It was silly, I knew it was silly.
But it was a bit more of her than before that remained.
Summers abroad . . .
The stranger brought me out of my thoughts when he said, quite confidently, “Does everything make sense now?”
I set my jaw. “No, actually.”
His bravado faltered. “. . . No?”
“No.” Because Miss Norris passed away three years ago, and a young couple moved into her apartment and threw away all of her antique music boxes and her violin, since she didn’t have anyone to will them to. My aunt wanted to save them, but before she could, they were ruined out on the curb in the rain. “I’m not sure what you think subletting means, but it doesn’t mean you can waltz in just any summer you want to.”
His eyebrows scrunched together in vexation. “Any summer? No, I just spoke to her last week—”
“You’re not funny,” I snapped, hugging the sequined face of Jeff Goldblum to my chest.
He blinked then, and gave a slow nod. “All right . . . let me get my things, and I’ll be gone, okay?”
I tried not to look too relieved as I said, “Good.”
He dropped his hands and quietly turned back into my aunt’s bedroom. Inside, I expected to see my full bed on its IKEA black metal frame, and instead caught a glimpse of a blanket I hadn’t seen since I’d packed it up six months ago. I quickly looked away. It just looked like that blanket. It wasn’t really.
My chest constricted, but I tried to push the feeling down. It happened almost six months ago, I told myself, rubbing my sternum. She’s not here.
As he began to pack up, I turned and paced the living room—I always paced when I was nervous. The apartment was brighter than I remembered, sunlight streaming in through the large bay windows.
I passed a picture on the wall—one of my aunt smiling in front of the Richard Rodgers Theatre the opening night of The Heart Mattered. One that I knew I had taken down when I moved in the week before. It was in storage, along with the vase that was now on the table and the colorful porcelain peacocks on the windowsill she’d bought in Morocco.
And then I noticed the calendar on the coffee table. I could’ve sworn I threw it out, and I knew Aunt Analea had stopped keeping track of the days, but not for seven years . . .
“Well, I think that’s all of my things. I’ll leave the groceries in the refrigerator,” he added, a duffel bag over his shoulder as he came out of my aunt’s room, but I barely noticed him. My chest felt tighter.
I could barely breathe.
Seven years—why was the calendar set to seven years ago?
And where were my things? The boxes I’d yet to unpack that were in the corner? And the pictures I’d hung up on the walls?
Had he moved my things? Put them somewhere to mess with me?
He paused in the living room. “Are you . . . okay?”
No. No, I wasn’t.
I sat down—hard—on the couch, curling my fingers so tightly around Jeff Goldblum’s face that the sequins began to crinkle. I started noticing all of the little things, now—because my aunt never changed anything in her apartment, so when something went missing or changed, it was easy to tell. The curtains that she’d thrown away three years ago after a cat she brought in off the street peed on them. The Saint Dolly Parton candle on the coffee table that set fire to her feather boa robe, both tossed out the window. The afghan I’d covered up with last night that should’ve been boxed up and put into the hall closet.
There were so many things that were here that weren’t here anymore.
Including . . .
My eyes fell on the wingback chair the color of robin’s egg. The chair that was no longer there. That shouldn’t be there. Because—because it was where—
“My aunt. Did she say where she went?” I asked, my voice wobbling, even though I already knew. If it was seven years ago, she’d be . . .
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Um, I think she said Norway?”
Norway. Running from walruses and taking photos of glaciers and looking up train tickets down to Switzerland and Spain, nursing a bottle of vintage wine she’d bought from a corner store across from our hostel.
Black spots began to eat at the edges of my vision. I couldn’t get a deep enough breath. It felt like there was something lodged in my throat, and there wasn’t enough air, and my lungs wouldn’t cooperate, and—
“Shit,” he whispered, dropping his duffel. “What’s wrong? What can I do?”
“Air,” I gasped. “I need—I need fresh—I need—”
To leave. To never come back. To sell this apartment and move halfway across the world and—
In two strides, he was over to the window.
Alarmed, I shook my head. “No, not—!”
He threw it open.
What came next was something out of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Because my aunt took care in naming everything that she adopted. The rat that lived in her walls for a few years? Wallbanger. The cat she adopted that pissed on her curtains? Free Willy. The generation of pigeons that roosted on her AC for as long as I’d been alive?
Two blurs of gray and blue darted into the apartment with savage coos. “Motherfu—” the man cried, shielding his face.
They came in like bats out of hell, rats of the night, vengeful terrors.
“The pigeons!” I cried. One of them landed with a hard thud on the countertop, the other took a round in the living room before landing in my hair. The claws scratched my scalp, getting tangled in my already knotted hair. “Get it out!” I cried. “Get it off me!”
“Hold still!” he cried, grabbing the pigeon by the body, and gently coaxed it out of my hair. It didn’t want to let go. I debated whether or not to shave off my entire head in that moment. But his hands were gentle, and it made my panicked heart in my throat beat a little more rationally. “I got it, I got it, there’s a good girl,” he murmured in a soft, low voice, though I wasn’t sure whether it was to the pigeon or to me.
I was glad he couldn’t see the blush that inched up my cheeks.
Then—we were free. I scrambled away from the pigeon, behind the couch, while he held it at arm’s length.
“What do I do?” he asked hesitantly.
“Release it!”
“I just caught it!”
I mimed throwing it. “OUT THE WINDOW!”
The pigeon whirled its head around like the girl from The Exorcist and blinked at him. He made a face and threw it out the window. It took flight into the air and left for the opposite rooftop. He gave a sigh. The other pigeon blinked, cooing, as it waddled itself to the edge of the counter and nibbled on a piece of mail.