I don’t have a panic attack. Dr. Rainier should be proud of me. I just sit in the middle of my mother’s canopy bed, my arms wrapped around my legs. Rocking. But I don’t scream and I don’t cry. I wait quietly for morning, for the nightmare to be over. But some nightmares never end.
The sun isn’t up yet, but the sky’s getting brighter when I grab some clean clothes and pull my hair into a ponytail.
The embassy’s still asleep.
The lights are off and the phones are silent.
But I know I’m not alone.
There’s one room downstairs with the door cracked. A little light seeps out into the hall, and I’m quiet as a mouse as I creep close and look inside.
“Gracie?” the voice is low and weak, but it’s the only sound, and it echoes in the stillness of the halls.
The room used to be the formal parlor. It’s where Megan and Ms. Chancellor wrestled me into my first puffy pink dress. But now there is a hospital bed near the window. The antique rugs have been rolled up and the floor is so sterile it shines. But it’s the man I can’t stop looking at.
He is smaller than I remember—frail. His white hair doesn’t shine like snow. His skin is the color of ashes.
But he is alive.
And he is home.
“Gracie, come here. Let me look at you.”
I ease toward the bed.
“Grandpa, I—” I start, but he shushes me and glances toward the corner.
There, curled up on one of the most uncomfortable couches in the embassy, is Eleanor Chancellor. There’s a crocheted blanket across her lap and her high heels lie discarded on the floor.
“You’ll wake the guards,” Grandpa says with a smile and a wink in Ms. Chancellor’s direction.
He tries to laugh. It makes me want to cry.
When I reach the bed, he takes my hand and pulls me closer. The Tennessee is thick in his voice when he says, “Oh, Gracie, what did you do?”
“I …”
“Tell me you didn’t agree to any craziness for the sake of this old man.”
“Jamie’s okay,” I say, because it feels like the only thing that matters. It seems like ages since I’ve seen my brother, but I know this in my gut. “Jamie’s okay now.” I run my hands through Grandpa’s hair, push it off of his cold forehead. “And you’re okay. And now everyone is going to be okay.”
“What about you, Gracie?” Grandpa asks.
I lean down and kiss his cheek.
When he drifts off to sleep, I don’t bother telling him the rest: that I forfeited the right to be okay three years ago.
Only the marines and the sky are awake as I head out onto Embassy Row.
The buildings are all dark. A few delivery vans and police cars pass, but I keep walking, head down, certain of where I have to go.
As I walk through the gates, the sun starts to crest the hills that circle the east side of Valancia. The light is the color of gold, and the whole city shines. My mom’s hometown looks so beautiful, here at the top of this hill. Now I understand why Dad and Jamie had to bring her back here—why this is where she was laid to rest.
Adria isn’t just where this story started; it’s also where it has to end.
“Hi, Mom.”
My mom isn’t here. This is just a slab of stone with her name on it, some remains that share my DNA. Caroline Blakely, beloved daughter, wife, mother. Her tombstone doesn’t say anything about her being a princess—that that’s the reason why she’s here.
No.
I’m the reason why she’s here.
I remember this, and just that quickly my breath goes away. I fall to my knees. The grass is damp with a heavy morning dew that seeps through my old jeans. Suddenly, I’m not on a hilltop in Adria; I’m on a dark street in the US, looking through a window, about to make the biggest mistake of my life.
“Grace, no!” my mother yells, and I close my eyes, refusing to see the scene that fills my mind.
My breath comes too hard. It’s like my lungs don’t work, and my body wants to draw in on itself. I’m aware only of the damp ground and the cold headstone and the utter emptiness that is left when all your hope is gone.
But hope’s not gone. Not really. Jamie is alive. And I have the power to make sure he stays that way.
Slowly, breath fills my lungs. My heart slows. And the sun climbs higher, turning the city into gold.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say to that piece of stone. “I’m sorry I haven’t come before now. I guess it never felt like you were really here. And you aren’t, are you? It’s not over yet, but it could be. They say it will be—that this will end it. They’re probably lying. They’re probably going to kill me, too. But …” My voice cracks. My vision blurs.
“But maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Then I’d be with you.”
I don’t cry. Crying is tears and grief coming out of you in equal measure. I’m too far gone for that. For me, grief is almost all that’s left, and it pours out of me, the anguished screams of someone who has finally hit rock bottom.
I don’t know how long I stay crumbled before my mother’s grave. She’s not there, but that doesn’t matter.