In those awful weeks, and then months—getting my diagnosis, seeing doctors, trying all kinds of meds, missing school, making up illnesses, hiding from Zumi, trying to catch up on schoolwork—that morning at Zumi’s house just got further and further away. Then it was too late. Holly still thinks Zumi abandoned me when I got sick, but really it was the other way around.
Walking back to Zumi’s now, it feels like I’m about to finish the conversation I ran away from sixteen months ago, only this time with the help of so much medical science running through my veins and brain.
Yet when I reach Zumi’s house, the Ativan is helping but I’m still not ready to knock. I sit down on the bench and put my hand on the mark left by Eddie’s jack-o’-lantern again.
The door opens.
I’m afraid to look up. I’m here to help Zumi. To try and patch things up. But I’m feeling fragile and unbalanced.
“Why are you here?” It’s not an accusation. She sounds confused.
“I want to help.”
“Why?”
I think a moment. Then I say, “Because I’m your friend.”
“Huh. Is that why you disappeared on me? And wouldn’t answer my texts. Or my calls. Or the door?”
“I was really sick.”
She blows air through her nose. “You couldn’t have been that sick.”
I don’t say anything.
“All those things Annie said, about how you were tired of me, because you thought I was … obnoxious … I didn’t believe her at first.”
I look up. Zumi’s standing on the mat, one hand on the doorjamb.
“You thought she was lying?”
“Was she?”
I nod.
“I thought so. But then you kept avoiding me. I finally had to believe her. I even apologized for calling her a liar.”
“Sorry. I … I was sick, and I … You said she was your best friend. With me and her fighting, you couldn’t stay friends with us both. I just thought it was better to …”
“To what? Act like a twelve-year-old? Be a martyr?”
“And a coward. I’m sorry.”
Zumi sighs. “Stop saying that. I get it. You being sorry, I mean.”
She sits on the bench a couple feet away.
I say, “Can you forgive me?”
“Maybe. Forgetting is harder.”
I’ll take what I can get.
“If you had to do it over again,” she says, “what would you do different?”
The question surprises me. I have no idea how to answer it.
Her phone chirps. She checks it.
“They’re coming back early. Be here in a few minutes.”
She stands and walks to the front door.
“Zumi?”
She pauses but doesn’t look back.
I swallow. “I wish a lot was different.”
She nods and goes back in the house.
HAMSTER IS STUMBLING
HUMMINGBIRD IS PERCHED
HAMMERHEAD IS THRASHING*
HANNIGANIMAL IS DOWN
After I leave Zumi’s I get a text from Judith asking if I’m okay. It takes a moment to realize I’m an hour late for work. Judith is very flexible about my schedule but it’s also possible she only just noticed I wasn’t there. I’m less than two miles from the Silver Sands. I walk over.
I change, wash, and look for Ms. Arguello to see if someone already got her juice. I find her alone in the Sun Room, an empty glass on the table by her elbow. She’s balling yarn, no scarf visible anywhere. She must have just finished one.
“Hi, Ms. Arguello. May I sit with you?”
“Of course, dear. Is this your first day? How do you know my name?”
“Judith told me.” I sit on the sofa, her satchel of yarn between us.
“Are you a nurse?”
“No, I just help out. My name’s Mel Hannigan.”
“Mel? For Melissa? Or Melinda?”
“Just Mel.”
She sets aside a finished ball of canary yellow and picks up a skein of rust-colored yarn. She turns it over and over.
“Want some help?”
She doesn’t respond. I was late getting here so we’re not in our usual groove.
“Ms. Arguello?”
“You can call me Nancy.”
A lump forms in my throat. She’s never said that to me before.
“Here.” I move her satchel to the floor, take the skein, and thread my hands through it. She smiles and starts winding.
We still have a few more skeins to go when David comes in.
“Hi, Mel.” He stands over us behind the sofa and says to Ms. Arguello, “I’ve seen you around but we haven’t met. I’m David Li, Christina Li’s grandson.”
“I don’t know a Christina Li,” she says. “Is she moving in?”
“No,” he says. “She’s been—”
“Yes,” I interrupt. “She’s new. David, this is Ms. Arguello.”
He takes a second to recover; then he says, “Are you starting another scarf? What did you do with the other one?”
Uh-oh.
“I … I’m about to begin a muffler. For my grandson. He got a job on one of those oil-drilling things out to sea in Alaska where it gets very cold. Yesterday I … finished a … long sweater for …” Her forehead wrinkles as she struggles to think. “For my niece …”
“Huh,” David says. “It looked like a—”
“Knitting doesn’t always look like how it’ll end up,” I say firmly. “Ms. Arguello doesn’t normally knit scarves, because they’re too easy and no one wears them much anymore.”
“Yes,” she says, her confusion changing to wonder.
“But her grandson asked for one specially.”
“That’s right,” she says, happy again. “How did you know?”
I give her my bright smile. “Judith told me.”