Edge of Dark Read Free Page B

you, mom. I will. So much.” Marcelle’s hand was cold, the fingers almost turned to claws. “It’s going to be hard.” A whine edged Nona’s voice, and she hated whiners.
    She’d survive this. Somehow. She didn’t want Marcelle to remember her whining.
    She stood and stretched, taking a deep breath. “Do you want some music?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned on some of Marcelle’s favorite music, traditional songs from the old revolution that Nona had never really liked. But this wasn’t her last moment. It was her mom’s. Or close. On the way in—hours ago now—the nurses had told her to expect death. They’d taken her aside and said, “A day or two. That’s all. Maybe less. Do you want support?”
    She’d laughed at them, playing tough. “I’ll be okay. Really.” They had been steady, looking back at her with no comment. They were always steady, full of the angelic beatitude of hospice nurses. It didn’t help that they worshipped Marcelle. And Ruby, whose dolorous and dead voice filled the room.
    â€œHoney?”
    Nona turned at the unexpected sound of her mother’s voice. Marcelle looked stronger than she had for days. “Yes?” Nona took her mom’s hand again. It felt cold and still, as if her hand had already lost contact with her heart. “Yes?”
    â€œRemember what you promised your dad?”
    She nodded. A tear she hadn’t even felt landed on the back of her hand. “I do.”
    â€œWe didn’t tell you.” She stopped and swallowed, her hand gripping Nona’s almost as strongly as she used to. “There’s enough for you to go. You can go to Lym. There’s more than we ever told you.”
    Nona had planned to go anyway. She’d saved enough for a volunteer’s passage. She’d studied the ecosystem to make herself worth putting on the list. She leaned down and kissed her mom on the forehead. “I’ll go find a sky, mom. I can’t promise I’ll stay on Lym, but I promise to see a sunset. For dad.”
    â€œGo. For. You.” Marcelle’s voice faded a little. Then she gripped and pulled so that she was sitting up, the muscles of arms that had been too weak to hold a cup somehow holding her up as she clutched Nona’s arm. “Satyana. See Satyana.”
    â€œOkay, mom.”
    â€œPromise?”
    â€œI promise. I’ll go find Satyana.”
    â€œDo you see her?”
    â€œSatyana?”
    â€œNo. Ruby.”
    Her mom had been claiming she saw her old friend in the corners of the room for three days now. A ghost. A memory. Ruby had seen Nona born, had held her once. But Nona had no memory at all of her famous ancestor. Or sort-of ancestor. Whatever. She’d actually never been able to sort out the relationship between Ruby and Marcelle and Onor. They guarded that time in their emotional lives, the only clues pictures of the three of them in infinite varieties of twosomes.
    At best, Marcelle was seeing the past. She’d remembered scenes from Nona’s childhood, birthday parties and trips to garden habs that Nona didn’t remember even after Marcelle recited every detail down to the color of the wrapping on presents. “I’m sure Ruby’s there, mom. If you say she’s there, she must be there.”
    â€œI’m going to go with her now.”
    â€œOkay, mom.” Nona watched the light in her mom’s eyes dim. It took a long time. Over and over she whispered, “I love you,” like a mantra or a shield.
    When there was nothing left to do, Nona braced herself for the stab of loss that came when her dad died.
    It didn’t come. Not exactly. Instead she felt thinned and raw, insubstantial.
    Marcelle slipped down her arm, the strength gone from her fingers. Nona caught her gently, laying the shell of her mother down on the bed and then sitting and staring at her face, unable