One More Day

The main beach looked exactly the way it always did. Andy wasn’t sure why that surprised him—except that he and Laura and all the others had no business still being here, and the island had no business still looking like this, like something his mind had assembled carefully and then forgotten to take back. He half expected the place to have quietly revised itself in the night: new rocks, a different smell in the wind, the water gone some color it had no right to be. But no. The worn curve of the shore. The volcanic spur in the distance. The slow rise and fall of the sea, lazy and endless, the same as it had always been.

If he was caught off guard by the sameness, Bee was already past it. She let go of both his and Laura’s hands the instant they left the path, skipping the awkward pause for permission and making a beeline for the foam-edge where wet sand was best for digging. Her stride was all momentum, headlong and fearless, and her parents had to break into a light jog just to keep her in visual range.

“I building a tower,” Bee announced, not bothering to turn around. “It gonna be so tall.” She paused to squat and scoop a handful of sand, then flung it forward, as if the act of throwing would itself help the project along.

Andy hung back a few feet, content to watch her work. Laura—both of her—stayed close at his side, one body with her arms crossed and eyes on the water, the other with hands in the pockets of her shorts and a kind of gentle focus he hadn’t seen since the last Dream Date. He didn’t mention it. In this place, Laura’s doubling was just the background hum of their life. Sometimes it was all Andy could do to remember there hadn’t always been two of her.

They watched as Bee set up shop at the high-tide line, exactly where the sand held together best. She worked with a single-minded intensity that made it impossible not to root for her. Each scoop was carefully shaped, then patted into place with two hands. When the sides of the tower bulged out, she’d push them back in, muttering under her breath, “No, no, stay up.” The few times she looked back, it was to check if her parents were still watching—not for approval, just to make sure her audience hadn’t wandered.

The sandcastle itself was not so much a castle as a lump with ambition. Bee had no interest in symmetry or structural integrity; her approach was brute-force verticality. The tower rose slowly, layer by layer, until it stood nearly as high as her own knees. When it began to sag under its own weight, she braced it with sticks and bits of seaweed, narrating every fix with a running commentary Andy couldn’t help but smile at.

“Dada, look!” she called at one point, arms thrown wide to emphasize the miracle of her work. “It as big as me. It bigger!” She took a step back, squinted, and amended: “It almost bigger.”

Andy took a step forward, squatted beside her, and pretended to measure the tower with his hand. “It’s very close,” he said. “I think you can make it all the way.”

Bee beamed, then went back to scooping. Every minute or so, she’d offer up a fact or an observation to the universe. “This is for bugs. And shells.” Or, “I saw crab. It went away.” Once, she announced, with the conviction of someone who had only just learned the concept, “I the builder and the boss.”

Laura, both of her, watched without comment. She sat with her knees up, chin on her arms, the body closest to Bee’s project tuned to every motion, while the other turned to face Andy, reading him the way she always did.

He waited until Bee was absorbed in her project before nudging Laura’s shoulder. “What’s going on in there?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

She didn’t answer right away. He let the silence stretch. Then, both bodies at once, she said: “I keep thinking someone’s going to come ruin this.” She didn’t mean the castle; Andy knew it instantly.

“Ruin what?” he asked, careful.

She glanced at him, then back at the water. “All of it. I keep expecting someone to come down and tell us we’re not supposed to be here. Or that we’re doing it wrong. Or that we’re just pretending.” She shrugged. “But nobody does.”

Andy didn’t say anything for a second, then, “Would it help if I told you you’re not pretending?”

She gave him a look—soft, but skeptical. “You know that’s my entire shtick.” Then, in a different tone: “This whole morning, I kept thinking this was going to be some big, extravagant thing. But it wasn’t.” She recounted it, quietly: “Chloe just wanted help with the eggs. Riley was running the kitchen like it was a war. Erin caught the bowl before it hit the floor without even looking up. Claire made Clio laugh for an hour without speaking a word.” She hesitated. “It wasn’t all about me.” She sounded as if she was surprised, but not disappointed.

Andy let the thought hang. He looked at the other body, the one angled toward Bee, and saw her jaw set just so, as if she were bracing for a wave that hadn’t come yet.

“Maybe that’s just what happens when you stop expecting the disaster,” he said, quiet.

She half-smiled, not quite buying it, but not rejecting it either.

A shout from the waterline pulled their focus. Bee, having exhausted her supply of building materials, had taken to racing the incoming waves. She’d run down to the edge, scream “No touch!” at the water, then dash back as the foam licked at her heels. Each time, she’d check to see if the castle had survived. Each time, it had.

Andy watched as a particularly big wave rolled in. He did the math and saw it would reach the base of Bee’s tower. He braced for the collapse, but at the last second, the wave curled and broke short, barely kissing the sand. The castle stood, unbothered.

He laughed. “Maybe you made it too strong,” he called.

“No,” Bee said, hands on hips. “It because it mine. It doesn’t fall.” She looked at Andy with utter conviction, as if to say: why would you even think otherwise.

Laura, both of her, made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. Andy couldn’t help himself—he pulled her closer, arm around her waist, and the other body leaned in on his opposite side, all three of them forming a little island above the tide.

They stayed that way for a while, silent except for Bee’s narration and the hiss of the waves. Andy found himself settling, really settling, in a way he hadn’t let himself do in years. He wondered if Laura felt the same, but didn’t ask. He suspected she did.

Eventually, the castle reached its final form. Bee took a long, contemplative look at it, then knelt and traced a circle around its base with her finger. She declared it “the best ever,” then, with no ceremony, walked away, her feet leaving perfect little prints in the sand.

Andy stood, brushed off, and offered Laura both hands. She took them, both bodies, and they followed Bee up the beach, leaving the castle to the mercy of the next tide.

The light had shifted, gone from the blue of early morning to a white that erased the shadows behind every footprint. Andy realized the whole morning had gone by in the time it took to build a single tower, and somehow, he didn’t mind at all.

---

The house sat empty and sun-shot when Andy, Laura, and Bee finally made their way back from the beach. He could have sworn the place would still be holding on to the smells of morning—coffee, something citrus, the caramelized edges of whatever Riley had pulled out of the oven—but the inside was nothing but a haze of cool air and light.

They stepped out onto the back patio, drawn by voices. There was a single long slab of wood running the length of the grass, enough seats to host a wedding banquet or a small invasion force. It was already half-loaded with food: breads, fruits, salads, two kinds of roasted chicken, a dish of bright orange pasta that looked suspiciously like it had been made for one person’s palate and simply multiplied. And there was a pie at the exact center, still steaming, an implied dare to anyone who wanted to eat dessert first.

Bee charged ahead, following the smell or maybe just the logic of movement, and Andy hung back for a second, scanning for the telltale signatures of the rest of the household. He spotted Chloe first, balancing a platter in one hand while waving them in with the other, never missing a step in her relay from the kitchen to the table. She had a new apron on—floral, with pockets deep enough to hide a small child—and a streak of flour high on her cheek.

“Sit, sit, sit!” Chloe called, voice just shy of sing-song. She looked like she was enjoying herself immensely. She nodded to a spot near the far end of the table, then immediately pivoted back toward the house, already calling out for someone to check the lemonade. Andy obliged, herding Bee and both Lauras into the seats Chloe had indicated. The wood was still warm from the sun; Bee immediately scooted herself up to kneeling, so she could see the whole spread at once.

Dawn was out in the yard, wrangling what looked like an impromptu head count. She had a battered clipboard in one hand, a permanent marker in the other, and she was working her way down the line of children like a military officer at roll call. “One, two, three… five? Where’s—wait, six, seven—Sharron!” she called, scanning for the little purple-haired terror. “Where did she go? And where’s JJ?”

“Auntie Dawnie!” Sharron called back, already out of breath and clearly delighted with herself. She marched up from the edge of the trees, arms swinging, hair wild, Liesa and Sam just behind her. JJ trailed after, his cheeks red, his shirt already untucked and stained with something dark blue. He looked like he’d been through a small war and loved every second of it.

The line of kids was something to see. Erin’s twins—Sage, the green-skinned girl, and Rowan, the boy—were at the front, holding hands like they’d been glued together. Both had grass stains from ankle to knee, but only Sage looked aware of it. Next was Andrew, walking with a slow, deliberate tread that made Andy’s chest tighten a little. Then came Clio, with her cat ears flattened back in excitement, and a baby—Anaïs, Andy remembered, Emi’s daughter—cradled expertly in Emi’s lower arms as the rest of her hands balanced food and drink for the group. Sharron, JJ, and Bee brought up the rear, weaving around each other in a tangle of limbs and noise.

The grownups assembled at the table with a kind of practiced ease that made Andy wonder how many times they’d done this before. Dawn shed her clipboard with a practiced toss, landing it on a spare chair, and dropped into a seat at the middle of the table. Chloe took the next spot, still orchestrating the arrangement of every plate and utensil. Marissa arrived from the house with a carafe of coffee and a plate of sliced fruit, then sat without a word, folding her napkin in her lap with unconscious grace. Erin slid into her seat, both twins instantly at her side, and Claire—cat ears perked and tail flicking—perched next to Clio, her attention tuned almost entirely to her daughter.

Sam and Liesa took the last two seats, sandwiching Sharron between them. Liesa’s hiking boots were caked to the ankle in mud, her face sun-bright and open; Sam was pink at the nose and grinning, her arm slung around the back of Liesa’s chair. Sharron, for her part, was already halfway through her first serving, stuffing broccoli into her mouth with the earnestness of someone who didn’t want to be caught eating healthy.

Andy watched it all unfold, feeling the familiar, impossible contentment of seeing all these moving parts sync up in real time. Then Andrew appeared at his elbow, rock in hand.

“Dada,” Andrew said, not so much requesting attention as assuming it. “Look.” He held up a gray stone, perfectly smooth, the kind of thing Andy would have spent whole afternoons searching for as a kid.

Andy took it, turned it over in his palm, and said, “This might be the best rock I’ve ever seen.”

Andrew nodded, serious. “It is. It the best. I found it.” Then, satisfied, he smiled. “Love you, Dada,” he said, planting the stone in Andy’s hand, standing on tiptoes for a kiss, then wandering off down the table until he saw Chloe and ran to her laughing.

Andy set the stone down in front of him, where Bee immediately reached for it, then reconsidered and instead used it to prop up her fork so it wouldn’t roll. She was already working through a mound of pasta, voice humming with the constant, low-level narrative of her day.

Across the table, Sharron caught Andy’s eye. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and said, “Uncle Andy, you know what happened?”

Andy nodded, playing his part. “No, tell me. Was it a good hike?”

Sharron launched into it with zero preamble. “There a lissard!” Eyes shining, she barely paused for breath. “Mama Liesa said no touch. I touched it.” A gasp, like the memory still scandalized her. “It runned away. Not 'cause mean. Just scared.” Then, ticking it off like a list: “Big hill. Mama Sam helped me.” A proud little bounce. “Almost falled. Didn't, though!” And, saved for last, the outrage of it: “Got a snack. Couldn't eat it. Had to wait for the top. I waited sooooo long!” She looked expectantly at Andy, as if he was supposed to render a verdict.

“Sounds like a real adventure,” he said.

“It was,” she agreed, then immediately turned to Liesa, nudging her with an elbow. “Mama, tell him the stick!”

Liesa laughed, voice softer than Sharron’s but no less proud. “She tried to use it like a ski pole to go faster,” Liesa explained, “but ended up just poking herself in the leg. She’s a fast learner, but stubborn.” She looked at Sam. “That’s your influence.”

Sam sipped her drink, unfazed. “We breed them tough,” she said, and Sharron cackled, clearly pleased.

The rest of the meal fell into the same easy rhythm. Marissa recounted a nap that turned into two hours, waking only because she dreamed she was late for dinner. Dawn listed out the next day’s schedule, then shrugged and said it was probably all going to fall apart anyway, but she liked to have it written down just in case. Chloe explained the pie recipe, not because anyone asked, but because it was the kind of thing that needed to be shared.

Emi smiled through the entire thing, mostly listening, her arms a constant whir of refilling cups and clearing plates before anyone noticed they needed it, sometimes singing at the baby in tones Andy vaguely remembered her own mother singing to her. Riley sat quietly beside Myra, picking at her food with a distant smile while Myra kept up a steady stream of commentary about the garden’s progress. Across from them, Katherine—free from her frame for three years now—leaned against Sumiku’s shoulder, Eden sitting next to her, Sumiku's hand resting lightly on Emily’s arm as the four of them shared some private joke that made Katherine’s eyes crinkle at the corners.

It was Laura, both of her, who finally broke the mood with a question. She said it lightly, mostly as a joke: “What does everyone do, these days? I mean, for work.” She swept a hand down the length of the table, eyebrows up, as if to highlight the absurdity of the whole thing.

The question landed, and for a second nobody answered. Andy glanced at her, then at the others, and realized that none of them had ever once brought it up in his presence, not even when Dawn had mentioned that Laura had a “day off” today.

Dawn answered first, gesturing at the table, the food, the noise, the chaos. “Little bit of everything, same as always,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Somebody's got to keep it all on schedule.”

Sam shrugged. “Upkeep, mostly. Keeping an eye on things so they don't wander too far off.” She didn't elaborate, and didn't look like she thought she owed anyone more than that.

Marissa considered the question like it deserved real thought. “Little bit of this, little bit of that,” she said, a bite of salad forgotten on her fork. “Keeps me busier than it sounds, honestly.”

Emi didn't answer at all, not out loud. She just smiled and looked down at Anaïs, who was chewing on a spoon and giggling at a joke only she could hear, as if the answer were obvious and needed nothing further.

Chloe waved the question away, laughing. “Oh, compared to this, it's unbelievably ordinary, I promise you,” she said, passing the bread to Claire, who accepted it with a silent nod. “Trust me. Nobody's missing anything by not asking.”

Laura didn't ask again. She watched the others answer, her eyes softening with each reply, and Andy noticed it too, once he started paying attention: nobody at the table had actually said what they did. Every answer left the door open a crack, warm and easy and entirely unbothered about it, and every one of them seemed to know exactly what they were doing. He supposed it had to do with this being built out of his subconscious.

The meal wound down slow, plates emptying, the kids gradually drifting away from the table toward the edge of the yard, some already breaking into new games. Sharron finished her food and made a beeline for the nearest tree, instantly recruiting JJ and Clio for whatever scheme she had in mind. Andrew took up his rock again and sat quietly, watching the others. Bee lingered, picking at crumbs and talking to herself.

Dawn was the first to move, eyeing the sky like she was already planning for whatever came next. “We should clean up before it gets dark,” she said, and Chloe instantly seconded her. The two of them coordinated the collection of plates and leftovers, moving in perfect sync, Emi and Marissa following behind to wipe the table and gather up stray utensils. Sam and Liesa stayed a little longer, Sam finishing her drink, Liesa watching the kids run wild across the grass.

Andy caught Laura’s eye across the table, both bodies. For a moment, neither of them moved to help clear anything at all. They just sat a little longer in the last of it, letting the noise and the warmth hang in the air.

It was a good afternoon. One of the best he’d ever had.

---

The long table was still half-loaded with dishes and cutlery when Dawn intercepted them, plates being ferried off in twos and threes around her, the whole scene vibrating with the kind of energy that comes when someone has a secret. She barely waited for Andy and Laura to lever themselves up from the bench before she was already moving, voice in high gear.

“We have to go,” Dawn said, not quite a whisper, but pitched so the words cut through the noise of the yard and the slow-motion chaos of cleanup. “Reservation’s at six, but if you’re late, they give it away. You know how it is.” She eyed the sun as if it might lie to her, then gestured, sharp, toward the house. “C’mon. You can keep talking inside.”

Andy didn’t remember agreeing to a reservation. He checked Laura, both of her, and saw she was just as surprised, but not in a bad way. Dawn’s hand landed on Andy’s back, steady but insistent, and she steered him and both Lauras up the steps and through the patio door with a confidence that suggested she’d been rehearsing this move for years.

At the landing, Chloe appeared with a quick smile, Riley just behind her. Chloe’s hands were empty now, and she looked relaxed. “We’ve got Bee tonight,” she said, waving away any protest before it could form. “No need to rush back. She’s on her second wind already.”

“Thank you,” Andy said, a reflex.

“Sure thing,” Chloe replied. She leaned in and offered Bee her hand, not quite a question but not an order, either. Bee studied the hand for a second, as if weighing her options, then wrapped her own around two of Chloe’s fingers and allowed herself to be led away.

“Where going?” Bee asked, craning her neck to catch Andy’s eye.

“To the playroom,” Chloe answered. “We have building to do.”

“Yay!” Bee declared, already moving. She tugged Riley along by the wrist, and the two of them, plus Chloe, vanished around the corner.

Andy watched them go, felt a twist in his chest he couldn’t name. He looked at Laura for a read—one body watched Bee’s departure with something like amusement, the other with an expression he couldn’t get a bead on before it disappeared, replaced by a careful blankness. Andy wanted to ask about it, but Dawn was already at the foot of the stairs, tapping her foot with theatrical impatience.

“Seriously, you two,” Dawn said, “if you’re not out the door in ten, they’ll just give your table to whoever shows up looking like they know the chef. Do you know how long it took to get a reservation? Let’s move.”

Upstairs, the closet was nothing but options. Andy half-expected it to throw him a curveball, but instead, he found a suit on a hanger by itself, as if set out by an invisible hand. Navy, not black, with a shirt and tie that matched his eyes, and when he tried it on, it fit perfectly—not in the way of something altered to fit, but like it had always belonged to him.

He turned to see Laura at her own side of the closet, one body thumbing through dresses, the other simply standing in front of the mirror. The dresses she chose—pale blue, with a neckline that looked accidental but wasn’t—was the sort of thing he wouldn’t have picked for her in a million years, and yet they worked. She zipped them up, both bodies at once, and didn’t linger over the result. She met his eyes and shrugged, but her cheeks were pink.

Andy smiled, and for a second, she did too, the same on both faces.

They made their way back down, steps echoing on the polished wood. At the second floor landing, Sam was waiting, her own hair up, the simple white button-down and jeans making her look older and more elegant than Andy was used to seeing. She grinned at them, all mischief.

“You look great,” Sam said. “Just a heads-up, things are almost ready. Go slow, enjoy the walk.”

“Almost ready?” Andy echoed, but Sam had already turned, her heels clicking down the hall as she headed for the kitchen.

Andy looked at Laura, both of her, and said, “Should I be nervous?”

“I’m always nervous,” Laura replied, perfectly deadpan. Then she softened it with a smile. “But this feels like the good kind.”

They hit the first floor landing and found the entry hall empty and silent, the kind of silence that happens right before a surprise. Andy didn’t have time to wonder about it. Through the front window, he could see a car idling at the curb—a glossy, dark sedan he was certain hadn’t been there earlier. There was something about it, the way it just waited, engine soft but insistent, that told him this was part of the plan.

Andy reached for Laura’s hand, not caring which body answered, and together they stepped into the hall, ready for whatever happened next.

---

The sedan waited at the curb with its hazard lights blinking, a badge of intent that made the whole quiet street feel like the approach to an airport more than a neighborhood. The fact that there had been no street this morning, and no car, almost looked like an afterthought. Mildred was at the wheel, her hair up and face unreadable, wearing a dark suit that fit like it had come pre-installed. She stepped out, heel tapping once on the driveway, and opened the rear passenger door before Andy or Laura could say a word.

“Master Andy. Consort Laura.” Mildred’s voice was warm, unhurried, the kind of voice that made you feel like you’d been expected. “I’ve been informed this is a special occasion, and I want you to know I take that very seriously.”

She smiled—genuine, not performed. She held the door open with both hands, like an offering. “I’ll do my best to get you there in one piece. Smooth as I can manage.”

Laura, both of her, smiled at the same moment. “We appreciate that, Mildred.”

“Of course.” Mildred’s face did something quiet and pleased, and she waited until they were settled before she gently closed the door.

The seats were cool leather and smelled faintly of something mineral and clean, maybe bergamot. Andy found himself settling back without thinking, letting the city come to him instead of chasing after it. The door clicked shut with a hush.

The route out of the neighborhood was nothing Andy recognized. There were streets, or something like streets—surfaces that held the car steady and turned when Mildred turned—but he couldn’t have said whether they were paved or not, couldn’t have named a single landmark they passed. Trees, maybe, or the suggestion of them. The occasional smear of light that might have been a window. Then, gradually, without any single moment he could point to, buildings began to appear on either side: glass and metal, galleries and restaurants, a city center assembling itself out of nothing with the effortlessness of a memory you could never quite prove was true.

The sky went dark fast. Streetlights popped on in sequence, painting the road in gold and blue, and Andy watched the way the world shifted, every block becoming more urban, more dense, until for a heartbeat he forgot the island ever existed. A train rolled past, all lights and rumble, the windows bright with people looking out at nothing. Andy tried to see where the line even ran, but the tracks vanished as soon as the car crossed the intersection, and the whole thing dropped away behind them.

He didn’t say a word about it, and neither did Laura, both of her. She was looking out the far window, watching the city become itself, her hands folded loose in her lap. She didn’t look tense—more like she was letting herself soak in every second of the new, and Andy wondered for a moment if this was more her world than his.

Mildred took a sharp right, then a smooth left, and they rolled up to a small, unmarked door at the bottom of a flight of concrete stairs. There was no sign, just a single square of frosted glass set into the door and, on the brick wall beside it, a brass plaque no bigger than a bookmark: Moonfish. That was it.

Mildred came around and held the door. “Master Andy, Consort Laura—both of you.” She said it easily, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and her smile was the kind that reached her eyes and stayed there. “I hope you enjoy every second.” She looked at them—at Laura, at both of her, then at Andy—and her expression did something brief and unguarded, the way a person’s face moves when they’re witnessing something they’re glad to have seen.

Inside, the air was cool and dark, with just enough light to make the lacquered tables and the wall-length sushi counter shine. There was no host stand, no podium, only a woman with her hair in a perfect bun and a neat black suit who appeared at the door, bowed, and led them to a table for three by the window. Andy didn’t see a single other patron in the place, but the silence didn’t feel empty. It felt intentional.

Laura slid into the seats opposite Andy, both bodies at once, her posture so exact it might have been rehearsed. She glanced out the window, then at the counter, where two chefs in pale jackets were working in perfect, mirrored rhythm. The clink of their knives, the soft rush of water on the rice, the low voice of the head chef calling for a new order—all of it stitched together into a calm Andy hadn’t known he missed until just then.

A small, hand-lettered menu was already on the table, but before Andy could reach for it, the first plate arrived: a single piece of nigiri for him, and one for each of Laura’s bodies, the fish so translucent it caught the light and fractured it into rainbows. The server (the same woman who had shown them in, Andy realized) placed it before them with a practiced motion and said, “Welcome to Shinsan. The chef has prepared a menu for you tonight.” She nodded, and was gone.

Andy looked at Laura. “I guess we’re not ordering?”

She smiled, small but sharp. “I guess not.”

He tried the fish—soft, delicate, perfect—and the rice was warm against the cool of the topping, the wasabi only the faintest hint. It was incredible. He made a noise that was half laugh, half disbelief, and Laura, both of her, did the same, almost in sync.

They worked through the first two courses in silence: small, bright things, bites that barely lasted a second on the tongue but left their mark. By the third dish—a warm, almost-brothy chawanmushi with the barest curl of uni on top—Andy couldn’t resist. He said, “You know, if you’d shown this to eight-year-old you, she would have lost her mind.”

Laura smiled, her smile small but true, and said, “Eight-year-old me had a lot of opinions. But she did not like raw fish.”

“She didn’t like many foods,” Andy recalled, laughing. “Emi told me about your wasabi-prank wars. How you’d sneak extra under the salmon roe until she gave up.”

Laura grinned, her eyes crinkling. “It was a skill. I perfected it at twelve. Emi never forgave me, but she did learn to taste before swallowing.” She tried the next piece, took a second to savor, and said, “Truth is, it didn’t stick. At some point after I turned fourteen, I just… wanted it. Like a switch flipping.” Then she went still. She put her chopsticks down with the careful motion of someone who has just heard a sound they can’t place.

She looked at the dish in front of her. “Fourteen,” she said again, to herself, and the word landed differently the second time. Her eyes moved to Andy’s, slow and uncertain. “I didn’t turn fourteen.”

“But I remember it,” she said, eyes suddenly wet. “I remember wanting it.” A pause. “I remember you being there.”

Andy held her gaze and didn’t speak.

He didn't speak because he couldn't, not yet. Her last four words had knocked something loose in him too, and what came wasn't a glimpse. It arrived whole, dated, complete—a fact, not a feeling. At the same moment, something else crossed behind Laura's eyes—not the memory she'd just been chasing, but a second one, arriving uninvited right behind it. The same one that had come upon him, he realized.

“Andy—” Her voice caught, and for a second she looked almost frightened by her own words. “You weren't always there. There's a year in these memories of another life. A whole year where we weren't together. I remember all of it, like it's always been sitting there and I never once went looking.” Her hand found her own sternum without her seeming to notice it was there. “Everything else I have of us is one continuous thing, start to finish, no seam in it anywhere. This isn't supposed to be in there.” A beat. “Where did it come from?”

“October,” Andy said. “Our sophomore year. You were at Northwestern, I was at UIC, and I'd just gotten pulled onto a research thing that ate every weekend I had. It was important, and I didn't want to let it go.” His own voice sounded strange to him, too certain for something he shouldn't have a right to be certain about. “I kept canceling on you. Not once. Fifteen times, maybe sixteen, over about five months. We argued. A lot.”

Laura's face had gone white. “You remember the number.”

“I remember all of it.” He said it like an apology. “You came to my apartment on a Friday, in the rain, to tell me you were done rearranging your life around whatever I was in the middle of that week. You weren't even angry by the time you got there—you'd already done all of that alone, before you knocked. You just told me, calmly, that you loved me and that it wasn't enough anymore to make up for never actually having me.” A beat. “And I didn't argue. I told you that you deserved someone who could actually show up, and that I couldn't, not yet, maybe not for years, and that you shouldn't wait to find out. I meant it as something generous. It wasn't.”

“That's exactly it.” Laura's hands had started to shake; she pressed them flat against the table like she could stop it by force. “That's exactly what you said. I remember the date—October the ninth. I remember what you were wearing. I didn't cry until I was three blocks away, and then I cried for most of a year.”

“Fourteen months,” Andy said. “I know because I counted, every one of them, and told myself I wasn't.”

“You didn't call.”

“Neither did you.”

“I deleted your number that night. On the walk home, in the rain, before I could talk myself out of it.” The words came out of her too fast, too certain, like something reciting itself through her rather than being remembered. “Buried the bond so deeply I learned to ignore it. I could have walked past you in a busy street and wouldn’t have realized it. I moved apartments that spring so I'd stop walking past the coffee shop where we used to—” She stopped, started again. “I dated two people that year. I told both of them about you, eventually, like you were a chapter that had already closed. I believed it had.”

“I believed it too.” Andy's jaw had gone tight. “I told myself it was the responsible thing. The kind thing. How many people end up with their childhood first love as their partner? I was an idiot. I actually managed that for over a year—right up until—”

“The laundromat,” Laura said, and her voice broke, once, on the word. “January. The Tuesday after New Year's. My machine had been out since before Christmas and the building still hadn't fixed it, so I finally gave up waiting and took the bus to the one on Halsted.”

“I'd been going to that exact one for four months, because my own building's machines flooded that September and the landlord never got around to replacing them,” Andy said, the words coming faster now, like something giving way. “I usually did my laundry on Fridays. That specific Tuesday, at that specific time, was because I'd already put it off twice and I'd run out of clean shirts for work.”

“You were feeding quarters into a machine two down from mine, and you dropped the whole roll.” Laura's laugh came out unsteady, more breath than sound. “I looked over because of the noise. I wasn’t looking for you, I didn’t even know you were there.”

“I know you weren't. I wasn't either.” Andy held her eyes. “We stood there for maybe ten full seconds before either of us said anything. I remember thinking you looked exactly the same and completely different at once, and still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and being furious at myself for still knowing that.”

“You said my name first.”

“You said mine back.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Laura said, low, as if talking to herself: “If none of this was ever ours to choose—if there was always going to be an us, no matter what—then none of that should have been possible. Not the cancellations. Not the goodbye on that rainy day. Not fourteen months of both of us meaning it.” She pressed her palms flat against her own chests, checking, like she needed to confirm something was still there. “You don't get to actually, successfully walk away from something that was never really a choice to begin with.”

She stopped, and when she went on her voice had changed, gone quieter and worse. “Unless it doesn't care how far apart it lets us get. Unless a year is nothing to it, as long as it still gets to put us back in the same room in the end.”

Andy felt that land somewhere he didn't like, watching her reach for the worse reading when a better one was sitting right next to it. “Or you just told me a year's worth of evidence for the opposite,” he said. “You walked away from me and meant it. I let you go and meant it. Neither of us came looking. That's not what something with no choice in it looks like. That's what two people who could have stayed lost to each other forever look like—and almost did.”

“The laundromat doesn't erase that. Not just by happening afterward.”

“No. It doesn't erase it.” He held her eyes. “It also doesn't have to be anything but what it was—a broken machine and accidentally good timing, twice over. You get the whole year as proof. You don't have to trade it away for one Tuesday, just because the Tuesday came last.”

“That's a very convenient thing for you to want me to believe.”

“It is. I still believe it.”

Laura let out a long breath, like she was finally setting something down. She didn't say whether she believed him. Instead, after a moment, both of her straightened, deliberately. “Tonight,” she said, “I'm allowed to just let it be a good story. I'm deciding that. On purpose.”

“That's allowed.”

“It's more than allowed. I'm insisting on it.” And something close to her ordinary self settled back over her face as she said it—not gone, whatever this was, just set down for now, by choice, the same way she'd apparently once set down an entire year.

Andy deftly pivoted, realizing she needed to digest what they had both discovered. “So. You said you remember wanting it. Wasabi or the sushi?”

She thought about it, then shrugged. “Both, I guess. But now I actually like it.” She eyed the next dish, then added, “It’s not a prank if you enjoy it.”

Andy snorted. “You’d still prank me.”

“Absolutely,” both of her said.

The server arrived again, bringing a bottle of cold sake and pouring a single cup for each of them. She offered a quiet “Kampai,” then left without fanfare.

Andy raised his glass. “To special occasions?”

“To whatever this is,” Laura answered, and they drank. The sake was clean and easy, and after the first sip, Andy felt the world tilt just a little more into the soft and perfect.

The meal carried on, each course a new surprise: a sliver of mackerel dressed with pickled plum; a bowl of rice topped with a raw quail egg and just a dusting of nori; a round of nigiri so rich it made Andy’s lips numb. By the time the last plate arrived—a simple wedge of honey melon and a single square of matcha cake—he’d stopped trying to anticipate and just let it all happen.

When they were done, Laura leaned back and closed her eyes, both bodies mirroring the motion, and said, “I thought you’d build something bigger for this. A castle, or a penthouse. Or a ballroom.”

Andy looked at her, surprised. “Did you want that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, eyes still closed. “I think I just expected it. You always want to prove you can do the most, even if you never say it.” She opened her eyes, and the right body fixed him with a look that was half accusation, half affection. “I never thought you’d pick a crowded kitchen, or a lopsided sandcastle, or a place with no sign on the door.”

Andy didn’t answer right away. He took a breath, let the silence hold for a few seconds, then said, “I think I just wanted this. A full house. A beach. A room with you in it, and nothing else.”

She reached for his hand across the table—both hands at once, actually, one from each body—and he squeezed them, careful not to break the moment.

Neither of them bothered looking for a check. They just stood, thanked the server (who bowed as they left), and stepped back up the concrete stairs into the soft, city air. The sky was still dark, but now it shimmered with the haze of distant lights, and Mildred was waiting at the curb, engine humming low, door open and ready.

The drive home was different. The city faded back to trees, the glass towers shrinking into the darkness, until they were back on the winding road along the coast, the water on one side, the night on the other. No trains this time, no magic, just the smooth motion of the car and the gentle presence of the driver.

Neither Andy nor Laura said much on the way back. There wasn’t anything left to say. The whole world had been made to fit just this, and it was enough.

---

The house was dark as Mildred pulled up to the curb, the porch light off and all the windows black, not a single outline visible through the glass. Mildred parked at the bottom of the driveway, got out, and opened the door again with her usual efficiency. “Welcome home,” she said, as if it needed confirming. Andy thanked her, and so did Laura, both of her.

Andy found himself bracing for the anticlimax—the whole day built up to this, and now everyone had gone to bed without a second thought. He stepped onto the walk, waiting for some sign of life, but there was only the low hiss of the sedan cooling behind them and the faint sound of waves from the beach.

He reached for Laura’s hands, and together they climbed the steps. For a second, Andy considered whether he should knock, but then the front door swung open as if by sensor, light pouring out in a wide, gold arc. It was like someone had been holding back the whole world until they got here, and now it all came loose at once.

The entryway was packed. Chloe and Riley stood at the center, holding Bee up between them so she could see over the crowd, her hair a tangle and her eyes bright with anticipation. Erin was just behind, balanced with a twin on each hip, both kids glassy-eyed with exhaustion but unwilling to miss the party. Claire hovered at the edge, Clio’s small hand laced through her own, the catgirl’s tail flicking with every beat of the noise. Emi was next, Anaïs braced against one hip, two more of her own hands waving frantically over her head at Andy and Laura as if to be sure they saw her before the room swallowed her up.

Sam and Liesa were there too, Sam’s blue hair held back into a ponytail, Liesa’s hair soft and loose, her arms already wrapped around Sharron, who was practically vibrating in place. Dawn, as if on cue, carried in a cake the size of a small suitcase, her hands steady and her face set in the mythical “do not fuck this up” expression Andy had heard of but had never seen in person.

Marissa was there, and Myra, and Norah, and Emily, and Katherine, and Eden , and Sumiku, and every single one of the kids—JJ shoving to the front, barely able to contain himself, Andrew standing off to the side with both hands in his pockets but a faint, almost smug smile on his face.

It took less than a heartbeat for the crowd to spot Andy and Laura. Bee screamed with delight, a pure, high-pitched “Mama! Dada! MAMA!” that went straight to Andy’s heart. Chloe and Riley lifted her up even higher, and for a second, Andy saw the whole scene as if from outside: all of them gathered here, just for this. Just for her.

Dawn got everyone’s attention by the simple expedient of shouting, “Okay, heads up!” and then setting the cake squarely on the table in the middle of the foyer.

Before anyone reached for a knife, Sam raised her glass, unhurried the way she got when she actually meant something. “Whatever else is true," she said, “this family got exactly one more day than it might have had. That's worth drinking to, whether or not anybody in this room knows why yet.” Nobody pressed her on what she meant. Glasses came up around the room anyway, uneven and half-confused, warm before anyone had time to feel awkward about it.

The room went silent, as if waiting for the opening chord, and then the song began: “Happy birthday to—”

Nobody agreed on a key. Half the group started on the “happy,” the other half on “birthday,” and a third of them just clapped along. Claire didn’t sing at all; she clapped, off-beat but with so much joy on her face it was impossible not to get caught up in it. Bee joined in with a chant of “Happy cake! Happy cake!” and JJ made a lunge for the candles before anyone told him it wasn’t his turn.

Laura, both of her, stood in the center, hands clasped in front, cheeks flushed with the kind of embarrassment that only comes from being celebrated in public by people who mean it. Andy watched her face, saw the way she tried to hide her smile and failed, the way she ducked her head and then looked up again, eyes shining, caught in the bright and the noise of all these people who loved her. For once, she didn’t seem to question it. She just let herself be surrounded.

When the song ended, Bee was the first to blow out the candles, scattering a cloud of frosting and wax bits across the cake. JJ tried to help, missed, and then licked frosting from his own hand. The rest of the kids whooped, clapped, and started chanting for cake, and the adults just let it happen, smiling and stepping back—

---

Andy found himself back at the lagoon, exactly where he’d left himself: standing with both of Laura’s bodies at his sides, one hand clasped in hers, the other in the crook of his elbow, the fire across the water barely more than a haze and a sound. Nothing else was there. Not the echo of the house, not the half-lit faces, not the whole impossible day. Just the cool air of night, the hush of water, and the faint, unhurried throb of music from the far side of the cove.

It was the sort of pause that didn’t seem to belong to any story, a trick of time or a mistake in the script. No wind. No moon. Just the two of them, holding on, not ready for anything else yet.

Laura didn’t move at first. Both bodies went quiet, the one on Andy’s right still holding his hand, the other with its arms crossed in front, as if she were bracing against a cold that had nothing to do with weather. She looked at the water, then at Andy, then at her other self—then, slowly, at the horizon, where the fire made the sky pulse with orange light.

Andy said, “I guess that’s the signal the party’s over.”

He meant it as a joke, but she didn’t smile.

After a long time, Laura said, “I thought it was going to be a show.”

Andy didn’t answer. He just waited.

She kept her eyes on the line between water and sky. “When I told you what I asked for, last night, I really thought the Dream Date would look like some kind of… performance. Like you’d build me a castle, or take me to the moon, or have all the girls line up and say what they love about me, or whatever you thought would get me to buy in.” Her voice wasn’t angry, just tired. “I didn’t expect this. Not the mess, not the kids fighting at the table, not Mildred in a suit, not Bee and her sand tower.”

He waited, knowing she wasn’t done.

“So I keep thinking, why? Why this, and not one of the extravagant versions?” She shrugged. “I guess I thought the whole point was to show me what it would look like, if it could be good.”

Andy said, “And?”

Laura’s mouth went sideways. “It was good,” she said. Then she looked down. “But it didn’t feel like anything you could have planned for. It felt like… an accident.”

She went quiet again. Andy’s hand was still in hers, steady, and neither of them seemed to notice how hard they were holding on.

“I can’t stop thinking about the letter,” she said, almost too low to hear. “I know I said I didn’t believe in your reading of it. That I was sure she’d written it to say the truth. But now—” She trailed off, one body biting her lip, the other swallowing hard. “After today, I don’t even want that to be true.”

She turned, both bodies facing him at once, eyes huge in the dark.

“I want to believe that you and I, that we aren’t just for show. That it is real, and not a trick, and that I am actually… loved, I guess. Even if it makes me a cliché.”

Andy felt the world tilt, just a little. He asked carefully, “What changed?”

Laura looked at the sand, tracing a line with her toe. “I heard Sam’s voice again, from that morning, right after I told her about the letter. She said it had been written backwards. Not just the dates, but the way the words ran. Out of order. Like someone who was panicking and didn’t know how to get the point out in the right direction.” She let out a shaky laugh. “It made sense, but I told myself it didn’t matter, because of course people say things like that when they want you to be happy.”

She studied Andy's face, waiting for something to break there, but he kept himself steady.

Andy said, “"I saw it, too. The day you showed it to me. Even before Sam said a word.”

Laura went very still. “You never told me.”

“No.” He held her gaze. “Because it wouldn't have meant anything, coming from me. Of course I want you to doubt it—I've wanted you to doubt it since the moment you told me. You needed to hear it first from somebody who didn't have anything to gain by saying so, somebody you couldn’t think was saying it because of the wish.”

Laura was quiet for a moment. “That's...” She started again. “That's probably true.” A pause. “It still doesn't fully settle it. Hearing it again. From you, too.”

Andy said, “Does it change anything?”

She let her shoulders drop, both bodies at once. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I can’t stop thinking that even if it’s true—even if everything is true—I still feel like I’m waiting for someone to come down the stairs and tell me I’m not allowed to be here.”

Andy made a sound, low and careful. “What if they never do?”

Laura turned away, watching the black water. “Then I guess I’d have to start believing it myself.”

She was quiet for a long stretch, both bodies standing close but not quite touching, as if the extra inch would keep the whole thing from caving in. Andy didn’t move to close it.

Instead, he said, “You can start.”

One of Laura’s bodies shook its head, but the other one’s arm dropped its self-hug, the hand coming to rest at Andy’s elbow. She finally let him close the gap, both of her, and when she leaned in, she let herself be held—just for a second, no more—and then stepped back, like she had to check if the world would allow it.

Andy held her gaze, both pairs of eyes, and said, “I’m not going anywhere, even if you take a while to figure it out.”

She smiled, small and exhausted. “You’d better not.”

He pulled her in, this time with both hands, and both Lauras leaned against him, neither trying to be the one who held up the rest.

They stood like that for a long time, the fire on the other side of the lagoon fading to a memory, the party music softening until even the echo was gone.

In the dark, one of Laura’s hands drifted, almost without her noticing, to rest flat against her own stomach.

She held it there, not hiding it, but not explaining it either.

Whatever she was carrying, she didn’t put it down. But she wasn’t holding it alone.