Brad didn’t have an answer.
Ibuprofen’s in the nightstand, she told him.
She’d always kept a bottle there, and he went to the drawer, pulled out the 300-tablet container, and took two. When he turned back around, she was waiting for him in the mirror.
“So,” he said, “Steve, huh?”
You’re not going to be jealous, are you? she asked, and she lit a cigarette. When she exhaled, he pictured the smoke penetrating the glass and rising to the ceiling.
“That was kind of a surprise,” he said.
The engagement? she asked. Or me dropping dead? Or the whole maybe/maybe not a brain tumor thing—if you don’t mind my bringing it up.
Another puff. He watched the smoke seep out from between her lips.
Do you remember my secrets? she asked. He followed her gaze to the dollhouse. A moment later, she stepped out of the mirror and into the room.
The move startled Brad. He hadn’t felt himself imagining it. And yet there she was—almost—walking past him across the room. Below her shirt, she wore blue jeans and flip-flops. Dress flip-flops, she said. Each had a large plastic daisy clipped to the front.
When she reached the dollhouse, Kara ashed in a tiny sink and opened the miniature toilet. I think you could use these, she said. Brad looked inside, knowing what he would find. Before she gave the dollhouse to Gwen, Kara had always kept a few Xanax there. For domestic emergencies, she used to say. You’re having one now, she told him.
“So are you,” he said.
No, I’m dead. It’s all very simple now. Last Saturday was a different story.
“How could you let yourself . . .” he began, but he let the words trail off. She was ignoring them anyway.
She rested a finger on the flusher of the dollhouse toilet. I’m going to offer them up to someone else if you don’t take them, so you might as well.
“I don’t do that anymore.”
At least take two for your little trip through the MRI tube. Your doctor would give them to you, if you asked. That’s why God invented Xanax.
Kara drifted back across the room and into the mirror, and Brad felt his eyes start to water, his vision grow blurry.
It’s okay, Brad. Did you ever imagine I’d turn forty one day? Or sixty?
“What about me?”
She ran her eyes up and down him. I think growing old will suit you—if you can manage it.
For a solid minute, Brad stared into the mirror where the image of Kara was and then wasn’t. He could remember standing in front of this mirror with her, both of them grinning and naked. Now he felt like an imposter. Being in this room. Being older than twenty-two. Wearing a tie and shoes that he’d polished. Owning shoe polish in the first place. He turned back to the dollhouse and with his finger slid two Xanax out of the toilet bowl. It felt like there were probably four more inside. He dropped the two pills into his shirt pocket.
“Did you just take—?”
Brad turned to face the door, and for a second he thought he was seeing Kara again. But no, it was Gwen. And once again he was conscious of his vision, of a transparent outline around the girl that might have been her sister hiding behind her.
He didn’t have a chance to respond before Gwen was walking past him and reaching into the dollhouse. But she wasn’t going for the bathroom. She was fishing through the master bedroom. A moment later, she was holding a miniature dresser, which he now saw was just a hollow box with false drawers. Crammed inside the back was a ziplock bag of marijuana. “Sorry,” she said, and she turned to face him.
Brad shook his head to say no, and don’t worry.
Up close, Gwen looked like a deflated version of her sister: more angular cheekbones, a smaller chest, tiny limbs, straighter hair. Her lips were thin lines, lightly colored. She was wearing a black silk dress with ornate stitching on the front and oval glasses that emphasized the darkness of her eyes.
“I remember you,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Do you remember me?”
“Yes,” Brad told her. “You look older now.”
“So do you.”
He felt her studying him, and he took a deep breath. “Sorry about Kara,” he said at length.
“Yeah, I know,” she mumbled.
“I hope it’s okay that I came in here.”
“Sure, I don’t care.”
Gwen returned the dresser to the dollhouse, and as she did, Brad noticed dangling from her wrist a bracelet that he’d bought for Kara a dozen years ago or more. It was made up of square tiles of onyx set in silver and held together with a black leather cord. They’d gotten it on a road trip through the mountains. He wondered if Gwen had started wearing the bracelet in the last few days, or if it had been passed on to her long ago. And if so, how long ago. And why.
“Are you still an actor?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Realtor.”
She nodded.
“Are you in college now?”
“In the fall,” she said. “I’m going to a pre-college thing this summer.” She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s an art program in New York. Being there was supposed to be a whole sister-bonding thing. Mom wants me to cancel now, but I mean, what else am I going to do?”
Brad felt like her question wasn’t entirely rhetorical, like he should say something consoling or constructive. His instinct was to agree with her mother. New York was a hard place for anyone to navigate, let alone an eighteen-year-old who’d just lost her sister. But that probably wasn’t the advice she wanted.
“I should go help out,” she said.
His window of time had passed.
“Okay,” Brad said. “But if you need anything . . .” He fished into his pocket and pulled a business card from his wallet.
“Like a house?”
“No. Like, to talk.”
She examined his card. “You’re still in Chapel Hill,” she said, her voice lightening. “I’m going to UNC.”
“Oh, then you should definitely give me a call. When you’re there for orientation. I can buy you a decent meal.”
“Maybe so.”
“I’m serious. Please let me.”
“Well,” she said,
