Chapter Two

Ziya collapsed while we were baking cinnamon rolls.

She was elbow-deep in dough, teasing me about our Christmas brunch gift exchange.

“I found something that’ll destroy Bianca,” she said, grinning like she was already halfway to the win. “It involves a taxidermy duck and a fake mustache. You’re going to love it.”

I was zesting an orange. It felt festive. She said citrus was grounding. I just liked the smell.

Then the bowl hit the tile.

There was no gasp, no cry. One moment she was mid-sentence, full of air and laughter. The next, she was on the ground. Quiet. Eyes wide. Like someone had pulled the cord on a lamp.

I dropped the zester. Knees to tile. Her name came out of my mouth before I even knew I was speaking. I checked her pulse. It was there, but faint. Fading.

I heard Sam’s little footsteps a second later, thudding down the hall in socks with the grippy bottoms. She peeked around the doorway, clutching one of Ziya’s throw pillows to her chest like a shield.

“Did Mama go away? Where did Mama go?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t—not then.

I called Stacey as the medics wheeled Ziya out on the stretcher.

“It’s Ziya,” I said. “She collapsed. They’re taking her to Saint Joe’s.”

I didn’t give her time to ask questions. “Can you watch Sam? Just for a few hours?”

Just for a few hours.

I believed that. Thought we’d all be home by dinner.

Stacey came immediately. I left Sam in her pajamas with toast on the table and a smear of jelly on her cheek.

Ziya’s shoes were still by the door.

She didn’t look broken in the ambulance. Just gone from her own body. Like she’d stepped out and forgot to come back.

I sat in back with the paramedic, holding Ziya’s hand.

At the hospital, they ran tests. Asked questions. No prior history. No medications. No warning signs.

“Could be a seizure. Could be a stroke,” the nurse said, and I nodded like I understood what that meant.

I didn’t mention her intuition. I didn’t talk about how she sometimes knew things before they happened. Or how in high school she and Meg used to have whole conversations without moving their mouths.

Ziya had never done that with me. Even after Meg was gone, she’d respected my boundaries. She never reached across that line—not once—not even now.

And I hated her a little for it. Just for a moment.

The promise I’d made all those years ago sat heavy inside me. The one I made to my husband—who I’d loved more than anything—at a time when I couldn’t imagine surviving without him.

I told Hugh I’d stop. No more magic. No more slipping into that quiet space where the world softens and the veil thins. I told him I’d put it all down. And I did.

Magic was dangerous.

And I believed in faith. In choosing ordinary. In honoring the life we built with casseroles and checklists and Sunday mornings.

I didn’t go to church the way I used to. Not since Hugh. But I still prayed. I still whispered his name like someone was listening.

Some promises don’t fade with time. They settle. They grow roots.

I called Bianca. She was in Seattle. Depositions all week.

“I’m coming,” she said, and she did. Drove straight through the night. Her voice didn’t shake. It just got cold, flat, without emotion, but I could tell she was troubled by what had happened.

I called Meg too. Left a message. Told her what happened. I didn’t mention Sam. Ziya had made it clear—Meg wasn’t to know unless it became necessary.

She never called back.

I came back from the hospital just before sunset. Sam was curled on the couch watching cartoons with Stacey’s middle child Krista. Stacey had done the dishes. She’d even cleaned up the forgotten cinnamon roll dough.

I didn’t ask her to.

It felt like stepping into someone else’s life—and realizing it had kept going without you.

“She was an angel,” Stacey whispered, gathering her things.

I thanked her three times.

When the door closed behind her, the silence felt too wide.

Ziya’s house felt too quiet. Like it knew Ziya wasn’t coming home, even if no one said it out loud.

Sam clung to me without crying. She didn’t ask questions. Just looked at me like I was supposed to know what to do.

I made macaroni and cheese and we cuddled together in her small bed counting the glow and the dark stars on the ceiling till we fell asleep.

The next morning, while I folded Ziya’s laundry just to keep my hands moving, Sam padded into the kitchen in footie pajamas with strawberries on them and climbed into a chair like it was a throne. She put her favorite stuffed rabbit, Bun Bun, on the chair next to her.

“Where’s Mama?” she asked, swinging her legs under the table.

My throat tightened.

I knew enough to know the answer mattered more than the truth.

I smiled, keeping my voice light. “She had to go to France for work. She’s…” I grasped for something, anything, that would fascinate instead of worrying her. “Catching a dragon that’s been hiding in the Paris Metro.”

Sam’s eyes became huge. “A real dragon?”

“The trickiest kind,” I said. “It wears a scarf so people think it’s just a very big dog.”

She giggled and stuffed a corner of her Bun Bun into her mouth. “Mama’s got a net,” she said, very seriously.

I nodded. “The best one.”

And just like that, it was settled.

I didn’t know where the stories came from.

Only that if I gave her something magical to hold onto, the fear stayed away. That kind of magic seemed okay.

The pretend kind. The soft kind. The kind you keep in books and bedtime stories and the space between stars.

Imagination wasn’t a sin. It didn’t break promises. It didn’t reach too far.

Today, Ziya was in France.

Tomorrow, she might be on the moon.

We were still at Ziya’s house the next morning, waiting for the phone to ring.

After breakfast, I packed her little suitcase like we were going on a sleepover, folding her favorite pajamas and Bun Bun.

“We’re going to have a slumber party at my house,” I told her. “Just the two of us. We’ll have waffles and maybe even a movie.”

She nodded solemnly, as if this were all perfectly reasonable. Like she hadn’t just lost her whole world.

So I made it feel normal.

At home, our new home, I made dinner. I poured bubble bath into the tub and let her bring the duck.

That night, I tucked her into bed with me because she didn’t want the lights off—and neither did I.

When Ziya’s lawyer called the next morning—someone from a firm in Seattle with a name that sounded expensive—he said they’d already filed for temporary guardianship on my behalf. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “the paperwork will be expedited.”

Of course I agreed.