Page 5 of Forget Me Not
A few days later, Syve and Aimi braved the weather and made the eighty-mile drive north to Bozeman to raid the fabric store. But when they returned, Syve’s entire world had ended.
She had left her home to the tune of laughter and came back to the sound of sirens. Every penny she owned had gone toward repairing the loft and funeral expenses. Any cent left after that didn’t matter anymore.
The day after the funeral, she had tossed her notebook into the closet under the stairs and put herself on autopilot. Her dreams went untouched as her life changed forever—frozen in time. It never even crossed her mind to finish the project.
“Do you still have the plans?” Aimi probed.
“They’re…in the closet…” Syve sat down on the loveseat by the window. “Do you think I should? I mean, the main reason I was doing this was forthem…” She placed her head in her hands and sighed.
“I think they would want you to try.” Aimi smiled, then clapped loudly. “Right, you need to drink on this! Now let’s lock this shit up so we can go get drunk like we’re still twenty-one. Cam will be here any minute—”
Syve cut her off. “Cameron is likely already upstairs, since she uses the loft entrance like a normal visitor.” She gave her best friend a pointed look as she reached for the broom.
“Ha! Girl. You know I’manythingbut normal.” Aimi laughed, skipping away when Syve swung the broom at her.
Once the floor had been swept, counters wiped, trash taken out, and the door firmly locked, they migrated to the loft. As Syve had guessed, Cameron was already there, with various bowls overflowing with snacks and three large cups filled to the brim with what she could safely assume to be red wine.
Weekly girl’s days had been mandatory for the entire eight years Syve and Aimi had been friends. Cameron had only been in the fray for two and a half years—ever since she met Syve through their shared midwife. After Noah was born, Syve quickly determined that when it came to breast milk,she was an overproducer. One chat with the midwife about donating led to a meeting with Cameron, an underproducing mother whose daughter, Kayla, was born a week after Noah. Syve successfully fed both babies for an entire year, and the two mothers had been friends ever since.
“K-drama, Dukes, or Doctors?” Cam asked, tossing the remote to Aimi. Though none of them could likely explain when or why it happened, this one question had always served as the bottle breaking—sending the ship to sea. The ship being a twenty-minute debate over which series was the best choice to turn on—regardless of the fact they never actuallywatchedthe TV—and always ended with Aimi turning on Twilight. By the time Aimi started arguing about how a purple bedspreadwas, in fact, a safe choice, Cam would have a basket of nail polish out and be well into painting all of their nails. Before the night was over, Aimi would have Syve’s laundry in the dryer, Cam would have the loft cleaned up and Syve herself would be asleep on the couch.
“You should totally see if there’s a way to lock the thermostat so it can’t go any higher than sixty-nine degrees!” Cam laughed, throwing herself back into the couch cushions.
“Gunther would blow a gasket if he couldn’t set the temp to match his throne down in Hell,” Aimi added, making mock explosions with her hands. “Also, sixty-nine, nice.” The two women shared a high-five, giggling like teenagers.
“You are both forgetting he’s a total dick and would break it just trying to bully it into working.” Syve sighed and threw a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
“Babe, I know he’s Erhard’s cousin, but youdon’thave to put up with his bullshit,” Aimi chided.
“I know, but he’s grieving too. Just...in his own way—isn’t this what family does? Tolerate each other’s bullshit?” Or was it just what she thought she deserved? Who was she to complain about being annoyed? At least she was alive…
Aimi rolled her eyes, waving dismissively at Syve with a fist full of Cheetos.
“Okay, okay,” Cam chided, “enough about Gunther and his…antics—grieving or not.” She aimed the last bit at Syve, who had opened her mouth again to correct her. “Have you still been having that weird recurring dream?”
Syve winced and then slid off the couch onto the floor with a dramatic exhale. “Yeah, every single night still. Why?”
“Because I love you, but you look like hell. I can tell you’re not sleeping—more than you already weren’t. I’m worried about you, is all.” Cam stretched a long leg out and nudged Syve with her foot.
“I’m fine, thank you for worrying, but please don’t. No, I’m not sleeping great, but I’m sure it’s just stress.” Stress—as if you could put a label on the feeling that came with the first anniversary of your family’s death. “Maybe I need to lay off the caffeine…”
Aimi gasped andbegan choking on her wine.
“Decaf, Aimi! I could still drink coffee! Just, decaf!”
The guttural whine that followed let Syve know that actually only made the matter worse.
Bastien
“Snowisjustabunch of bullshit,” Bastien grumbled as he stomped back into the house, propping the window scraper against the wall before kicking his boots off.
“Oh, quit bitchin’ and get in here for breakfast,” his mother’s voice called from the kitchen. “And thank you for getting the car warmed up,Mijo.”
“If you would just let me take Del to school in the mornings, Mama, I wouldn’t even need to warm the car up for you.” His tone gave away how exasperated he was, not that it mattered. This was a conversation they had argued over a dozen times already—and he had never won. Soriah just waved him off with a knobby hand while piling eggs, hashbrowns, and bacon onto his plate. She wore her winter usual: an old, worn black apron over a chunky sweater, black slacks, and a pair of house slippers. Her once-black hair—long since gone white—was neatly braided and hung well past the hem of her sweater. Soriah had only just celebrated her sixty-fifth birthday, but the years had been unkind, their weight showing in the form of many wrinkles and her now-hunched frame.
“You know what I will let you do, is go wake up that lazy sister of yours.” She joked with a light pat to his shoulder. “She could sleep through the end of the world, I swear.”
“Honestly, Mama, you spoil her. You should make her get up and get to school herself! What’s going to happen next year when she goes off to college?” Bas exhaled and hung his head as soon as the words were out of his mouth. It had been two years and four months since his brother had been killed, but it might as well have been two days and four hours, as far as his mother was concerned.
