"What are you doing here?" she asks, blinking a few times. "I haven't seen you in forever."
I just stare at her. First, I'm struck with the realization my aunt could likely be the youngest resident here. In my trip to her room, I didn't pass a single person, aside from employees, who looked under the age of seventy. My aunt, on the other hand, is in her early fifties, and takes really good care of her appearance. Her face is smoothed out with makeup and her hair is a vibrant strawberry blonde that doesn't show any signs of graying.
Seeing how healthy she looks surprises me. I didn't expect her to appear so put together. Something loosens over my chest, a pressure I didn't realize was there until this very moment. She waves me over and I sit on the edge of her bed, facing her.
"I only have a few minutes," she says, "but I'm so glad you came by. How are you?"
The beginning of her statement strikes me as strange, but I assume there's some scheduled activity for the residents coming up soon.
"I've been really busy with school," I say. "But I wanted to come and check in on you."
Her eyes remain glued to my face as I speak, taking in the details of it in a curious way. The longer I look at her the more I wonder if she even knows who I am.
"I'm glad you did. Tell me, what's new?" she asks, sitting up with interest.
"Well, I'm about to start summer session soon and I've landed an internship at the university, starting in the fall."
I leave out what a miracle that was, considering I still had a thin layer of blue tint on my teeth during the interview. No one at the chancellor's office asked about it or even so much as stared. I wondered if maybe I had acted so casually that they didn't even notice.
"But that's enough about me. Are you happy here? This place is really nice."
My aunt's eyes light up. "I love it here, the staff is great. Really, the most competent people I've ever dealt with."
"I'm glad. I'm sure it's a relief for Ava that you're happy."
"Ava?" she asks, with a dismissive laugh. "Ava's just a baby, do you really think she'd care?"
"Do you...?" I hesitate, not wanting to upset her. "Do you know who I am?"
She tilts her head at me as if I've just said the most ridiculous thing in the world. "What sort of question is that, Finn?"
Finn. Finnegan Caldwell.
She thinks I'm her brother. My father.
Whatever was squeezing my chest before wraps its cold grip around my heart and tugs, and I'm on my feet before I even know why.
She looks at me, alarmed, then gets to her feet as well and takes a step toward me. "Are you all right? Finn, you look strange."
"I'm not..." I trail off again, remembering what Ava's told me. She's had to pretend to be someone else, because trying to convince my aunt that she was her daughter only upset my aunt and made everything much worse. I swallow, before fixing a smile on my lips and continuing, "I can't stay long, either. I just came to say hi."
"Oh good, my shift starts in fifteen minutes," she says, relieved.
Her shift? My aunt used to be a nurse. When she first started showing symptoms, Ava thought she could handle my aunt's care from home, but quickly realized she was in over her head when my aunt disappeared for twelve full hours. Someone found her wandering the streets at night, looking for a clinic that hasn't existed in twenty years.
In this facility, my aunt has round the clock care and a schedule full of activities to help keep her entertained and comfortable. It seems, though, her primary source of comfort might come from the delusion she works here.
She takes my hand and says, "For a minute there, I was worried you came to tell me you were deploying again."
"No," I say, "I'm not deploying."
"Good." She pats my hand then gives it a squeeze. "I worry about you, Finn. I know we don't always get along, but I do worry about you so much. God, every time you come back it's like another part of you has died back there. But you look good, today. Healthier."
A thick and uncomfortable sensation crawls into my stomach, seething there. There's a part of me that knows I owe her the truth of what happened to her brother and how he died. But what good would the truth do? It would just cause her pain and turmoil and confusion. She'd ask questions I couldn't answer because I don't have answers, either.
So, I nod, not knowing what else to do. "Don't worry. Don't worry about anything, okay?"
As I leave the room, it hits me for the first time that Ava's lost her mother. Not in the same way I lost my father, but in a way that leaves no room to mourn, or seek comfort from others. Because how do you mourn the living? How do you mourn the mother who doesn't even recognize you as her daughter, but is still alive and happy in her own way?
If there's something I've learned, it's that no thing or person can ever be a permanent fixture in your life. It's impossible when the only true constant in life is change. And the most powerful agent of change is death.
My father showed me how easily a person can disappear from your life, leaving behind nothing but the increasingly hazy memory that they were ever there in the first place. My mother showed me the same, in her own way. And the date representing both events looms closer and closer, like time is rolling down a hill and picking up traction with every day that passes.
From the deep corners of my mind rises a familiar itch. The overpowering urge to set my mind on anything but its current thoughts. The craving for a distraction.
Chapter Sixteen
Julia
OVER THE PAST TWO WEEKS, both Giles and I have grown more observant and suspicious, which has made pranking a little more difficult. There have been many close calls and near misses, where one or both of us have narrowly avoided what the other laid out. But we've only grown more creative, often having to resort to more subtle forms of pranking.
For instance, after failing to prank me for a few days, Giles resorted to hiding all of my towels in his bathroom. A weak move on his part, but I went with the flow and hid all of his shoes in the last place he'd look--the trunk of his car. A few days later, I was lost in thought, already halfway through applying my favorite scented body lotion, when the vague awareness of the texture became a crashing realization. Giles replaced half of all my body lotions with lube.
Who in the hell even owns that much lube?
I had to get back in the shower, in an attempt to wash it off. But I quickly discovered the stuff is highly water resistant.