She sighed. “Then I suppose we continue this horrible dance.”
He nodded, the silence settling between them as he processed her response. “Do you really mean to go on this way forever?”
“No,” she said decisively. “Not forever.”
It was the way she said it that made him understand. He withdrew, his face becoming masklike. “Ah. The boy.”
“He’s a bit more than a boy,” Nella said defensively.
“Time will take its course,” Death said gently. “There’ll be a moment when I have no choice.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “There’s no way I can end a world with a piece of her still in it.”
Death stood, discombobulated, skin tingling—he no longer had a reason to stay, but he didn’t want to leave her.
The front door opened and slammed. “Jimi, are you here? I’ve got bagels.”
“I’ll stay away. For a long while,” Death said quietly, fading into the shadows. He meant it as a kindness even as it devastated him.
“We’ll have to see, won’t we.”
He winked out of sight just as the door opened and Winston entered, bag in hand. “Everything okay, Jimi? I thought I heard someone talking.”
Nella shook her head, unsettled. “I was on the phone. Just an old friend.”
Present Day
Savannah, June
Thirty
Idrag a hand across my face. Midmorning arrived, and Sebastian is still here, listening to it all, recording and asking questions. He was barely able to contain himself when I talked about MLK, the boycotts, and all the movements, but he listened the entire time.
“I’m so sorry, Nella,” he says, his words comforting. Talking about it makes the pain fresh.
Tears splash down, trailing down my arm. “It was just so unfair. I don’t know why I thought we were above it somehow. When Death said ‘years,’ I thought it would be decades.”
“Did he try to talk to you, at least? Make it right?”
“Not then. If he had ...” I don’t finish the thought, catching myself in time. I feel like Death plucked the light out of my life and left me shrouded in darkness, all to force me to give in, his desire to win our bet pushing him to force my hand. “That’s why this is a curse, Sebastian. I am destined to lose everyone I love, but I’m forced to keep finding evidence that life is worth living.”
“But does it always have to end that way?”
I pull the wooden sun from the chest, the stain mottled red, deep cracks visible. Does it always have to end that way? That had certainly been the case, though Death had gone to extra trouble with Diego. The carved sun’s old wood glue chips under my fingertips as I turn back to Sebastian.
“Yes, Sebastian. I’ve lived too long for there to be any other conclusion.”
“What happened the next time you saw him?”
I close my eyes at this, remembering the pain.
Part VII: Buenos Aires
The Golden Sun—2005
Thirty-One
Iprayed for death after burying Gabby. The light inside me extinguished as the graveyard men piled dirt on her coffin. I gripped Winston’s hand as we watched our beloved, the heart of our little family, disappear into the ground, never to be seen again. I stood there until the last ray of sunlight left the sky before allowing Winston to lead me back to our car.
