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"Okay," Joe says. "Your turn. Tell us about your dad."
Nile stares out at the water and the way their yacht breaks through the waves, the white foam on either side and the spray that washes over them when the wind blows. She thinks of summer, the burning sand, and the way the people had filled every inch of the beach on the really hot days. She remembers going with her mom, Nile and her brother running around the beach umbrellas and the people spread out all over the place, the other children with their sandcastles, and the mom's rubbing sunscreen on their arms. They must have gone as a family at least once, but what she remembers best about the beach is her mom packing sandwiches and juice in a cooler and dragging it over the sand with no complaint.
Her mom had always been like that, always strong, a good mother. She'd worked as a home health aide, picking up extra hours where she could. She'd come home exhausted but always had time to sit with them at the dinner table and tuck them into bed. She'd brought them to the beach in the summer, fell asleep under the beach umbrella, and trusted Nile to keep an eye on things.
They were always well-behaved when they went out because even as young as they were, they'd understood that their actions reflected on their mom. And no matter how much Nile might have wanted something, she'd never wanted it more than she'd wanted to make her mother proud.
"You were good kids," her mom would say. "Like you knew how hard it was sometimes and you were trying to help me out. I've been very blessed."
She tries to remember the good things, that carefree way her mother had of laughing, and the way her brother's smile filled his whole face. They'd been into Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon when they'd been younger and her brother still had his old decks in sleeves on his bookshelf. He'd had her old decks too, lined up neatly next to his Biochemistry and Anatomy textbooks. She'd asked, the last time she'd seen him, how he was doing and how school was going.
He'd been in his last year of undergrad, way ahead of her in knowing what he had to do to prepare for his med school applications. He'd known what he'd been doing and though part of Nile had been terribly sad to see him so grown up, she's proud of him. Even if that part of her that remembers the way she'd rocked him to sleep when their dad hadn't come back would always feel a little left behind, it's just something she'd learn to live with. A natural part of growing up.
She sighs now as she looks out at the water in the distance, at the sun, beaming down from overhead, the clear skies, that beautiful sea breeze that cools her. She's glad that her brother will be okay, that he'll be there for their mom. She can only walk away because she knows they don't need her, that they'll be fine without her. This is good. It's important.
And yet, she finds that the ache that lives in her chest only gets harder to push past as she thinks of what Joe's asking her. A story about her dad.
She remembers telling Andy that time stole everything away, but it's more than that. It's the memories that come after, the way there's never enough room for all the new. She'd had to give up something in order to keep the rest of it, the sleepless nights as she'd shivered under her blankets, curled around her six-year-old brother. How she'd waited for weeks for someone to tell her it was a cruel joke, that her dad would come back and take her on another trip soon. She remembers bits and pieces of what happened after, the move back to Chicago, the one-bedroom apartment, how the money had gone fast.
"He died for what?" her mother had said once. "For a couple of grand and a letter delivered by mail?"
"You come from warriors," Andy had said.
Nile leans back in her chair and thinks of her mother in those early days, how she'd cried herself to sleep but got up every morning to look for a job. How she'd found one, how despite all her loss, she'd gone out every day to make other people's lives better. She thinks of her mom singing in the mornings as she'd braided Nile's hair, how she'd always take them out every weekend.
"I have a story," Nile says.
She can see Andy turn to her with interest, her sunglasses pushed to the top of her head. Joe and Nicky have their chairs pushed together, their clasped hands on Joe's chest. She thinks of Booker, of the altered course of the yacht, how Andy knows where to find him even though he isn't supposed to see them for the next one hundred years.
She thinks of her father, of never seeing her mother again, of her brother flipping through her Yu-Gi-Oh cards. She thinks of how her memory was the first thing to go, how if it weren't for the pictures she keeps on her phone, she'd forget the shape of her father's eyes. She looks at Nicky and Joe and thinks of all the good things they no longer remember. Then she turns to Andy and imagines being so old that nothing makes sense anymore.
"What is it?" Andy asks, leaning forward on her chair.
She's closest to Nile so it makes sense for her to reach out and touch Nile's knee, to offer comfort. Nile stares at Andy's hand, at the single scar that runs from the first knuckle of her middle finger down to the middle of her hand. It must have happened before Andy became immortal and Nile thinks of all the stories that exist within one person, of her own scars, of the things she carries inside her heart that she hasn't shown anyone.
She thinks of her mother and her brother. Her phone sits in her pocket, the SIM card long gone, crushed under Andy's foot. She knows that if she called them, they'd keep her secret, that no matter what Booker says, there are ties that survive grief and loss. She knows her brother and her mother would keep her safe, which is why she can't call them. She won't put either of them in that position, not after Merrick, not after the bloodshed and the tables with their leather straps.
"Tell us your story," Nicky says, gently.
Nile sits up at the edge of her seat and lets her hand fall on top of Andy's. She looks down at the gray-blue floor between her feet and thinks of going to New York City for the first time, of the buzzing of a city come to life and the rush of people. She thinks of her father's wide smile and his arm around her shoulders.
"Have you ever been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art?" she asks.
*
Flying to New York City in 2002 is so different from flying to San Diego before the Twin Towers fell. Nile remembers very little of the actual flight once they make it to the Arthouse Hotel. She's taken by the sheer opulence of the place, the clean brick facade of the hotel, the way it towers above her, small as she is at ten years old. The lobby is wide open space with shining chandeliers and polished black floors. The staff at the front all have neatly ironed black suit jackets and the faint arrogant air of people used to handling important guests.
"Pa, where are we?" Nile asks.
Her mother says something but Nile doesn't hear her as they move through the lobby and into the elevator with its blurred mirrored walls. The buttons light up when her father presses the one for their floor. When they step out, the hallways are just as impressive, plush gray rug and polished wooden tables that hold menus and magazines. Nile keeps her hands to herself, not wanting to break anything.
Their room is more of the same, two neatly made beds next to large windows covered by dark blue curtains. Her little brother, barely five, is asleep in her father's arms so Nile takes the opportunity to explore the room. The bathroom is tan granite countertops and white walls, towels rolled and tucked into the shelf next to the shower. The toiler paper end is folded into a neat triangle and the whole room smells vaguely of spiced orange.
Nile has a million questions as her father tucks her into bed later that night, but there's not enough time and the bed is comfortable, the sheets like warm weights above her. She falls asleep wanting to ask why there are so many metal detectors everywhere they go, why suddenly she can't travel with her birth certificate, why she had to present her passport when her picture is from five years ago. She wants to ask about the locked pilot door and why she'd had to take her shoes off before she'd walked through to the waiting areas.
But most of all, she wants to know where they're going tomorrow.
-
The steps leading to the entrance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art are filled with people, students talking to each other as their teacher tries to get their attention, and mother's dragging screaming toddlers to the side. Nile takes a deep breath as she and her father walk hand in hand down the sidewalk and up to the steps. She can smell the faint tangy scent of sauerkraut and hotdog water as they go.
"Can we have one?" she asks as they pass the hotdog cart.
The man smiles at her and says, "only two dollars."
Nile turns back to her father and smiles, watches as her father reaches into his pocket for his wallet. She turns back to the hotdog vendor and listens to her father order two hotdogs. Nile asks for extra ketchup, watches the man pull out the hotdogs with a skewer and toss them into two buns, the quick swipes of ketchup.
"Thank you," she says as her father hands her one of the hotdogs.
It's not anything Nile hasn't had before but it makes a difference that they're having hotdogs in New York City. This is the first time in a while that her father has been home, longer still since they've gone to a museum together. Nile's looking forward to wandering the great halls, to her father's explanations of his favorite pieces, their historical context. The occasional pop quiz as they wander towards the food courts at midday.
"Where do you want to start?" her father asks, as they finish their hotdogs.
He has a map with the different floors and sections, each floor a different color, each section clearly marked. Nile had seen her father pick it up that morning at the hotel lobby, had watched as he'd tucked it into his coat along with a subway map. They'd walked to the museum because the day had been nice and Nile had wanted to see Central Park.
She's already marked which exhibits she wants to go to first but she makes a show of looking the map over, of lingering on the mummies and the knights. She wants to look at the paintings and the marble sculptures, at everything she can. She wants to consume the history within the walls of the museum, to hear her father talk about his favorite things. She wants, more than anything, to toss a penny into the indoor fountain and make a wish.
"I think we should do the knights first," Nile says.
Her father smiles as though he doesn't know they're always Nile's first choice in any museum that has them. She likes the obvious power in the formations. But also the horses. Mostly the horses.
The day goes by too quickly for Nile to memorize everything. She gets lost in the high vaulted ceilings with the sunroof, the open expanse of windows on the right, the knights in their shining armor and their swords strapped to their sides. She sees the red capes on the knights and tries to give it a name, something too rich to be regular red but too light to be burgundy. She and her father walk through the exhibits, to the indoor fountain with the sparkling pennies and the reconstructed pyramid in the far back on a raised dais. There are darker corridors filled with armor and tools from other continents.
What she remembers most, at the end of the day, are the paintings, the spaced-out hallways with the bright lights. They walk past George Washington Crossing the Delaware and Nile listens as her father tells her about England and Independence, something sad in the undercurrent of his voice. She doesn't understand it then but she will later.
They walk by rows and rows of paintings with their professional strokes and their vibrant splashes of color, the Monets, the Caravaggios, the van Goghs. Nile gets lost in the excitement in her father's voice as he tells her what they're looking at. She looks at the paintings and tries to see what her father sees, what about what's in front of her is important enough to captivate her father's attention.
"I want to know everything you know, Pa," she says as she listens to her father talk about technique.
He laughs, the smile reaching every corner of his face. "You will," he says. "You have a very good teacher."
They have a late lunch in the cafeteria by the indoor fountain and Nile watches the slow drip of water over the sides of the pedestals that hold the little statues of babies. She watches the ripples in the water at the bottom of the fountain, the way the stone pillars that hold the babies have started to go a little green from the water.
"I've always liked the water," her father says.
Nile turns back to him and smiles so big it hurts her cheeks. "Me too," she says.
He smiles back at her, indulgently, and says, "Maybe next time, we'll go on a cruise."
And Nile, ten, with her whole life before her, can't do anything but believe him.
*
Nile leans against the railing, looking down at the way the water splits as they cut their way through the sea. She thinks of her dad and how he'd always wanted to go sailing when he retired.
"Are you all right?"
Nile isn't surprised to hear Andy. She waits as Andy picks a spot next to her, until she's also looking down at the water as the sun hits them from the side. They've left Nicky and Joe at the tip of the boat on the opposite side from where Nile stands now. She'd wanted only a moment with her memories but she's glad that Andy's here. She welcomes the distraction of a problem to solve.
"Why are we going to get Booker?" Nile asks.
Andy's silent for a moment and then she says, "no man left behind, remember."
When Nile turns to her, Andy's already waiting to meet her gaze. Her eyes are hard, dark brown and assessing as she looks Nile over. She doesn't say anything as Nile tries to figure out what they're doing, why it matters to her what Andy's feeling, why she got so invested so quickly.
Her mother and her brother will think she's dead and though Nile can say it's for the best, there will always be a part of her that doubts. She looks at Andy, at the way she takes care of the rest of them, at her sorrow over Quynh, and Nile can't believe that Andy doesn't understand the importance of family.
"He's family," Nile says. "And family sticks together."
Andy says nothing for a moment, her eyes turned to the horizon. Nile watches her, the small pull at the corner of Andy's mouth that could be a frown. She thinks of Jay so suddenly, it catches her off guard. Jay had done the same thing when she'd been thinking, that barely noticeable pull to her mouth. She'd always been happy, always laughing, so beautiful that Nile had thought her heart would burst with the way she'd felt.
They hadn't gone further than looks exchanged in the mornings as they made their cots. Nothing more than a brief touch when they'd reached across each other for their toothbrushes in the morning. But the way Jay had looked as she'd run drills, how she'd always soften up whenever Nile was close by, had stuck with Nile for months. It hadn't been the right time to do anything about it because Nile had been Jay and Dizzy's supervising officer, because it wouldn't have been professional, because Jay had deserved something more than sneaking around in a tent in the desert.
"Who was she?" Andy asks.
Nile laughs, caught off guard. "Who said it was a she?"
Andy raises an eyebrow, something knowing and intense in her stare. Nile smiles slowly and turns to lean against the railing. She thinks of her girlfriends in high school, the quick kisses in bathroom stalls before first period, the sneaking around after school. She thinks of how young she'd been, about the way it felt to have a pretty girl kissing her neck. She thinks of her first boyfriend and the way he'd used to write her poems every morning, how he'd carried her backpack, and held her hand in between classes. She thinks of months in the arid heat of the desert.
"Her name was Jay," Nile says, knowing it makes no difference now. "She was assigned to Afghanistan a few months after I was."
"And?"
Nile looks down at the water, feels the spray hit her face as they speed off into the distance. She lets the silence drag, lets herself feel the loss, no matter how small. It seems that all she can think of these days are all the things she doesn't have.
"And nothing," she says now. "Never look back, remember."
When Nile turns back, Andy's closer, enough that Nile can't look away. She stares at Nile in that careful assessing way she has, as though she can't quite figure out what Nile means.
"It's not bad to miss your family," Andy says.
Nile shrugs. "It makes no sense to dwell on things I can't change," she says.
Andy's quiet for a moment, the sound of the boat's motor loud around them. Off in the distance, Nile can hear the rising sounds of seagulls.
"I'll have to leave my family too," Andy says, finally. "I didn't think it would be this hard to accept that. I don't know if I'm ready."
Nile stares at her, understanding finally what it is about Andy that's calling to her. They're more alike in some ways than Nile even realized. She thinks of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of how her father had to talk her into one more exhibit at the end of the day, at how tired she'd been but how important it had seemed that they stay just a little longer. She thinks of how it had been the last time she and her father had done anything together. She thinks of her mother, of her brother, of Jay, of all the people who'd touched her life in some way. And finally, she thinks of these four people she's supposed to spend the rest of her life with, of how she's already losing one of them.
"It's not meant to be easy," Nile says. "But you're supposed to let yourself feel it."
Andy nods, her eyes on the horizon. "I know," she says. "That's why we have to go get Booker. If saying goodbye is going to be hard, I want there to be more good memories than bad."
Nile thinks of the vague memories she has of her father, of the way they disappear when she tries to reach for them. She thinks of her mother and the sound of her laughter, of her brother, of the things that she's lost to time already. She looks at Andy and thinks of her gone, of the years that stretch interminably in front of Nile, how faulty memories are, how unreliable.
"You should let me take your picture," she says.
Andy looks back startled, her eyes landing on Nile's pocket as though she knows that Nile keeps her phone close to her.
"What for?" Andy asks.
Nile shrugs. "You're aging, figured it would be fun to keep a record," she says. "Something we can have, you know, for after."
Andy raises an eyebrow. "A photographic shrine to my death?"
Nile laughs. "A picture," she says. "For your family. So we can honor you."
Nile can tell she's caught Andy by surprise but it's the good kind because Andy smiles, a small secretly pleased kind.
"Okay," she says. "But just this once."
Nile pulls out her phone, the battery at eighty percent, and turns on her camera. She watches Andy through the lens, the way the wind blows her bangs a little to the side, the way she squints against the sunlight. Nile takes a picture, waits, watches Andy's raised eyebrow, the way she lifts her hands in question. Nile grins at her and as Andy starts shaking her head and walking forward, Nile snaps a second picture.
"I said one," Andy says.
Nile shakes her phone. "Just one," she says, waiting for Andy to turn away for her sunglasses. "You know, one for me, one for Nicky, one for Joe, one for Booker."
Andy rounds on her and Nile flashes her a quick smile and bolts for the main part of the boat. She's laughing as she comes to a stop in front of Joe and Nicky, knowing that Andy won't chase her, that she won't even complain about the pictures.
"Look what I have," she says, tossing her phone at Joe.
He flips through the pictures as Nicky looks on, his eyes going wide as he sees what Nile has.
"She didn't," Nicky says, looking up at Nile.
She grins. "She had no choice."
"Don't get used to it," Andy says, coming up to them.
She's got her sunglasses on again but Nile can tell she's fighting back a smile.
"I feel a little hurt, boss," Joe says. "You've never let me draw you."
Andy shrugs. "What can I say," she says. "Old age changes a person."
Joe says something but Nile's stuck a moment on the group of people in front of her, in the way they live and breathe and exist, just like all the other people Nile's had in her life. She thinks of them fighting every day to do good, to protect what they think is right. She thinks of Andy, fighting still, even when she should be living. She lets herself think of her father again, of his laughter and his pop quizzes in the middle of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Nile lets herself really feel the loss, that gaping wound that makes it hard to breathe. Then, she tucks it all away and turns back to Joe and Nicky and Andy.
"Hey, be careful with that," she says, holding out her hand for her phone. "There are precious memories in that."
Andy snatches the phone from Joe and stares at the screen. "Yeah," she says, smiling as she hands Nile the phone. "You want to take care of those."
Nile takes the phone and when she looks down, her parents stare back at her, mid-laughter, as they hold her brother on the day of his baptism. She smiles down at her phone, tucks it back into her jeans pocket, and looks back at Andy.
"So," Nile says. "We getting Booker or what?"
"He's family," Andy says. "So yeah, we are."