Chapter 260: [4.78] Room 214
I let it ring four times. Five. Six. My thumb hovered between the green button and the red one. On the seventh ring, I answered.
"Isaiah." Her voice was warm the way it always was, the kind of warm that made you forget she’d stolen grocery money and disappeared for two years. "You answered."
"I answered."
"I wasn’t sure you would."
"Neither was I."
Silence filled the line. I could hear something in the background, traffic maybe, or wind. She was outside somewhere. I imagined her standing on a California sidewalk with her hair blowing in that effortless way she had, looking twenty-eight instead of thirty-six, looking like someone who’d never abandoned two kids in a Kensington apartment with three hundred dollars less than they’d started with.
"I’m staying at the Kensington Inn," she said. "Room 214. I wanted you to know where I am."
"Okay."
"In case you want to talk. Or Iris wants to talk. I’m here through Wednesday."
Through Wednesday. Four days. She’d given herself a deadline, which was either responsible planning or a countdown to the next disappearance. With Diana it was impossible to tell.
"Iris wants to see you," I said, because it was true and because denying it would only punish Iris for Diana’s failures. "She mentioned lunch tomorrow."
"Tomorrow. Yes. I’d love that, baby."
The word baby landed on something raw inside my chest. She’d called me that when I was six and scared of thunderstorms. She’d called me that when I was ten and she was leaving for a date with whatever man of the month had promised to fix everything. She’d called me that in the text message she sent from California, the one that said You’ll be fine. You always are.
"Don’t call me that."
"Isaiah, I’m sor-"
"Noon. The diner on Frankford. Iris likes their pancakes."
"Noon. Okay. Isaiah, can we-"
"I’ll let Iris know."
I hung up.
The ceiling stared back at me. The water stain in the corner had grown since last week, spreading outward in a slow brown bloom that the landlord would never fix because the landlord believed in the healing power of ignoring problems until they became someone else’s responsibility. A philosophy Diana had apparently internalized at the genetic level.
Iris appeared in the living room doorway. She’d changed into pajamas already, one of my old Queen shirts hanging to her knees, fuzzy socks with cats on them.
"That was Mom."
"That was Diana."
Iris let the distinction pass without comment. She’d learned to read the weather of my moods the same way sailors read the sky, and right now the forecast called for heavy silence with a chance of emotional collapse.
"Noon tomorrow?" she asked.
"Frankford diner. Your pancakes."
"You’re coming?"
"Someone has to make sure she actually shows up."
Iris crossed the living room and sat on the arm of the couch. Gerald’s horn poked into her ribs but she didn’t adjust. She just sat there, fourteen years old and wiser than any kid should be, looking at me with those dark eyes we shared.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don’t thank me yet."
"Thank you for answering the phone. I know you didn’t want to."
She slid off the arm of the couch and padded back toward her room, Gerald forgotten on the cushion beside me. The apartment settled around us in its familiar sounds. Pipes groaning. Traffic outside. The specific hum of our refrigerator that had developed a personality disorder around month six and now alternated between purring and screaming at random intervals.
I closed my eyes. My phone lit up.
The group chat. Vivienne had sent a detailed itinerary for the festival week with color-coded time blocks for setup, rehearsal, and the actual event. Harlow had responded with forty-seven heart emojis and a question about whether the fog machine needed a specific type of liquid. Cassidy sent a single message: I will wear whatever I want, Vivienne.
Sabrina sent nothing to the group. Instead, a private message appeared.
How was the drive.
I typed back: Long. Quiet. Iris named the unicorn Gerald.
A good name. How is the apartment.
The same. Water stain grew.
Three dots appeared and disappeared. Appeared again.
Your mother called.
The sentence sat on my screen for a long time. I read it four times. She hadn’t asked a question, which meant she already knew the answer. Because Sabrina always knew the answer. She collected information the way other people collected hobbies, passively and constantly, until the accumulation formed a picture that nobody else could see.
Yeah. She’s here through Wednesday.
Three dots.
Do you want company.
The question hit differently than it would have a week ago. Before the car confession and the breakfast chaos and the alcove and all the rest of it, company from Sabrina meant a book and silence and the comfortable nothing of two people existing in the same space. Now it meant something else. Something bigger. Something that included Cassidy’s teeth on my lip and Harlow’s voice note and Vivienne’s fingers on my collar and whatever Sabrina herself was building between us with her stolen security footage and her careful, quiet patience.
I’m okay.
I know. I didn’t ask if you were okay. I asked if you wanted company.
The distinction mattered. Sabrina’s distinctions always mattered.
Maybe later.
I’ll be here.
I set the phone on the coffee table and stared at the ceiling. Four girls. One mom. One sister. One apartment with a water stain spreading across the ceiling like a map of every problem I couldn’t solve with graph paper and poker chips.
Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Five days until the festival. Five days of setup and rehearsal and fog machines and vampire costumes and whatever chaos the Valentine sisters were engineering in my absence.
Five days of tutoring Cassidy through practice problems via FaceTime while she wore those glasses that made her eyes look bigger and more dangerous. Five days of Harlow sending me photos of costume alterations and asking for my opinion on the placement of cape clasps with the seriousness of a NATO summit.
Five days of Vivienne emailing revised schedules at midnight with subject lines like FINAL VERSION (v.17) and passive-aggressive notes about response time expectations. Five days of Sabrina sending me exactly one message per day, always at the same time, always saying exactly enough and never more.
The week happened whether I was ready for it or not.
