CONCERN.
Mr. Rockern went quiet when I asked about other available units.
I heard the concern sharpen in his voice as he demanded an explanation. I kept mine brief and half-true: I wanted space and didn't want to disturb the neighbours. It was enough to satisfy him without burdening him with the rest of it. He had already done more than I deserved.
It was shameful of me to be asking for a new place when he already waived my rent. But I knew of Lumi's temperament. I planned her to start practising her singing right away. With her timidity and traumas, she would not be able to make a squeak if she knew strangers could hear her.
"As it happens," he said, "several tenants have already made moving arrangements after the incident. They'll be out in a day or two. I'll hold off on posting the listings."
"I'm troubling you again."
"Don't mention it. Oh. I almost forgot. I have a cleaning crew coming in this afternoon for your unit. To be honest, I didn't expect you back at all. I was considering putting the place up."
That landed somewhere it shouldn't, but I let it pass. There was no room for that particular ache right now. This was a second chance, and second chances didn't wait for you to finish grieving the first life.
"Cancel the appointment," I said. "I'll handle it myself."
"Then I'll cancel." A pause. "It was good to hear from you. I'll be waiting for this surprise of yours."
"Thank you, Mr. Rockern."
He chuckled and hung up.
***
I walked to the living room and dropped onto the torn couch, phone landing in the dust beside me. I sat with my elbows on the cluttered coffee table and my face in my hands, and let the relief move through me like water finding level.
The knot in my chest, the one that had lived there through the whole call, slowly came undone.
After a while I got up, found my jacket, and headed to the department store.
***
The sun was high and bright when Lumi appeared in the kitchen doorway.
She rubbed her eyes with one hand. The other clutched at the hem of her ragged dress, which had slipped off one shoulder. She stood in the doorway looking like something that had washed in on the tide, small and pale, blinking at the afternoon light with the vague suspicion of someone who had slept too long and wasn't sure yet whether that was good or bad.
I dropped the dishes into the sink without thinking and scooped her up before she'd fully decided. Her head came to rest on my shoulder, warm and heavy with sleep. I turned off the running tap and stood there, one hand moving slowly across her back, letting the quiet of the kitchen settle around us.
"Good afternoon, dumpling. Did you sleep well? I'm sorry for waking you in the night."
She mumbled something that wasn't quite a word. Her body was still tightly wound from the surprise of being lifted, but the tension was already ebbing. I held her until her head dropped sideways into the curve of my neck.
My heart went very warm and very full.
"Still sleepy?" I asked, softer.
I've been tired a lot lately, Dad.
Six words and the warmth vanished. Something cold moved through my joints, something that settled into an ache I recognized as different from grief. Sharper. More specific.
D-Dad? Are you okay?
Sorry, dumpling. Just thinking.
I'm not sick. I'm eating fine.
She wasn't. I knew she wasn't. The words were a child's instinct to forestall worry that she had learned, somewhere along the way, to manage the adults around her. That knowledge gutted me more than the malnutrition itself.
I turned her around to face me and kissed her before I could think of anything adequate to say. Her sunken forehead. Her pale cheeks. The hollow of her neck. Her small palms, where every knuckle and tendon was visible under the skin.
D-Dad!
I pressed my face against her shoulder and said nothing, feeling the ridge of her collarbone against my cheek, the sharpness of her that no child should have. She was colder than the room. I didn't understand how a living person could be that cold.
No one should live like this. Not her. Not my daughter.
You're not eating enough, I said finally. That's why you're always tired. Here. Drink this first.
I settled her on the small stool and went to the stove. The kettle had broken, so I'd heated water in a pot that morning. I checked it was lukewarm before combining it with the honey Meteor had given us, stirring until it dissolved into something golden and faintly luminous.
I passed the cup to her and removed the spoon and waited.
Lumi studied it with focused suspicion. She bit her lip. Her eyes moved over the rim, the colour of the liquid, back to me.
Will it taste good, Dad?
"It's honey water. Honey is sweet. Very sweet. You'll love it." I nudged the cup closer. "Trust me."
She considered this for one more moment, then lifted the cup with both hands and drank.
I watched her eyes go wide on the first swallow.