Chapter 2
Suddenly, Oliver understood. Ethan, in front of him, who couldn't see, had written my name himself.
Ethan couldn't see where the pen touched the wood, so he had to rely on touch, tracing each letter slowly and carefully.
Oliver swallowed hard.
He stood up, stepped aside, and called Derek.
"Mr. Smith, I think you should come down and see for yourself," he said.
Derek's voice came through the phone, sharp and impatient. He snapped, "Oliver, I told them to get rid of him.
"I've seen every stunt Luna can pull, from jumping off buildings to slitting her wrists to calling the cops.
"Now she's even sending her brother over. Tell her the divorce papers are ready.
"If she wants the twenty thousand dollars, she needs to sign. Otherwise, she gets nothing."
Oliver held his phone, glancing back at the lobby.
Ethan was still kneeling there, completely still.
Those clumsy, crooked letters spelling my name on the urn were staring right back at him.
Oliver said quietly, "Mr. Smith, that's really her ashes."
There was a brief pause on Derek's end. Then he replied, "I don't care if it's real. Just get rid of it."
The call ended. Oliver slipped his phone back into his pocket and stood there for a long time.
Finally, he walked back to Ethan, said nothing, and turned to get on the elevator.
Ethan stayed on his knees, not knowing what Oliver had said on the phone.
All he knew was that no one had come to claim her.
Just like three days ago. He'd knelt at the entrance of the morgue, but no one came to claim me.
Three days ago was the last time Ethan saw me, in the basement room I rented.
He couldn't see. He'd been blind since he was a kid. But he could feel.
He visited me once a week. Starting from the run-down neighborhood where he lived, he'd ride the bus for three stops.
Then he counted four hundred steps along the blind path, turned left, and went down twelve steps to reach the basement door.
That day, he knocked on the door for a long time. But I never opened it.
I always opened the door right away.
Before he even finished knocking the third time, I'd fling it open, grab his wrist, and pull him inside, saying, "Ethan, slow down. The steps are slippery."
But that day, he knocked over a dozen times, and there was no response.
He thought I must have gone out. But when he pressed his ear to the door, he heard a faint sound coming from inside.
Not my voice, not the TV.
It was the phone buzzing, nonstop. But no one answered.
He twisted the doorknob hard, and the door opened.
A smell hit him. He didn't know what it was. He couldn't tell.
Later, he would learn that it was the smell of a body starting to decompose after three days.
He called out, "Luna?" No one answered.
He felt his way along the wall, tripped over something, and almost fell.
It was a shoe. My shoe.
He kept going and bumped into the edge of the bed.
He reached out, and his hand found my arm. It was cold and stiff.
He held my arm and gave it a gentle shake.
Ethan called out softly, "Luna?"
There was no response.
He held his hand beneath my nose, desperately hoping for a sign of life. No breath.
He leaned in, pressing his ear against my chest. No heartbeat.
Ethan knelt in front of the narrow bed, holding my cold hand, but he didn't cry.
He never really knew how to cry. I had told him since he was little that crying was useless.
No one would come, no matter how much he cried.
He carefully arranged my hand, laying it neatly by my side, just like how I used to carefully straighten his clothes for him when he was a kid.
Then he pulled out his phone. It was an old flip phone with big buttons, easy for him to feel each number.
He dialed 911. The paramedics who came told him that, judging by my condition, I had been dead for at least two or three days.
Ethan asked, "How did my sister die?"
The paramedic replied, "Looks like she died from an illness, but we'll need the autopsy report to be sure. There was an empty bottle of heart meds on the table."
Ethan asked, "What happens now?"
The paramedic asked, "Are you her family? Are there any other family members? Where's her husband?"
Ethan replied, "Yes. She has a husband. He is Derek."
He dialed the number the way I had taught him. No one answered. He tried five times, but still no answer.
After that, he handled all the funeral arrangements by himself.
The funeral home staff asked him, "What kind of service do you want?"
Ethan didn't know what that meant.
"The cheapest cremation is one hundred and forty dollars, and the cheapest urn is twenty dollars," the staff said.
Ethan dug through his pockets. He usually made money by giving massages on the street, seven dollars a pop.
When things went fine, he could do four or five. He had one hundred and twenty dollars in his pocket, all crumpled bills.
He was still short by forty dollars. He knelt.