“We’re always here for you—whatever you need,” Mrs. Rodriguez told Sadie. “And Raquel, don’t forget you have to take your sisters to soccer practice after church,” she added sternly.
“Yes, Mamá,” she answered, but as soon as her mother left, added, “If she’d let Camilla get her license like a normal teenager, she could drive herself.” And then she wedged between Seth and Sadie. She held Sadie’s hand during the prayer, giving it a gentle squeeze.
Sadie didn’t hear a word of the sermon. Her heart was brittle. There would only be one heartbreak left after Gigi. For she knew, without a doubt, Gigi’s passing would be the worst heartbreak of her life. And everything would hang in the balance.
She thought how, in many ways, she’d been preparing for this heartbreak her whole life. The worst one of all. The one that claimed the person you owed your life to.
Before she realized what was happening, Pastor Jay had said his final benediction, and the stampede of feet toward food thundered in her ears.
The long tables were laden with Crock-Pots and platters and plastic bowls. Sadie didn’t have it in her to eat. But she tried to be civil because that’s what was expected of her.
She stood watching as Aunt Anne talked to everyone, and Uncle Brian stood quietly off to the side. Aunt Tava was drawing a heart on the cheek of Ms. Janet’s granddaughter, with the sparkly eyeliner she always kept in her purse. She liked having them there. Even though they were all broken in some way, their love filled in the cracks until it felt almost whole.
Monday looked the same as Tuesday. Sadie was at the café before the rest of the house had even woken up. She made cinnamon challah bread and pinwheel pastries with elderflower jam, rosewater and cardamom panna cotta, and lavender and honey macarons. But nothing was as potent as it should have been. The macarons didn’t bring peace, and the panna cotta didn’t banish the negative energy the way it was supposed to. Her magic felt thin, and she thought briefly about the Grand Revel in April, when her magic was always at its strongest. If only Gigi would make it that long.
Both days, she came home with sore shoulders from kneading dough, and flour in her hair and under her fingernails. Her soul yearned toward the garden, and no matter how much she tried to wash the desire away with a hot shower and rosemary mint shampoo, it clung firm.
On Wednesday, Sadie barely made it through half her shift, when Gail forced her to go home.
“I know you’re tryin’ to distract yourself,” Gail said, patting her cheek, “but it won’t work. Ayana is on her way. So go.”
Thursday and Friday looked much the same, and even though she was trying to distract herself, every hour that passed at the bakery she thought of Gigi, counting down the hours until she went home to her. Until Gail or Ayana would shuffle her out the door, demanding she go home. And still, she refused to go into the garden. She couldn’t stand seeing the destruction or the way it echoed in her heart.
Anne was always finding something to do, even if it didn’t need to be done. She could never sit still. Kay, on the other hand, never left Gigi’s side. The two sisters were always at odds, with Tava trying and failing to broker peace.
“Why don’t you rest?” Sadie asked Anne in the evening.
“I will,” she answered, her hands deep in the sink, scrubbing stovetop grates.
“You won’t.” Sadie smiled.
“Sometimes it’s easier to serve than it is to sit.” Anne shrugged. “You know the story of Mary and Martha in the bible?”
“You’re Martha?” Sadie guessed.
“Martha was distracted. Or she was distracting herself. Maybe both. But Mary was just sitting there at Jesus’s feet. Martha asked Jesus if he cared that Mary had left her to do the work by herself, and told him to tell her sister to help her. He said that Mary had chosen the right path. But they both served a purpose, didn’t they?”
“I know what you mean,” Sadie said quietly. “It’s like love. Sometimes it’s harder to let yourself be loved than it is to love. There’s more vulnerability in it. It’s stepping back and saying, ‘I trust you enough to love me.’ Like Mary sitting there and just listening.”
“Thinking of Jake?”
“When am I not?” She was too tired to guard her tongue, and the honesty slipped out like a will-o’-the-wisp.
“They say that in a relationship there’s always the lover and the loved. But I don’t think that’s right. I think it changes. Sometimes you’re the one who loves more, and other times you’re the one who needs to be loved. That’s what a relationship is. Bracing the other person when they need it. Love is knowing you have open arms to fall back into.”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s all over for me. And I shouldn’t even be thinking about that right now. Not with Gigi …” she trailed off.
“Death doesn’t stop you from loving. It makes the love more important. If it’s right, it’ll happen. Now get over here and dry these dishes.”
By Friday, Gigi was so weak she had to be carried to the bathroom.
Sadie wanted to take the knot of Isis and throw it over Two Hands Bridge. Instead, she called Gail and asked if she and Ayana could take over the café until further notice. Sadie had spent two days a week for the last year teaching Gail’s daughter, Ayana, how to make all the staples for the café. Ayana didn’t have the Revelare touch, so nothing turned out magic, but it was delicious, which was a magic in and of itself. And Sadie felt confident that they would take care of the café as if it was their own.
On Saturday, Gigi’s lucidity started to go. They all took turns sitting with her.
Bambi whined constantly, his wet nose nuzzling Gigi’s arm gently.
When Sadie took her hand, her eyes opened, and Sadie tried not to notice their glazed, milky film. But when they rested on her, they cleared.
“Hi, sugar.” Her smile turned warm and soft as freshly spun sugar itself. “I think it’s almost time.”
Sadie forced the tears to remain unshed and sat on the floor beside the couch, gently holding Gigi’s hand. Uncle Brian brought chairs in from the kitchen, and they crowded around the couch, Aunt Kay with continual, unusually silent tears streaming down her face. Aunt Tava wore surprisingly muted colors, and the series of stars that had been painted along her cheekbones had been cried off. Aunt Suzy, who had sat through her own mother’s death years before, looked gravest of all, knowing, in a way the others didn’t, what was coming. She made tea, quietly tidied, and whispered encouraging words in every ear she passed by. Every so often she’d run a tender hand over Gigi’s forehead.
They stayed there until the light in the room softened into an evening glow, which was when Gigi started getting restless.
“I need to cut my hair,” she said abruptly, trying to sit up.
“What?” Sadie asked, startled by her change.
“My hair. It’s a mess. It needs a trim,” she said again.
“Okay,” Sadie said, confused, but willing to do anything her grandmother asked. She ran upstairs to fetch the shears she used on her own hair. Seth was waiting for her in the hallway when she came back down.
“She’s getting ready,” Aunt Suzy murmured quietly.
“For what? Her haircut? What do you mean?” Sadie demanded, not liking where Suzy’s words were leading.
“I read it in one of the pamphlets at the hospital when my mom was … going through this. Toward the end, when they’re not completely lucid, they think they need to get ready for something, but they don’t know what. They’re subconsciously trying to prepare themselves to move on.”
Sadie nodded, her face going blank. She would save her emotions for later. Right now, she was on autopilot. Seth squeezed her shoulder as she walked away, and then he and Aunt Anne helped Gigi into a sitting position.
Anne trimmed her mother’s fine hair. Sadie’s hands were surprisingly steady as she held the mirror for Gigi, who nodded in a distracted sort of way.
“I need a cigarette,” she said, her eyes growing clearer.