Mika turns away, continuing the call. “Okay, something else? A harder one? Let me see…” She pauses to think. “Okay. What about this. When we were seven … when Grandpa was dying, you and I went to visit him in his room when we weren’t supposed to. Do you remember? He let us play around by his bedside. On his nightstand, there were four things sitting there. We never touched them, and we never even talked about them after. But if you’re really Sam, you would be able to recall those things in Grandpa’s room, because I can. So what are they?”
I close my eyes, and imagine the nightstand as Mika listens over the phone. As Sam answers, she repeats each object out loud, one by one, as if recalling them herself. A single white feather. An origami swan, tied to a string. A ceramic bowl, painted with the face of a dragon, filled with incense.
“And the last thing?” she asks.
I don’t get to hear what the last object is, because Mika doesn’t repeat it. Instead, she goes silent for a long time. When she turns around to look at me, her eyes are watering, and I know it must have been right.
“It’s Sam,” she gasps. “It’s really him.”
A sensation goes through me that I can’t explain, one not only of joy, but relief. I almost pinch myself to make sure this isn’t a dream, that this is all happening, and that Mika is here, too. Telling me it’s really Sam on the line. Telling me I’m not imagining it. Telling me this is all real, and has been all along.
Mika stays on the phone with Sam for a while, asking a dozen questions, crying and laughing all at once. She keeps glancing over at me, smiling. She squeezes my hand, and rests her head on my shoulder, maybe to let me know she believes me, or to thank me for this. Even though I’ve been talking to Sam for a while now, I still can’t believe this is happening. That the three of us are connected again.
When the call ends, and we hang up, Mika and I hug each other, both of us crying, neither one able to speak. I can feel her trying to grasp how she found herself here. In this impossible alternate world where time moves in another direction, where the fields are endless, and where the ground beneath us has never been more unstable. Although I’m beginning to lose track of which way is up or down, it’s a wonderful sense of relief to have someone else here with me. Someone who can look, see what I see, and tell me I’m not dreaming. Or maybe we’re dreaming together, I’m not sure. But it doesn’t matter right now. Neither of us wants to wake up from this.
* * *
Later that night, when I’m back home, I call Sam again to talk about everything that happened. He picks up right away this time, like he was expecting me. I thank him for talking with Mika, and for letting me share this connection with someone else.
“I wasn’t sure if it would actually work,” I say, holding the phone tight. “How come you never mentioned you could call me before?”
“Because I’m not supposed to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t want you to know yet. Because if I ever call and you don’t pick up, our connection ends right there.”
“You mean, forever?”
“Yeah.”
A chill goes through me. “How do you know that?”
“It’s one of the few things I know for sure,” he says. He doesn’t explain things further.
I swallow hard, thinking about this. “That scares me, Sam. If that’s true, you shouldn’t call me again. From now on, I’ll only call you, okay?”
“That’s for the best,” he says.
A breeze blows in through the open window, swaying the curtains. I go over to shut it. Outside, tree branches creep up like fingers, tapping against the glass.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says, a bit out of the blue.
“For what?”
“Not picking up earlier. I guess I was nervous. About what might happen.”
“But nothing happened,” I remind him. “Everything worked out fine. It’s even better now! Because Mika knows, and now she understands everything. You guys even got to talk again! Aren’t you glad we did this?”
A silence.
“Sam?”
“It’s sort of complicated…”
Before I can ask what he means by this, the sound of static comes through the line.
“What’s that noise?” I ask.
“Noise? I don’t hear anything,” Sam says, and suddenly, I notice something strange with his voice.
“Sam, you sound like you’re moving farther away.” Like the receiver is drifting from him. “Is everything okay?”
More static comes through. I stand and tilt my head, adjusting the angle of the phone to try to get a better signal.
“Everything will be okay, Julie,” Sam says. “I promise. But I have to go now, okay?”
“Wait—go where?” I ask him. But he doesn’t answer this. All he says is, “I’ll talk to you soon. I love you.”
The call ends abruptly. I stand by the window in silence, wondering if I should call him back. But something cold I can’t explain creeps up my spine, telling me not to. That I shouldn’t. So I go back to the bed and hold the phone close to me. I stare at the blank screen all night, trying to stay calm.
Did I ruin everything again?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN