She took the full contents of that vending machine is what it seems like, even the crappy little items that no one ever wants, the Necco wafers and mints and thin packs of Wrigley’s. I can picture her snaking her thin arms up the inside of the machine, again and again, fashioning a coat hanger into a hook to make sure she got it all. The old trick. You’re welcome, fatties!
Buried beneath all the candy and chips is the rest of Nico’s belongings. Shorts and shirts. A couple of handguns, a box of bullets secured with a scrap of Scotch tape. A pair of walkie-talkies—not just one, the pair. Underpants and bras. Animal Farm. A rain jacket, wrapped up tightly and secured with a rubber band. A red plastic flashlight, which I flick on and off. The bottom of the ancient Batman backpack is lined with layers and layers of duct tape to keep it from opening up and everything falling out.
I wipe tears from my eyes with the back of my hand.
She was on her way out.
The rest of this ridiculous club had at long last given up their foundational ridiculous idea, accepted with only a week left that this rogue military scientist was dead or still in jail or otherwise a no-show. Godot wasn’t coming after all.
But not Nico. Not my stiff-spined little sister. She wouldn’t accept the obvious.
The situation is what it is, said Astronaut, and she said, I disagree.
Even when the rest of them were ready to go to the backup plan, to slip underground and seal themselves in and cover their ears, my headstrong incorrigible younger sister was slipping out with a backpack full of junk food, bound for a military facility four hundred miles away, to track the infamous Hans-Michael Parry like Sasquatch, pin him and bring him to heel.
She was off to save the world all by her goddamn self, if that’s what she had to do.
I let myself laugh, just the tiniest bit, but not for long, because her plan didn’t work, because someone didn’t want her to go. Someone followed her out, her and Lily, and cut their throats and left them to die.
As I shrug the Batman backpack onto my shoulder I find one last piece of evidence, just beside her body, poking up out of the mud. A slim stick of molded black plastic, curved at one end and jagged at the other as if snapped off.
It’s the stem of a pair of sunglasses. I tug it out of the mud. I hold it for a long time in my palm and then I tuck it carefully in my pocket. The rain trickles down my face.
I don’t know anything yet, not really, I still have almost everything to learn about what happened to Nico.
But this, this piece of plastic, I know what this means.
*
“Acceptance of loss is not a destination—it’s a journey.”
This was explained to me by a specially trained grief counselor, how recovering from the unexpected death of a loved one “is not a discrete event that happens at a specific moment in time,” but rather a “process” that unfolds over all the slow years of a lifetime. I met with parades of such counselors in my teenage years, variously competent representatives of the healing community: bereavement experts, therapists, child psychologists. My grandfather would bring me and sit with open impatience in the waiting room, working the crossword, an American Spirit behind his ear waiting to be lit. His skepticism casting a distinct pall over all efforts to make me well.
“One must have time to heal,” these experts were always announcing. My parents were dead; both of them. A part of me had been gouged out. “Healing will happen, in time.”
There’s no time, now, obviously. I won’t heal. That won’t happen.
I gather Nico up into my arms and hug her tight to walk her through the woods, back to the station. “Okay,” I say gently to Lily, to the girl, whatever her name is. “Okay, come on now.”
“So it’s a group home.”
“Yes. No. Well—group home makes it sound like it’s for criminals or drug addicts,” I say. “This is for policemen.”
Abigail is skeptical. She chews it over for a minute, her eyes darting where they peek out over her allergy mask. She still isn’t entirely convinced, but she seems to have backed off the idea of me putting a bullet in her head. I think we’re done with that.
“What if they all hate me?”
“No one is going to hate you.”
I evaluate the statement as I say it. Some of them will hate her. Officer Carstairs will hate her because she’s not a cop; Officer Melwyn will hate her because she comes from me, and I’ve been nagging him about leaving the porch lantern on all night. Officer Katz will like her because she’s young and good-looking. Most will not hate her, but they will be wary of her because she’s an outsider, and because she’s self-evidently crazy—but most people are crazy at this point, one way or another.
“You’ll do just fine,” I tell her. “There will be space for you, because I’m leaving. The Night Bird will work out the details.”
“The Night Bird?”
“She’s great. You’ll see.”