LOGINChapter 181Rivera POV And I had sat across a kitchen table from a woman who wasn't Bianca and told myself I was tired.My son had known in Silver Moon.I'd known something was wrong tonight and had explained it away.The wrongness I'd felt at the kitchen table—the absence of the particular gravity that existed between Bianca and me, the thing that was made of time and honesty and the specific history of two people who had seen each other clearly. The absence of the breathing-out sound when she'd held Louis at the end of his bath.I hadn't known what I was feeling. Louis had known exactly what he was feeling and had named it with the precision of someone who'd been paying close attention to the right things.I put my hand on his shoulder. He was tense under it—the tension of a child who'd been carrying something too heavy for several days and was waiting to find out if the adult could take some of the weight."You did right," I said. "Telling me.""Is Mummy okay?" he asked.The quest
Chapter 180Rivera POV And I had sat across a kitchen table from a woman who wasn't Bianca and told myself I was tired.My son had known in Silver Moon.I'd known something was wrong tonight and had explained it away.The wrongness I'd felt at the kitchen table—the absence of the particular gravity that existed between Bianca and me, the thing that was made of time and honesty and the specific history of two people who had seen each other clearly. The absence of the breathing-out sound when she'd held Louis at the end of his bath.I hadn't known what I was feeling. Louis had known exactly what he was feeling and had named it with the precision of someone who'd been paying close attention to the right things.I put my hand on his shoulder. He was tense under it—the tension of a child who'd been carrying something too heavy for several days and was waiting to find out if the adult could take some of the weight."You did right," I said. "Telling me.""Is Mummy okay?" he asked.The quest
Chapter 179RIVERA He was awake.Not upset—not sitting up or distressed or reaching for me. Just lying on his back with his eyes open, looking at the ceiling in the particular way he had when he was thinking about something and had decided that the ceiling was the appropriate surface to think at.I came into the room and sat on the edge of his bed, the way I'd done hundreds of times across five years of nights. The mattress dipped slightly with my weight and he turned his head toward me."Hey," I said quietly."Hey." His voice was awake enough that I wondered how long he'd been lying there."Thought you were asleep.""I was thinking," he said."What about?"He was quiet for a moment. The particular quiet he used when he was choosing how to say something—finding the words that were closest to the thing he actually meant. He was careful about this. Had been since he was very small, had always seemed to understand that the gap between what you meant and what you said mattered."Daddy,"
Chapter 178RIVERAWe came home to a house that smelled like itself.That was the first thing I noticed when I unlocked the front door and pushed it open—the particular smell of our home, which was a combination of Louis's things and Bianca's things and the specific quality of a space that had been lived in by specific people long enough that it held their presence even when they weren't in it. Coffee and the particular soap Bianca used and Louis's inexplicable preference for leaving his shoes directly in the path of anyone entering the house.Louis walked in past me and went immediately to check on the night watch, which he'd left in formation on his windowsill before we'd departed for Silver Moon and had apparently been thinking about at intervals throughout our time away. I heard him on the stairs, his footsteps quick with purpose.I set down the bags.The house was quiet in the way houses were quiet when you returned to them after time away—not empty, but waiting. The specific hus
Chapter 177MATTHEWHe was quiet for a moment, running his finger along the strap of his sleepover bag. "I feel like it's okay to be excited about things again," he said. "Like, before, when something was good, I felt bad about it being good. Because Mama wasn't there for it." He paused, finding the words with the careful effort he always brought to hard things. "But I talked to Dr. Fisher about it and she said that Mama would want me to have good things. That the good things aren't—" He paused again. "She said the good things aren't happening instead of Mama. They're happening alongside missing her."I looked at my son."Does that make sense?" he asked."Yes," I said. "That makes complete sense.""So I let myself be excited." He looked at his bag. "I think Mama would think Biscuit sounds like a good dog.""I think she would too," I said."She liked dogs," he said. "She told me once, when we walked past a big one on the street, that she'd always wanted one but they'd never had one." H
Chapter 176 MATTHEW "So the dinosaurs should be safe." He buckled himself in with the efficient speed of someone who wanted to be buckled in so they could continue talking. "I've put the most important ones in the keep-at-home category, like we discussed. The middle-importance ones I'm bringing. And I'm bringing the Brachiosaurus specifically because it's the largest and if Biscuit has to carry something in his mouth I'd rather it be the one I'm least attached to." "That's strategic thinking," I said, pulling out of the drop-off zone. "I thought so too." He looked at me in the rearview mirror with the studied casualness of someone who was trying not to look like they were about to ask the question they were about to ask. "Have you thought about it any more?" I had thought about it. Had spent part of the morning thinking about it, running through the relevant factors in the way I ran through most things now—not just the fear version, not just the worst-case scenario version, but t
Chapter 138BIANCA I didn't know that man. Had no way of knowing whether the transformation was real or performed.But Theo did.Theo was living with him, talking to Dr. Fisher about him, calling him from school when he was frightened because he trusted his father to come.That was something.My p
Chapter 117THEOIt was a picture of me and Mama at the park. She was pushing me on the swings, and we were both smiling. Really smiling, and laughing with me. Not the fake kind that she put on, when she was with Mia or people she didn't like.I thought all the pictures of Mama were gone forever an
Chapter 11BIANCALooking at Louis who looked at me, a bit frightened about the test, made my maternal heart ache a bit as I shook my head and gave him a reassuring smile."Not at all. You might feel a little warm, like sitting in sunshine, but it won't hurt you. I promise."I glanced at the door,
Chapter 9: BIANCA I woke to an empty bed as usual. Matthew had been sleeping in his office ever since he and Mia started that ridiculous bucket list, he claimed it was because of pack business that kept him up late and he did not want to bother me, but I knew better. He was avoiding me, and being







