how to shore her husband's anger up again. She was immovable, and knew exactly how things should be. No car, no outings, no unsupervised visits with friends, no unsupervised phone calls. When Frankie told her parents about the priest, they wouldn't believe her. Together, they made her go to his Masses on Sundays. They made her tell him her confession. When she began to lose weight, becoming so depressed that sometimes she skipped school, they told her that if she wasn't going to keep up her good grades, they wouldn't allow her to go to college. College was Frankie's plan of escape. In fact, it had begun to be the only thing she was living for. Was she to have nothing to live for? Some tiny, irrepressible spark inside her refused this. She would survive, and she would thrive. So she left. When she left, her family washed their hands of her. Aunt Margaret's family and one of her teachers, Mrs. Mancusi, helped her build a new life.

At Frankie's memorial service, Aunt Margaret had told this story to everyone present. "She asked me to tell this story," Aunt Margaret said, "because she wanted everyone here to know how deeply she believed that the world is full of people who will help each other survive heartbreak. You just need to find out who those people are for you. It's no small task, is it? She knew it wasn't always easy to see who those people are. But she believed, fervently, that they're all around us. Maybe if you're here today, it's because you're one of the lucky people Frankie touched with that same kindness in which she had so much faith."

Hearing the story at the memorial service, Wilhelmina couldn't remember ever having felt so alone. Which was confusing, because she wasn't alone. Julie sat on her left, Bee on her right. They'd come to Pennsylvania for this, for her, which meant a lot, and yet she felt almost as if they were the ones here and she'd gone off somewhere else by herself, wandering in a cold and airless place. She was angry at Frankie's parents, for preferring to lose their own daughter rather than know her for who she actually was. Thinking about that made her angry at Bee's mom too, for loving stupid ideas about how things should be more than she loved her son. And she was angry on Julie's behalf, because everyone at this memorial service full of white people assumed, when they saw Julie, that she must be Esther's family or Esther's friend. Wilhelmina could feel Julie growing harder and more distant, to protect herself. "Where's your New York accent?" one man asked her, smiling like he was being charming. Wilhelmina rose to that, shot back with, "Why would my friend from Boston have a New York accent?" Then she sank into numbness again.

She was still sitting in the window, still staring at the rain. She kept touching her necklace. Was it hypocritical to wear it, when she'd all but handed Julie's to a crow?

Wilhelmina reached for her phone. She didn't want to think about the weird stuff any more than she wanted to think about anything else, but it was a way to stay attached to Julie.

Okay,she texted Julie. You can ask James what he's seen

Julie responded with a thumbs up and a smiley. I'll text you soon about your fate, she said.

Gee thanks. Can't wait

Wilhelmina bobbed the head of the snow goose again, watching it swivel. Then she realized something.

If you text me back that James says he saw those things too,she texted Julie, that could just be my mind fabricating your text

Yeah,wrote Julie. I thought of that. You should let me ask him anyway

Why?

Because I'LL still know,she said. We look after each other, right?

Okay,said Wilhelmina. But for all I know, this conversation isn't even happening

Okay, breathe, elephant,said Julie. We have to decide to believe SOMETHING, right?

Yeah,said Wilhelmina. That's true.

But she didn't tell Julie that she hadn't decided yet what it would hurt least to believe.

The aunts came home with Delia and Philip, all of them crowding through the door and then standing in the entrance, dripping like a forest of firs in a rainstorm.

"I'll hang up your wet things," said Wilhelmina.

"You're a dear," said Aunt Margaret, shouldering her way out of a long trench coat.

"Thank you, Wilhelmina," said Esther, handing her an umbrella. "You know, I remember a time not too long ago when it was not considered normal for a man to fly giant racist flags on his vehicle while driving around town."

"I saw one this morning," said Wilhelmina.

"He sprayed us with water," said Esther.

A knot of furious sadness tightened inside Wilhelmina's throat. "I'm sorry, Esther," she said. "Are you okay?"

"Don't you worry about me, bubeleh," said Esther, touching her shoulder.

Wilhelmina helped Philip out of his soggy clothes, pretending to attend to his cheerful description of every puddle he'd encountered and what had happened when he'd jumped into each one. She had an ulterior motive for taking charge of all the wet things. She'd learned from experience that she could make a barrier in the living room with everyone's umbrellas, then situate the coatrack and the tall drying rack in front of the corner chair, the one in the window that currently contained Frankie's treasures. She could create a small fortress for herself, and no one would look askance. The only person who ever bothered to push his way through was Philip, and for some reason, Philip was always lovely inside the fortress. He seemed calmed by it. Today, when he found Wilhelmina, he crawled into her lap, his skin pink and cold and his hair damp, and fell asleep. Wilhelmina sat there, matching her breaths to his and trying not to think, until it was time to help with dinner.

At dinner, Theo asked for Esther's honest assessment of his ropa vieja.

"It's lovely, Theo," Esther said.

"I know it's cheating to throw everything into the slow cooker all at once," said Theo.

Esther's mouth twitched into a smile of assent. "It's true the flavors are finer if you attend to each part," she said, "but you're a man with limited time. I think this is an excellent alternative. Just don't be afraid of garlic!"

"Thank you," said Theo, pinkening. "And the latkes? Be honest. I can take it, Esther."

"The latkes are delicious."

"But are they perfect?"

"I think I could drive us to Pennsylvania," said Aunt Margaret, which brought the conversation to a halt. For a moment, everyone stared at her.

"What?" cried Theo. "Not with that eye!"

"Oh, don't be silly," said Aunt Margaret. "I can see well enough through my other eye."

"I can just imagine what your doctor would say to that, Margeleh," said Esther, who was sitting up straight and looking rather fierce. "Not to mention me, your passenger."

"Oh, come now," said Aunt Margaret. "I would drive very slowly."

"On 84 through Connecticut, you would drive slowly?" said Esther. "Pardon me while I get my will in order."

"Then what are we to do, Esther?" said Aunt Margaret, with a touch of sharpness. "Not vote? This election could be decided in Pennsylvania. What if it's decided by a handful of votes?"

Esther put her fork down, then stared at her plate. "You're right," she said. "I'll drive us."

"You can't, love," said Aunt Margaret, almost on a sob. "Your license is expired."

"That only matters if we get pulled over," said Esther. "We won't."

"What?"cried Theo. "Esther! You get pulled over all the time!"

"Yes, Theo," said Esther. "Because my skin is brown."

"Which is reason enough not to risk it!"

"Is it?" said Esther. "Then what do you suggest? Margie and I need to vote."

"I'll drive you," said Wilhelmina.

Now everyone turned their wide eyes to Wilhelmina. She pushed her glasses up and looked back at the aunts. "I'll drive you," she said.

In the kitchen, Wilhelmina did the dishes under the approving eyes of Esther and the brimming eye of Aunt Margaret. She wished they would stop crowding her with their gratitude and admiration, because it pushed her up against her own guilt. Wilhelmina wasn't doing this for them, or for her nation. She was doing it because she wanted to go to the Pennsylvania house. She wanted to go there and not come back.

They were hanging herbs to dry from the potted plants they grew in their bedroom: coriander, mint, sage, thyme. Delia, who was helping, knelt on the counter so that she could reach the drying line they'd strung high along the windows. It put her butt at Wilhelmina's face level, which was annoying.

"Why is our mirror covered?" she asked Wilhelmina.

Wilhelmina stopped herself from saying, My mirror. It's MY mirror. "I didn't want to look at it," she said snippily.

Delia turned to glare at her. "Right," she said, in a voice that dripped with sarcasm. "I'm sure it's terrible to be so pretty."

Startled, Wilhelmina needed a minute; she needed to absorb the sudden relief she felt. Delia was ten. She wasn't particularly fat, but she wasn't thin either, just as Wilhelmina had been at that age. If Delia thought Wilhelmina was pretty, then maybe, if Delia's body grew plump and round at puberty as Wilhelmina's had done, then Delia would have some armor against all the voices in the world that would tell her to be thinner. It was an armor, battered but serviceable, that Wilhelmina had developed for herself somehow, fortified from necessity with stubbornness and rage, family and friends. Wilhelmina's people always told her she was beautiful. Somewhere along the line, she'd decided to believe them.

"I meant because it's dusty," she said to Delia in a milder tone. "Not because I don't like my reflection."

"What's dusty?"

"The mirror."

"Even though it looks like you used my favorite shirt as a dustcloth?" said Delia.

"You're pretty too, Delia," said Wilhelmina. "Didn't you know that?"

"What?" Delia squealed, disbelieving, then studied Wilhelmina with suspicion.

"You are," said Wilhelmina. "Do you think I'd say it if it wasn't true?"

Delia's face transformed into a sort of wondering, yearning hope. It broke Wilhelmina's heart. She wanted Delia to be too young to know what the world was like, but maybe no one was ever too young.

After Wilhelmina finished the dishes, she returned to her fortress in the living room. She sat in the chair in the window, reaching a finger out to each of Frankie's treasures in turn. I'm going to your home tomorrow, she told the goose, because that was the plan. Tomorrow was Monday. If the aunts' ballots didn't arrive in the mail, Wilhelmina would drive them home to Pennsylvania. On Tuesday, after they voted in their own local fire hall, she would drive them back again.

Everyone was acting so proud of her. Wilhelmina tried not to think about it.

She checked her phone often and stayed up too late, but Julie didn't text.