Page 102 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

“Why me, why you, why Felice?” she asked softly. “We could go around in circles forever. And we don’t have that time.”

She squeezed his hands tighter. Her words hung in the air, dismantling them both. Cutting through their false sense of calm.

“What will you do?” she asked. “You know. After.”

“I don’t know.” His voice was deep, raspy, pain etched in every syllable. “There is no after. I just see everything going blank.” He dropped his head into the hollow of her shoulder, breathing in herskin, her hair. “I won’t feel anything real ever again. Nothing will matter.”

Moments passed, and together they gazed up into the sky. The moon was so red. It looked disproportionately big and low. A blood moon. From their vantage point on the roof, it was a mesmerizing, surreal sight.

In her short time in Harlem, Ricki had come very close to living the life she’d always dreamed of and becoming who she’d always hoped to be. So many of her dreams had been realized, and she’d finally started to see the power in what she could create. It was heart filling. And the only thing better? The idea of her and Ezra together. Till they were old and gray, full on a satisfying life.

“I thought I’d live well into my nineties,” whispered Ricki. “Achieving the wisdom that’s supposed to come with old age. Does it ever happen?”

“Still waiting,” said Ezra, his voice sounding thin. “You know, you might not get to experience being old, but look at all you’ve done.” He gestured at the neighborhood below them, where people were cozy in their apartments, going about their evening, living their normal, lucky lives. “You’ll live on in all the plants and flowers around Harlem. Your art is woven into the fabric of this place now. And everyone who knows you will carry it with them,” he said, his breath hitching. “I’ll carry you with me forever.”

Overwhelmed, Ricki nodded and burrowed deeper against his chest. After a long time, she spoke.

“You know what I can’t stop thinking about?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“The song you played for me. The one I keep hearing in my dreams. Our song. God, it’s perfect. It’s like the blood in my veins put to music. I’m taking it with me.”

Ricki gripped his right hand in both of hers and held it againsther heart. A small sigh escaped her lips. Ezra stored the sound of it away in his brain, for safekeeping.

“Where did the melody come from?” she asked. “Tell me the story behind it.”

“You,” he murmured, his mouth against the top of her head. “You’re the story. I’ve been composing it for you for one hundred twenty-four years.”

“Oh,” she said, pushing down her swelling emotions. She didn’t want to fall to pieces. Ricki had hoped to face the end with grace, with some semblance of calm. “What is it called?” was all she managed to say.

A title had never occurred to him. It would’ve made sense to name it, but the song lived in his soul, not his brain; it lived somewhere beyond sense and reason. He took a deep breath, tightened his strong arms around her, and named it.

“A Love Song for Ricki Wilde.”

As the hour drew closer to midnight, the air grew cooler. Their breath went smoky. Their words ran out. The wine and brownies were gone. Now they lay in their makeshift bed, curled on their sides, facing each other: nose to nose, knees to knees, hand in hand. By 11:00 p.m., the contours of the world started to blur. The city sounds of Harlem started to silence. Soon, that ostentatious, oversized moon barely even registered. The boundlessness of their sorrow humbled even the blood moon.

At 11:10, Ricki and Ezra decided it was time and swallowed a sleeping pill each. Soon, the only thing that registered was the heat generated by their bodies. The beating of their hearts. Their soft, steady breath. Eventually, they fell into a meditative lull. There was no turning back.

The last time Ricki checked her phone, it was 11:25. As Rickistarted to slip into sleep, she saw sense-memory snapshots, long forgotten and utterly random, from her twenty-eight years of living. Watching Rashida win Miss Georgia Teen on TV, her earliest memory. Feeling the rough crinoline under her kindergarten graduation dress scratch her thighs. Tasting mussels for the first time at her cousin’s Vineyard house. Panicking as her car spun out of control on an icy rural road four winters ago. Brushing her lips against the skin below Ezra’s ear, a spot she’d never even noticed on another man.

They were disparate, microscopic memories. But they added up to a rich life.

Ezra last checked his at 11:40. Before the clock struck midnight, sleep overtook them both. It was exactly as they’d planned. As the twenty-eighth dissolved into the twenty-ninth, they weren’t awake to witness it.

Thank God for small blessings. For the first time since they met each other, time was on Ezra and Ricki’s side.

Ezra seized awake at 8:00 a.m., bolting upright in a jerky, abrupt motion. The sun was high and unbearably bright, streaming down on him, slicing through the cold. It was freezing, actually. Finally, appropriate February-in-New-York weather.

February. It was February.It was February 29.

His heart pounded in his ears. Fire rushed through his veins. Jaw clenched, he looked down. Ricki was lying peacefully at his side, curled into herself. She was so still. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was just sleeping soundly.

His Ricki. Here she was, the end of everything for him. It was an unbearable loss he’d never return from. How could he?

Ezra clenched his eyes shut, willing this to be one long nightmare.In one shaky gust, he exhaled all the breath in his body. It took all the courage he had to reach out and touch her shoulder. He needed to feel her skin, to feel her pulse. Carefully, he reached around to place two fingers on the inside of her wrist, the way he’d seen it done in movies. It felt so clinical doing this, surreal. He stopped. He couldn’t.

With a low groan of misery, Ezra stared out into the white New York City sky, beyond the skyline, skyscrapers, and mile-high housing developments. He peered off into nothing, his mind flooded with grief, and he realized he was crying only when the hot tears dampened his skin. Ezra hadn’t cried in at least fifty years, maybe more.

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