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sisters howls of mourning.
I m so sorry, he said, spreading his hands. I m so sorry I couldn t& We lost him.
The tumor was too&
His voice was tight. He shuddered a little, so slightly, but Kat saw it.
He s gone. I m sorry. There was always a risk. The tumor was His hands fell at
his sides, helpless. I m so sorry.
Her sisters fell on Elena and wept. The husbands cried silently in that stolid manner
men have, still tending the children with the robotic efficiency of necessity. A searing
pain crippled Kat so that she couldn t move. Gone. How could he be gone just like that?
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Fortune
Ryan still stood across the room, the deliverer of doom. The interloper. She knew
she should go to him and tell him it was okay, that it wasn t his fault. That he shouldn t
be sorry for trying to help them. Some impulsive realization reached her through all the
pain and shock. Just as he turned to go, she flew across the room and caught his arm.
He looked down at her. There was a tension in the arm she held, a fathomless cast
to his dark gaze. He cupped her face. I m sorry, doll. I tried. His hand dropped away
and he moved again to the door. I can t stay. I have to finish his chart.
After he left, after they completed the excruciating exercise of saying goodbye to
Dmitri s body, Kat went home with her family. The house had a feeling of quiet
unreality. As she walked through the rooms it felt as if she were trespassing in another
family s home. And Dmitri s small TV room, with his worn recliner& No one could
bear to go near it. His absence haunted them like a ghost.
Ryan s absence haunted her too. He didn t come, not even when it neared
midnight. At last, Kat left to go find him. She found him sitting up on the side of his bed
in darkness, in silence. She went to him, uncertain of his mood, but he turned and
pulled her into a gentle, enveloping embrace.
He d been drinking. She could smell it on him. Are you mad at me? she
whispered.
No. Of course not. Why would I be mad at you? His words slurred a little. He
frightened her this way because it was so unlike him to drink. She shrank away but he
held her.
Kat s head hurt and her eyes ached from crying. His somber misery dragged her
down even deeper into sadness, like a weight on her heart. Bleak grief was choking her,
drowning her, and Ryan, her buoy, was dark in the night. I m sorry I asked you to&
She couldn t say it. I I shouldn t have. I shouldn t have asked you to
You were right, Kat. It s all bullshit. His gruff, toneless voice startled her.
What& what s bullshit?
All of it. Love. Hope. Wishes. He made a sibilant sound of frustration and then he
laughed. You know what it comes down to, Kat? Blood and physiology. Cells.
Reality. He groped her between the legs, an awkward aggressive pressure. She pushed
away from him and he stood, dumping her from his lap. His arms rose at his sides and
he stood over her like a furious dark angel. This is it, Kat. This is what we have. And
this stupid shit
He lurched for the cranes in the corner, the mass of strings alive with wings and
delicate beaks. Cranes. Luck. Good fortune. Bullshit! His hands tore at the paper
chains, stripping the glossy creations from their anchor, pulling them down, shredding
them, crushing them. He spun on her. You believed! When it suited you, you believed.
What do you think now?
Kat shook her head, speechless. She watched his fists close on the broken cranes in
his hand and something inside her felt crushed and broken too. She backed away from
the man she didn t know, this man she didn t recognize, and she ran.
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Annabel Joseph
* * * * *
Kat fled down the streets of Cambridge until she ran out of breath, until her lungs
ached and then she walked, blowing convulsive breaths of condensation into the cold
night air. She didn t have her coat but she barely felt the weather. She welcomed the
numbness. Her walk slowed to an amble. She stopped, finding herself in a familiar
place.
She gazed up at the marquee of Masquerade. An effusive group of college-aged
partygoers nudged past her and pushed her forward toward the ropes. One of the
bouncers smiled at her. Hey. Long time no see. You coming in?
Kat looked down at herself, her jeans and tee, her hospital waiting room clothes.
She didn t even have her purse with her. I don t have ID, she said, holding up her
hands. Her voice sounded strange and robotic.
The other bouncer shrugged. We know who you are. Come in out of the cold.
They led Kat under the rope, comped her in. Their kindness resonated in the
emptiness of her mood, made her want to cry some more. The darkness, the smoke and
music crawled over her, coating her in a familiar film. How long had it been since she d
been here? Several months by now. It seemed like a lifetime. She felt out of place as she
crossed to the stairs and climbed up to the balcony. She remembered the first time
they d talked there.
You re monitoring my vices?
Should I be?
She remembered falling down the stairs and looking up to find him leaning over
her. That was the first time she d noticed that intensity in his eyes, the intensity he d
just turned on her in his bedroom, ripping down cranes and raging over& What? The
helplessness of life. So many wishes unanswered. Even if you knew the future, like her
mother, it didn t make it any easier to cope with when it arrived.
The view from the balcony was different, so different now. Kat went to the
restroom just before one but Marla wasn t there. It was some other woman Kat didn t
know. Kat slunk out the door, having no money to leave a tip anyway, thinking of what
may have befallen Marla. Car accident? Aneurysm? A particularly aggressive brain
tumor like her father? The dance floor was crowded now, the music almost painfully
loud. Kat pushed her way through the undulating throng, then looked up into the eyes
of a guy she remembered, although she couldn t recall his name. She ducked her head,
changing direction, avoiding his grasping fingers, only to see another guy she d been
with once upon a time. She forced her way to the stairs, climbed to the balcony and
huddled in the back corner, shaking with something like fear.
Those boys. She had been so empty back then, back when she d played around with
those boys. So miserable. Not the misery of sadness she felt now, but an encompassing,
smothering misery that had nearly consumed her life. She didn t want that again. She
wanted Ryan. She wanted fun and trust and that closeness he forced on her that scared
her and made her feel alive. She thought of crushed cranes and his empty eyes and she
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Fortune
knew she d ruined everything. She d lost everything. She turned her face to the wall
and let the stinging tears come.
She d lost all the things she never even realized she had.
* * * * *
When she d left, he d had the urge to drink more, to really finish the self-
destruction he d started. But then his gaze had fallen on the mass of cranes. He hated
those cranes for betraying him, for betraying Kat. For not living up to the magic he
believed in. Even half-drunk, he realized his mistake. He realized there was only one
way to save the relationship and it wasn t folded paper.
He gathered up every crane, one thousand in all, and stuffed them into a trash bag.
It felt slightly depraved, slightly murderous, but he did it anyway. He took the bag
down to the dumpster and flung it in, bringing the lid down with a bang and then set
out to the club district, newly sober.
He knew she had walked and he had a pretty good idea where she would end up.
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