Like he really was glad Josie was feeling better, not just because she was an asset to our group, but because he cared about her.

“Three days!” Josie said quietly, shaking her head.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CEREMONY

One week before the ceremony, I’d say I would have been about as likely to read an original poem in front of my classmates as I would have been to stand under Astrid’s window and serenade her with a mariachi band.

But a week can change everything and now I was going to read a poem.

The poem had come to me in the middle of the night. I groped for my journal. I wrote furiously, trying to get the poem down on paper. My pen scratching on the paper was the only sound in the dark, quiet store besides the distant hum of the refrigerators.

I fell back asleep, convinced I had written the most beautiful poem in the world. In my sleepy state, I was sure it would heal the world—this poem of mine.

Then I woke up in the morning to hear Batiste repeating everything Chloe said.

When I opened my journal to bask in my brilliance, it was, of course, total scribble scrabble. I could only make out a couple words. The pen drifted all over the page and the funny thing is that I had underlined, very emphatically, in several places, but there were no words above the underlines. Just lines with exclamation points after them.

So I pretty much had to start from scratch.

* * *

Hey, guess who cooked breakfast? Me and Alex. You would think everyone would have been tired of my half burnt–half raw delicacies, but they ate my cold yet crispy frozen waffles and blackened hash browns right up. At breakfast Josie told us the ceremony would be in the Bed and Bath area in one hour. She asked us not to go near there so she could finish setting it up.

“Do we get to dress up?” Caroline asked.

Max groaned and rolled his eyes.

“What? It’s a ceremony, right? Like church?” she asked.

“That’s a good idea, Caroline. Everyone get dressed up,” Josie said.

“Can I just wear this?” Brayden asked. He had on jeans and a sweatshirt.

Josie looked pointedly to Jake. She waited.

Jake cleared his throat.

“I think we should all dress up,” Jake said to Brayden. “You know, show respect.”

* * *

I gave myself a good once-over with baby wipes and put on fresh clothes. I retrieved my journal from where I’d left it in my sleeping bag. I was looking over my poem, fretting about some word or comma or something, when I heard wind chimes.

“What’s that sound?” came little Henry’s voice.

He climbed out of the toy-box playhouse that he and his sister had made. Caroline came right behind him.

“Um, wind chimes,” I said. “I think Josie is making that sound to tell us it’s time to go to the ceremony.”

“Our mom loves those things,” Henry told me, taking my hand. “She has like five of them and they hang in the garden out back. They get all tangled up in the winter but she always goes and straightens them out. She just loves the sound of ’em.”

“I know,” I said. “We can hear them from our yard.”

My mom called their mom a hippie because of all her wind chimes, but I wasn’t about to say that.

“Our mommy says they sound like fairy music,” Caroline added.

“Hey!” Henry said. “Do you think we could get some for her? Take them with us when it’s time to go?”

“That’s a good present,” Caroline added, nodding.

“Sure,” I said. “You can take her two wind chimes, if you want. One from each of you.”

The twins grinned at each other.

They had chosen matching dress-up clothes for themselves. Henry in black pants, a plaid shirt, and a sweater vest. Caroline in a little plaid dress that matched Henry’s shirt and tights and shiny black shoes.

They had washed their freckled faces and combed their hair.

I thought, Who are these kids?

And what do they think is going on here?

He certainly didn’t ask to be picked up, but I hoisted up that little Henry anyway. He put his arms around my neck and it felt good. Caroline clung to my hand.

“I’m glad you’re here, Dean,” she said to me. “Because you’re our neighbor and we knew you from before.”

“Me, too,” I told her.

* * *

Josie had cleared a big space by pushing an aisle out of the way. This would have involved unbolting it from the ground, so I suspect Niko had a hand in the preparations.

She had tacked up some gold and orange ladies scarves over the fluorescent lights on the ceiling and that made a big difference. The light was soft and peachy and calming. There were a bunch of area rugs overlapping, covering the floor. A wide circle of pillows for us to sit on went around the edge of the space. In front of each pillow there was an unlit pillar candle. In the center there was this sort of decorated place with a big wall mirror lying flat, and some Christmas tree lights spread out and some kind of decorative crystal balls scattered among the lights.

It looked nice. Pretty.

“Please be seated,” Josie told me, Henry, and Caroline. We each sat on a pillow.

Chloe was sitting next to Josie and behind them the wind chimes were hung on the edge of the aisle divider. Every so often Josie would nod to Chloe and Chloe would stroke the wind chimes with a little mallet.

Jake and Brayden ambled over. They both bore some signs of the fistfight they’d had with Niko the day before. A little bruising here, some scrape marks there. Jake looked a little queasy and I noticed they both shielded their eyes from the Christmas tree lights.

You know you have a hangover when Christmas tree lights hurt your eyes.

Brayden looked at the setup and made a sarcastic grimace. To his credit, he didn’t snort or say anything derisive. I’m sure it was a challenge not to be a dick.

Niko entered the circle. I hadn’t heard him coming. You never heard him coming. Must have been a Boy Scout thing. He looked slightly better than he did the night before. But maybe it was just the candlelight making him glowy.

Niko sat down across the circle from Jake and Brayden. I saw them meet one another’s eyes and look away. An uneasy look, an appraising look.

Sahalia came carrying a guitar, of all things. She was wearing white jeans and several white shirts, all flowing over each other. She looked beautiful and very pure. No makeup. Respectful.

I tell you, just when you think you know someone, she shows up looking pretty and carrying a guitar.

She sat cross-legged and put the guitar behind her, darting her eyes over to Jake and Brayden, to see if they were going to make fun of her for the guitar. Jake didn’t look at her. Brayden smirked at her, half mocking, half (I don’t know) flirting?

Chloe kept jangling the wind chimes until everyone had arrived and there was only one empty space: Astrid’s.

“Where’s Astrid?” Max asked. “Isn’t she coming?”

And the kids started joining in, asking for her.

“Let’s call her,” Josie suggested. “Maybe she’ll come.”

And the kids started yelling. “Astrid! Astrid!”

Chloe turned and started whacking the wind chimes real loud.

Astrid didn’t come.

I was really hoping she would. She had been gone for about twenty-four hours, at that point.

I knew Astrid was safe. There was nowhere she could go. But I also knew she must be beating herself up about what had happened in the bathroom with Batiste.

And she was going to have to get over it. She’d just have to.

Batiste sat there, still and pale. The bruises around his neck were blue and brown. It looked like he was dirty at the neck, which he probably was, anyway.

Batiste didn’t call for Astrid. He hadn’t gotten over what had happened either. But he could. I assumed he could, anyway. After all, Alex had forgiven me. For the most part, anyway.

“I think she must be napping,” Josie said finally. “Let’s start and maybe she will join in.”

Chloe turned and struck the wind chimes again.

“Chloe, enough with the wind chimes,” Josie said.

“Sor-ry,” Chloe said under her breath.

Josie closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath. She opened her eyes and began.

“We are here to honor those who have died. We don’t know how many have gone. We don’t really even know what is going on outside. But we can pray for those who have passed and hold them in our hearts and help them go on up to Heaven.

“They don’t talk about Heaven very much at my church. It’s a UU church—that’s Unitarian Universalist—and the UU’s sort of believe in the ideas from a lot of religions, but don’t talk about Heaven and Hell and sins and all that.

“But I believe in Heaven. And that is where I see all the beautiful souls going. People from other religions believe other things. And that’s good. Whatever they believe about what happens after death, that’s what’s happening to them.

“We each make our own Heaven, that’s what I think.”

The little kids were starting to shift around and fidget.

Josie nodded to Sahalia.

Sahalia took out the guitar and strummed a few chords.

“This is one of my favorite songs,” Sahalia said. “It’s by Insect of Zero. I don’t know if you know it, but anyway, here it is.”

I didn’t know the song. I didn’t even know the band.

Sahalia started to sing and her voice was very gravelly and raspy. A satisfying voice. Like you had an itch in your ear and her voice could scratch it.

Here’s what she sang:

Birdies in the sky, go fly away from me.

Kitties on the couch, you cats just leave me be.

I’m in a biting mood, a fighting mood, a car-tire-lighting mood.

I need to sit here quietly.

If you know what is good,

you’ll stay away

And leave me be.

Fishies in the brook, don’t bite my hook today.

Doggies on the street, just go the other way.

I’m in a biting mood, a fighting mood, a car-tire-lighting mood.