“Your brother…um, Elliot.” He pauses to clear his throat or collect his thoughts. I don’t know. But his voice is raspy when he continues. “He talked about you.”

  Ten minutes ago, I was pretty sure I was dead inside.

  Damn Kieran Flanders for proving I’m not.

  My eyes instantly fill with burning, punishing tears.

  “You were all he talked about while we…while we were trapped in the cat. You know, in the crevasse.” He clears his throat again. “My, uh, my brother, Stewie, he was breathing for a while, but not in a good way. It was loud, you know? And then, all a sudden, it was too soft. And then it was just…gone.”

  I blink my eyes then close them tightly, feeling hot tears slip down my cheeks.

  “Me and Elliot were in the back of the cat when it fell. Howard, Tyler, and Roman were in the front. They died right away. We fell thirty, forty, fifty feet, you know? Stewie was in the middle. He didn’t hit the windshield like the others, but he smashed his head into the roof, and that knocked him out before he hit the gear shift. Elliot fell onto Stewie, and I fell onto Elliot. He broke my fall.”

  My eyes flare open. “And you broke his legs.”

  “Yeah,” says Kieran Flanders. The word is simple, matter of fact. “Stewie stopped breathing on Sunday. Next day, Elliot caught a signal on his phone, and we tried to call you, but he only had two percent left on his battery, and his phone kept dropping the call. By Thursday, we knew no one was coming. So I climbed out. Tried to find help.”

  “And left my brother to die alone, surrounded by dead bodies.”

  “Yeah,” he says again. No denials. No excuses. Just the truth.

  I gulp over the lump in my throat, glance at the Jack Daniels, and swipe away my tears. “I think you should go now, Mr.—”

  “Me and Elliot sat together in that ice hole for more’n four days. From the time we fell in on Saturday, until I left to get help on Thursday,” he says, continuing like I didn’t just ask him to leave. “And what he talked about more’n anything…was you, Addy.”

  Is it strange that I don’t mind him calling me Addy when I felt like murdering Gideon Grigoriev for doing the same? It doesn’t make me mad to hear Kieran Flanders speak it. This man learned my nickname from the only man who is—was—allowed to use it. Somehow, that makes it okay.

  “What did he say?” I whisper, surprised by my sudden yearning to know.

  I haven’t yearned for anything but peace—a peace I only found in the deathlike sleep afforded by scotch—in weeks.

  “He talked about your childhood in Detroit. About your mom and your grandmother.” He averts his eyes for a second, then adds, “Your stepfathers.”

  I try to take a deep breath, but it’s hard. I can’t fill my lungs. For most of our adulthood, Elliot and I didn’t talk about any of those people.

  “And you,” says Kieran Flanders. “His sister, Addy. His twin.” He tries to clear his throat. “Think I could have a cup of water?”

  I nod, standing up. “Sure.”

  When I return thirty seconds later, Kieran Flanders is holding a framed picture of me and Elliot on my graduation day from Stanford. I offer him the water and take the framed picture from his hands, staring at Elliot’s goofy grin for a second before placing it face down on my desk. He was high that day. High as a kite at my college graduation.

  “He said you were smart. Said that you’re a lawyer.”

  I nod. “I am…I was.”

  “He said that you saved his life over and over again. When you were kids. When you were growing up. When he was an adult crashing at your place. He said you never complained. He called you his guardian angel.”

  The pain of these words is so sharp and terrible, I gasp, pressing a palm against my chest. I wasn’t there to save him when it mattered most, was I?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” says Kieran Flanders. “You’re thinking that you’re a piss-poor guardian angel letting him die in a crevasse, right?”

  I can’t swallow over the lump in my throat, so I can’t speak. I nod instead.

  “That wasn’t your fault, Addy. That was Elliot. That was me. That was a bunch of guys who thought they were indestructible.” He tilts his head to the side as his eyes fill with tears and repeats. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  A sob breaks free from deep inside my body. It’s ugly and awful, but it’s a relief too. Did I mention how ugly grief looks sometimes? It’s hideous. My sobs are jagged and rough, born of a place so profoundly desolate and guilt-ridden, it’s a miracle they’re able to surface at all.

  Kieran Flanders doesn’t try to comfort me, for which I am grateful. He just sits quietly with his gaze averted, waiting until I’m done. And when I am, I realize the breath I take is deeper and smoother than any I’ve taken in months. It feels good, even. And that surprises the hell out of me.

  “He loved you very much and said you were very brave,” he says. He leans his head up and locks his eyes with mine. “I can see you’re having a rough time, but you’ve got to try harder, Addy.”

  This makes me start crying all over again, because it’s true: I’ve been abusing my body for months now, and for all that Elliot drank too much and took drugs, he wouldn’t have approved of me doing the same. Not even a little bit. It would have disappointed him, which makes me feel disgusted with myself.

  “You need to figure out a way to keep going,” says Kieran Flanders. “If not for yourself, then for him.”

  “Elliot wanted to die,” I say, feeling angry.

  “He said that at one point: something about always having had a death wish. Except, you need to know, Addy, that he had a change of heart. Before I left to find help, he wished me luck and told me that he didn’t want to die anymore. He was mad at himself for ever feeling that way.”

  My eyes widen at this news because I’m not expecting it. “He said that?”

  “He did.” Kieran Flanders nods. “He said that you had a stepfather that put him in the hospital a few times, and that got him used to the idea of dying, or of escaping death. But when he was down there in the crevasse? He said he wasn’t ready. He wished he could see you again. He wasn’t ready to go.”

  I can barely see Kieran Flanders through my tears. He’s just a blurry mass sitting in a fancy chair, telling me wonderful and terrible things that hurt my heart this moment, just as much as they will one day give me comfort.

  “He s-said th-that?”

  “He did.” He takes another sip of water. “And he said…” He pauses, looking uncomfortable for a second before continuing. “He said that if you ever have a kid, you shouldn’t name him Elliot. He said you would want to, but you shouldn’t. He said it’s a bad luck name.”

  I sniffle and sob, thinking that Elliot’s right. If I ever did have a kid, I would want to name him or her after my brother. As I think this, something pings in my head—something off-topic and strange; something foreign and forgotten—so I ignore it, telling myself to sort out the feeling later.

  “What else?” I ask.

  “Oh, lots of things, I guess. He talked about your grandma a little. He loved her.”

  “We both did,” I say, smiling through my tears. “She was good to us.”

  “But too old to take you in, he said. Oh, and he told me to tell you that he hid some weed in the vanity cabinet of your guest room bathroom. He said you shouldn’t smoke it. He said to tell you to keep being good.”

  You be good, Addy. One of us has to be.

  “He always had two sets of rules—one for me and one for him,” I say, then I shake my head and giggle through the tears coursing down my face because I’m sad, but it also feels good to remember him with someone. “What else?”

  “Um…” His eyes, which are sad and dark, meet mine. “He said you should forgive your mother.”

  I raise my chin. “No. He didn’t say that.”

  Kieran Flanders nods. “Yes, he did. He said he went back to Detroit not that long ago. Spent the day with her. Said she didn’t recognize him or anything, but he told her that he forgave her for everything, and he said you should do the same.”

  My mother, Nancy Jones, who let her sleazeball boyfriends and monster husbands abuse me and Elliot, lives in a care home in Detroit. Why? Because she developed early-onset Alzheimer’s when she was thirty-eight. By forty-two, she had no idea who we were anymore and couldn’t live independently, so I placed her in a home. Now in her early fifties, I understand her body is still relatively fit, but I haven’t seen her in almost a decade, and honestly, I never intended to see her again. While Elliot and I have had to live our lives with the bleak memories of everything she put us through, she’s been blissfully ignorant of it for years.

  It just isn’t fair.

  I’m not talking about Nancy Jones with Kieran Flanders, and that’s that.

  “Anything else?” I ask.

  “I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot, but things come back to me almost every day,” he tells me. “I keep a journal. How about I e-mail you now and then? Tell you things I remember. Would that be okay?”

  I manage to give him a small smile. “I’d appreciate it.”

  He looks around my office, his eyes lingering on my law school diploma. “Did you say you weren’t practicing law anymore?”

  “No, I’m not,” I tell him. “Life got—I don’t know. It’s just been really hard.”

  “I get it,” he says, nodding for a moment before tilting his head to the side. “But can you still practice?”

  “I guess. I wasn’t actually disbarred.” I shrug, leaning forward a touch. “Why? Do you know someone who needs a lawyer?”

  He looks awkward for a second, then shrugs. “Maybe.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  ***

  Hours later, after I’ve said good-bye to Kieran and managed not to pour myself a drink, no matter how much I want one, I think about his case. It turns out Howard Greene had a bit of money squirreled away. Kieran wants some of it to pay for his medical bills and needs a lawyer to get the process started.

  I told him I’d file the motions to freeze Howard’s assets as soon as possible.

  Now that I’m lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, I don’t know if it was a good idea or not to take on Kieran’s case. For the first time in months, I feel something other than grief. I don’t want to let Kieran down. In thanks for the time he spent with Elliot and his kindness in relaying my brother’s words to me, I can’t stomach the idea of fucking up his case. I want him to get as much money as possible, and I insisted on taking the case pro bono.

  Pro bono.

  Latin for “for the public good.”

  Ice-blue eyes flash through my mind but bring with them a familiar heaviness. While I was sleeping in the warm, safe harbor of Gideon’s body, my brother was dying.

  I care about you, Addison.

  I don’t care.

  At the time, I meant it.

  I take a deep breath, turn out my bedside lamp, and roll to my side, going over my conversation with Kieran.

  He said that if you ever have a kid, you shouldn’t name him Elliot.

  I don’t know where the thought comes from—it just pops into my head uninvited—but the three sentences start running through my head in sequence: I care about you, Addison. I don’t care. If you ever have a kid, you shouldn’t name him Elliot. I care about you, Addison. I don’t care. If you ever have a kid, you shouldn’t name him Elliot.

  Suddenly I bolt up in bed, swinging my legs over the side.

  If you ever have a kid…if you ever have a kid…

  My hand is shaking when I reach for the bedside lamp and turn it on.

  “If you ever have… a kid,” I murmur, standing up and running into my bathroom.

  I fumble for the light, turning it on as I mutter, “No fucking way,” and root around in the back of my medicine chest for an open box that reads “First Response.” I bought the two-for-one box of pregnancy tests last fall when my period was a few weeks late after sleeping with a guy I met at the spa in Palm Springs.

  I tug down my underwear with one hand, rip open the test packaging with the other, hold the stick in my pee stream, then place the wand beside the sink and sit on the toilet to wait.

  I haven’t had my period in months, but it’s the first time I’ve noticed.

  When? When was the last time?

  Christmas. Christmas Eve. I was headed to Mazatlán for a two-day minibreak and was disappointed to discover my period had arrived on the flight down. Who wants to be bloated and bleeding on the beach?

  Ice-blue eyes slide into my mind again, but this time it’s not a flash. They stay. They linger. They look deeply into my eyes while our bodies orgasm together over…and over…and over again.

  I know before I look.

  I’m pregnant.

  I got pregnant in Alaska, very likely on the same day my brother died.

  Three months ago.

  I’m three months pregnant.

  Grabbing the test, I glance at it, unsurprised to see two very dark pink lines in the little window. The second thing I think is the most sensible, pragmatic, terrifying thought I’ve had in weeks: I’ve been drinking like a goddamned fucking fish.

  Still holding the test, I race into the kitchen, take out the three bottles of scotch in the cabinet over the stove, and pour them all down the drain. There’s a bottle of wine in the fridge that joins them, and I throw the empties in my recycle bin under the sink as tears fill my eyes.

  I’m pregnant with Gideon’s baby.

  A baby that was conceived right around the same time Elliot died. It can’t be a coincidence. The soul of my brother and the soul of my child may have passed one another on their journeys to…and from…heaven.

  Placing the positive test in a Ziploc bag, I pour myself a glass of water and drink it down, then lean against my kitchen counter, gently placing my hands on my belly, which isn’t the slightest bit swollen yet.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry for all the drinking. I didn’t know you were there. I promise I’ll do better now, little one. I promise I’ll do so much better for you than my mother did for me.”

  I don’t feel any different, but now that I think about it, all of those mornings that I thought I was vomiting from the night before could’ve just as easily been morning sickness. And my emotions, which have been all over the place, may have been exacerbated by hormonal changes. And when I assumed I was too tired for work because I’d stayed awake at night thinking about Elliot, it’s possible I was too tired because I was growing a person.

  “Oh, my God, El,” I say aloud. “I’m having a kid.”

  Don’t name him Elliot, I hear in response.

  And for the first time in months, I laugh, because this unexpected kernel of joy lights up my bleak and lonely life in a way I never thought possible again, and it’s a glorious and awesome feeling. I feel like a phoenix rising from the ashes of grief, with a new purpose for living, with a new reason for going forward.

  I never really considered having children—What the hell do I know about being a mother?—but now that I’m expecting a baby? A child of my own? It’s a chance to reverse the past. It’s a chance to give this little person, this already beloved little being, every opportunity, every bit of love that Elliot and I didn’t have, yet longed for. It’s a chance to do things right—for me, in the memory of my twin brother, and for this baby, who is part of us both.

  We’re going to be a family, me and my baby, which naturally makes me think of his or her father: Gideon.

  He deserves to know.

  I don’t know if he’ll want to be a part of our lives—and certainly, I’m financially capable of raising our child on my own—but Gideon has a right to know I’m having his child. He’s entitled to that information. What he does with it is up to him.

  I think about Gideon’s brilliant blue eyes, and something inside of me—in the near vicinity of my heart—clutches like crazy. The words slide through my head before I can stop them, and they read in bold, bright neon: I can’t wait to see you again.

  I have a court case to file and a man I need to see.

  Despite my promises never to go back, it looks like I’ll be returning to Valdez after all.

  Chapter 8

  Gideon

  “…and of course you’ll recall the tragic incident in Thompson Pass this past January when five men lost their lives in a snowcat accident.”

  “Yes, Joan, that’s right. Historically, thrill seekers have always flocked to Alaska.”

  “That’s true, Phil. Thankfully, this group lucked out. I’m glad they were found in time.”

  “Kudos to the brave search and rescue teams who made it happen.”

  “Indeed. Well, that’ll wrap up our coverage for this evening. For Phil McManus and myself, Joan Halpert, this is 93.3 FM, KVAK, Valdez.”

  As the news theme plays to signal the end of the show, I switch off the radio, feeling glum. It’s not that I need a reminder of her brother’s accident to remember Addison. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about her.

  Not a single day.

  I couldn’t have predicted the lasting effect she’d have on my life, on my heart, but I’m living proof that you can fall hard for someone after a brief acquaintance, after only a handful of days together.

  Last I saw her was in the parking lot of the hotel when she icily promised to pay me but otherwise wouldn’t look at me. I respected her need for privacy in the days that followed, but I stayed in touch with Tom, who gave me updates about how she was doing. She showed up at the morgue on Saturday morning and sat there in the hallway until her brother’s body arrived. She wept when she identified him, pressing her lips to his frozen, frostbitten face, then quickly made plans for him to be transported back to Los Angeles by private plane on Monday morning. As far as I know, she hasn’t been north since.

  I certainly haven’t heard a word from her, though I couldn’t keep myself from looking her up on the Internet.

  Ignoring the fact that I felt like a first-class stalker, I checked out her law firm bio, staring at her photograph for creepy amounts of time until I essentially had it memorized. In it, she wears a simple black dress with her arms crossed over her chest and her auburn hair up in a bun. She looks badass, smart as hell, and incredibly sexy.