“What are they going to do to me? Put me in jail?”
Adri was tempted to touch her arm as she approached her but instead sat on a chair beside her.
“So what happened?” she asked.
Lily laughed. “I got old, that’s what happened.”
“My housemate’s grandma lived to be a hundred and twenty-two,” Adri offered.
“Well la-di-da for her.”
“Seriously, can you describe what happened?”
Lily smiled at her. “I am serious. I’m old. Things just give out. They can call it dementia or whatever else, but the condition is really just being a human for too long.”
“I’m sorry, Lily.”
“Don’t be sorry. Geez. It’s the toll you pay for riding. You know? They’ve cured a lot of things. Just not my brain. It’s like molasses swamp in there.”
Adri didn’t know. She didn’t know, now, if she’d ever have to pay the toll. Her life would stretch on and on. And Lily had missed that boat. And it seemed horribly unfair.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Lily finally said. “And I wanted to say I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Lily chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully, frowning at the horrible ceiling tiles above her. “Maybe we did make some big mistakes, us older people. And now you have to pay. Maybe you were right when you said I could have done things better.”
“I didn’t say . . .”
“I . . . I don’t think most of us were trying to ruin anything.” Lily sighed. “The longer I live,” she looked up at the ceiling, “the more I think our big mistakes are not about having bad intentions, but just not paying attention. Just bumbling along, a little self-absorbed.” Lily looked thoughtful for a moment. “Plus a few major assholes, I guess.”
She looked up at Adri. “I’m sorry to say I think you’ll make just as many mistakes as I did. Just different mistakes.”
“I have to hope for more than that,” Adri said.
“Yeah, of course.” Lily reached for a cup of water on her bedside table and took a sip, then laid it down, and laid back again.
“You know,” she said softly, with a tiny hint of a sad smile. “I envy you. I’m happy for you; I’d give you anything I had if I could, but I envy you.” She smiled. “You’ll go up into the sky and you’ll never come back down, it’s like defying one of the oldest laws in the book. But that’s the way it goes, I guess. You get the future, not me. It’s just . . . I wish I could be in your shoes for a minute or two. Feel the future you feel.” She reached out and patted Adri’s hand. “I’ll tell you a secret. I like to say I’m a has-been, but I don’t really mean it. I feel young too. I feel like this old body has nothing to do with me at all.”
“I thought they couldn’t pay you a million dollars to live longer.”
Lily shrugged. “I think that’s what you say when you can’t have something you want, isn’t it? You say you don’t want it in the first place.”
They were silent for a long while.
“I don’t know anything about anything, Adri. But I know I love you. And I don’t care if it’s because of evolution or whatever else. I feel it anyway. It doesn’t matter what it’s for.”
“Why do you love me?” Adri asked, looking anywhere but Lily’s eyes.
Lily looked surprised by the question. She seemed to realize she didn’t have the perfect answer because she held up her hands sheepishly, tubes dangling.
“Why not?” she finally said.
She was released two days later. They had dinner then watched a show called Baked! where you could watch someone make desserts from the best restaurants around the world, and then for a few dollars print them out yourself if you had the right feedstocks.
That night they had a snowstorm. They watched the flakes swirl across the fields, blindingly bright and white. They watched a sitcom with the storm as a backdrop.
They were halfway through a commercial for Bexie dolls (Adri liked to pop their heads off when she was little but now they were indestructible and could make you chocolate milk and learn all your habits by heart) when Lily said, apropos of nothing, “One more week.” She gave a forced, fake smile.
It was what Adri had been thinking all day. Her heart pounded as she tried to voice what she’d been thinking since New York, since even before. The first couple times she tried, she couldn’t get it out.
“What if I could bring you with me?” she finally asked. “To Mars?”
Lily’s eyes flashed with surprise.
“Lamont said I could ask for anything. What if I asked for that? He might say yes.”
Lily stared at her solemnly for a long while, and then smiled. “Who wants to go to Mars?” she teased.
“Seriously.”
“Adri, you know they don’t do that. Otherwise everyone would be taking their families with them.” Lily opened her palms on her lap, stared at her fingers for a moment. “Besides, I wouldn’t go. Not even if they let me.”
There was so much finality in her voice.
“I could stay with you,” she offered, her voice cracking halfway through. A flutter of fear rose up in her chest, and she didn’t know whether she was scared most of yes or no.
Lily looked up at her, frowning. A long moment passed, what felt like an eternity, where they teetered there—between one thing and another, each thing a completely different life for both of them. Then finally, Lily spoke.
“Now, that would kill me. It truly would. If you wanted to take away all my happiness, you could do that.”
Adri looked down at her hands, embarrassed, relieved, deeply disappointed, still afraid.
“Your happiness is my happiness. Don’t you understand that, Adri?”
Adri shook her head. “No.”
“I hope one day you do,” Lily said.
They watched the snow a while longer. Adri was going. She would go. This was the moment it was being settled, she realized.
“Pass the time for me,” Lily finally said. “Tell me about our girls—the two dead sisters. Tell me about the best friends on either side of the Atlantic. Maybe I’ll remember it all better if I hear it from you.”
So Adri did. She told her about Catherine and Beezie Godspeed and their irresistible farmhand, Ellis. She told her about Lenore Allstock, whose friend in America was not the friend she thought she was.
And Lily remembered. Adri told the story in such detail that when, two days later, the letter arrived from the Wichita Archives, Lily was as eager to open it as she was.
She raced inside to give it to Adri and stood with her hands clasped tightly as Adri tore the seal. It was a simple, short form letter.
We are sorry, but no records match your criteria.
They stood for a moment.
“Maybe they didn’t die,” Lily said.
“Yeah,” Adri said. “Maybe they’re still living in the attic.”
Lily got that the joke was on her, but she jumped on the train anyway. “Maybe they’re zombies,” she said.
CHAPTER 10