Not a scribble. A sketch.

Scratchy lines for shading, no border, one of the table booths interrupted by words: AU? The enchiladas were good. Thank you. A freehand sign with my name on it, and a half-eaten donut on a countertop. A vintage telephone. It’s my coffee shop. He’s drawn my coffee shop.

And inside it, two people. A chill steals through me—not at all an unpleasant one—when I recognize that he’s positioned us exactly the way I envisioned. I’m behind the counter; he’s seated opposite, in the second-to-last stool. We’re leaning toward each other slightly, enough to notice. He’s exaggerated the messiness of his hair while downplaying his broadness and height, as though he views himself as smaller and slighter than he actually is.

I can’t stop staring at miniature illustrated Maybell. She’s a quick sketch, not detailed like the photorealistic drawing I found in the loft, but I like the friendly touch he’s imbued me with. The twin spots on my smiling cheeks, the rogue wave in my hair on one side that doesn’t match the other. I told him about Maybell’s Coffee Shop AU to restore the balance, to send us back to where we were before. I think we might have accidentally turned down a different fork in the path. Let’s See Where This Goes Road.

* * *

• • • • • • •

SOMEWHERE FAR ABOVE THE clouds, glittering in stars and nebulae, a neon sign spins leisurely outside a cheerful little haven where everything always goes according to plan and nothing unexpected ever happens.

With no one around to watch, the sign buzzes brighter, brighter, brighter, sparks flying. The walls tremble. A giant white oak tree surges out of the prefabricated floor, dead center in the middle of the café. Its great roots unfurl, wending their way up the walls, clamping down between framed mirrors. Each facet of glass reflects a pair of questioning brown eyes, an in-spite-of-itself smile, an open, outstretched hand.

Chapter 11

THUNK.

It’s a quarter to midnight, so either that was one of my tired synapses misfiring or there’s a possum in the newly fixed dumbwaiter. I crack it open veerrry slowly and am both relieved and puzzled to be wrong. An ordinary spiral notebook sits inside—snapped up at a back-to-school sale by Violet, surely, the bottom-right corners curled up, pages crinkling when I flip them. A message from civilization! I’d almost forgotten I’m not the last person on Earth. Scrubbing tubs with bleach for hours will do that to you.

The first line of the first page is dominated by a cumulonimbus scar of ink trying and failing to conceal the original header: Hey Maybell,

He’s opted to cross out the poor, harmless greeting, cutting right to: What station is that

I snort.

Clicking the pen he lodged in the metal spiral, I make my greeting extra large: HEY WESLEY, I’m listening to WKCE. Also, you should know that I’ve got the entire east wing spotless, including the library. Beat that.

I send the notebook back up, then get cracking on the west wing, which isn’t quite as scary as the east wing was. Over here, Violet stacked storage tubs in the hallways rather than inside the rooms, blocking them off before they could fall prey to the hoard. Opening each door reveals a pocket of cold air that smells about two hundred years old. I’m burning through Glade PlugIns and Febreze like nobody’s business, but it’s a crypt in here. The smell has seeped into fabrics—curtains, wall hangings, carpets. I love these fabrics because of their historical value, but if I get them adequately cleaned I think they’ll disintegrate. They have to go.

The notebook is back in the dumbwaiter when I pass by again, with a response from Wesley.

 I’ve got both my wings spotless, except for two bathrooms and one last bedroom I’m trying to get unlocked. Don’t worry, you’ll catch up in a month or two.

This spurs me to up my game. I grab my mop and run into a bedroom, ready to work through the night if it means I’ll beat him. The door sticks initially, frame warped from all the shrinking and expanding over the years, the fluctuating temperatures. Having the heat shut off for so long has given some of the doors funhouse-grade leans.

The carpet in here is thick, soft, frosted in gray dust that compresses white in footprints I leave behind. Dust coats the heavy, bulbous television set and twin bed, the duvet cover I once thought was patterned with half-moons but now see are peach slices.

I spin 180 degrees, watching a younger version of myself sit down on the ottoman next to the bed. I’m showing Uncle Victor my comic strip. You’re so talented, he says. He’s got a grave, serious voice that acts like a gavel, pronouncing everything he says to be the word of law. It also acts like truth serum. When Victor turns his solemn brown eyes on you, all your secrets come tumbling out. Aunt Violet hovers behind me. She’ll wait until I leave before trying to cajole him into eating more, but I’ll catch wheezy bits and pieces from down the hall: Stomach’s bothering me. Please, sweetheart, I can’t.

He died not long after I left Falling Stars. Judging by Violet’s magazine stockpile that dates back twenty years, that’s when she started accumulating so much stuff.

The oxygen machine is gone. When I was a kid I didn’t think about why Violet and Victor had separate bedrooms, but my guess is she couldn’t sleep with the sound of that machine. I pop open the VCR to look at what he last had in there: a home-recorded Casablanca. Recent tapes in the stack next to the TV are all home-recorded, too, inscriptions written in green permanent marker: Moonstruck. Quigley Down Under. Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Everything is as he left it on his last day here. His sweaters are folded in their drawers, photo albums still on the lower shelf of his nightstand—the top one, avocado green, filled with Polaroids of their numerous yearly trips. They loved visiting new countries, trying the local cuisine, staying in family-owned inns instead of chain hotels to absorb more of the culture.

The wristwatch in his catchall dish is no longer ticking, its battery having quit at 5:12. I’m about to leave, closing the door behind me, when I notice the three large rectangles on the wall above his bed. I’m sure I’ve noticed them at another point, but they’re interesting in a way that only an adult who’s foraged between couch cushions for pennies to buy something off the dollar menu can appreciate.