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On a rainy Wednesday morning, Sébastien Le Livre got a letter for the first time in decades. There was no stamp, no postmark or even an address. It had been delivered by hand. There was just one word, in the large, swirling hand he recognised as an old friend’s. ‘ Booker’, it said . He hadn’t heard the nickname in so long, had set it aside at the beginning of his exile. He hadn’t felt worthy of it. Why should he get to continue using the name given to him by the friends he had betrayed?
That was what he told himself, anyway. Would never admit to anybody, not even himself, that it was actually because he couldn’t deal with the stab of guilt he felt every time he heard it. He wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive himself.
He put the letter on the kitchen counter, and could bring himself to do nothing but stare at it. It was Joe’s handwriting, a script he’d know at the end of the world. His time wasn’t over yet. At last count, he still had twenty-three years left on his exile. He’d spent seventy seven years alone, moving from place to place in France. Paris to Bordeaux, Lyon to Nice. It was Lille he’d settled in now, in a small apartment near Jardin Vauban and the Citadelle de Lille. He hadn’t been there long, and with over two decades of isolation left he hoped he could ride out the rest of his exile here, unnoticed. If anyone asked, he just had a crazy-good skincare routine.
And people did ask. He could never stay anywhere too long, never know anybody too long. He’d tried friends, at the beginning. He got a job in a bookstore in Paris, just to pass the time, and met a group that welcomed him with open arms- and he joined them, even though it felt like cheating. But so soon they began to age, crows’ feet taking place beside their eyes and wrinkles on their foreheads. One day the youngest of them, a short girl named Corinne who had been so youthful when they met but now looked older than he, cornered him in the bookshop.
“What’s your secret?” she’d asked with a laugh, grin wide on her face, “you still look the same as the first day we met. I wish I had your skin.” Her words cut straight to his heart, because he knew they were true, and unavoidable. She was ageing, would continue to age, and yet he was still as marble, skin unchanged by the years. He was going to lose these friends, one way or the other. They would die one day, and he would not.
He’d made his excuses the next week, quit his job, and set to run to Bordeaux. They cried, hugged him, demanded he keep in touch- he assured them he would, smiling though he knew he was lying.
He never tried friends again. He started to bounce around cities for good measure. He couldn’t quite bear losing everyone yet again.
Five years into living in Lyon, he spent his nights in a bar down the street from his apartment. It was small, and quiet, and the drinks were cheap. He didn’t talk much there, but it wasn’t long until he realised a girl who worked at the bar had taken a shine to him. Her name was Josephine and she was beautiful, with long blonde hair that reached her hips, and the same bubblegum pink lipstick painted on every day. He entertained her, took her to bed, and it grew into a relationship- but it just felt hollow to him. She looked at him with adoration, but he could find none in return. He cared about her, of course, but every time he looked at her he remembered Corinne and the others, and how this could only end the same way. He found himself simply going through the motions of what he thought a normal person would do, and getting no fulfillment from it, like reading a book when you’ve already had the end spoiled for you. He longed to be like Joe and Nicky, to have somebody he could never lose. Somebody who would never die and leave him behind. He broke up with her and she cried, and he hated himself for realising that the only pain it caused him was knowing he’d need to find a new bar.
The letter was staring at him. It didn’t have eyes, but it was staring at him nonetheless. Had he done something wrong? Had something happened, something so terrible that they would need all five of them again? He didn’t know what he hoped for. Sudden forgiveness and an invitation back into their family didn’t seem so likely. Whatever it was, it was important.
He lifted the envelope with shaking fingers, turning it over to open it. It hadn’t even been stuck closed- one of them had delivered this themselves. His family knew where he was, and they were here too.
The letter that came from the envelope was handwritten, something he rarely saw now. It wasn’t Joe’s writing, however- it was Andy’s.
It was shaky, but it was definitely hers. He’d seen Andy’s writing even more than Joe’s, in letters and on strategy plans and even the weekly shopping lists she’d written those few quiet years they all lived together in Florence. He’d been trying not to think about Andy, especially for the past couple of decades. He knew she’d probably be getting quite old by now, if not in appearance then in body. Andy’s newfound mortality was something he’d hoped would stop existing, if he just forgot about it for long enough. He still thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d see her again.
Reading just the first few words of her letter put a knife through those hopes.
Booker,
By the time you get this letter, I’ll be dead. I’ve told Joe to deliver this only once I’m gone. I’m sorry that it had to be this way, and I wish I could have seen you one more time before the end. Take this as part of your punishment, if you will- that you didn’t truly get to say goodbye, and that this is the closest I will ever get.
His heart stung at that. He knew this was his doing, causing Andy to face her final death with a member of her family missing from her side.
I had to write, though. For two hundred years you were my brother, and I could not leave without a word to you. Do you remember the time we went to Lahore, and we set up camp near a group of peafowl? You left your tent open to let in the breeze, and woke up to a group of peachicks on your chest. Instead of moving and disturbing them, you called out to me to come and help you. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. You kept up this depressed bastard image, but there was a softness inside. I just hope that softness is still there, that it hasn’t dried up over these years alone. And as for me helping you- I wish that I knew how, towards the end. I could tell that you were being torn apart inside, and I would have done anything to heal how much you were hurting- but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. But you will always be my brother, Booker. Even after I’m gone.
Booker didn’t realise he was crying until a tear hit the page. He wiped it away softly, hoping not to ruin the paper. He didn’t have many keepsakes- when you live so long and so haphazardly, it’s hard to hold on to things. But this was one thing he knew he never wanted to lose.
I have missed you in these years apart. I hope that you’ve missed us. They told me they’ll meet you at 4pm, in Jardin Vauban, the day you receive this letter. They still haven’t decided what the outcome will be, but we agreed it’s only fair they meet you, if only to remember me.
I hope you will, Booker.
Andromache
He stared at the bottom of the paper so long his eyes glazed over, the black ink blurring into an unreadable smudge. His head was spinning. There was one phrase he couldn’t help but repeat, over and over again in his mind- Andy is dead, Andy is dead, Andy is dead. The very sentence seemed oxymoronic- Andy couldn’t be dead, she could never be dead. For as long as he had known her, the inherent truth to Andromache was that she was seemingly older than time itself, and that she would be around long after the Earth stilled. None of them had ever stopped to consider that one day she would stop healing, and simply age and die. She couldn’t.
He needed a drink. Or several.
Booker spent the hours until 4pm drinking, but nothing too strong, and he made sure to space them out with glasses of water. As much as he’d love to get wasted and forget his grief for a while, he needed an at least semi-clear head for when he went to meet the others. As he drank, he wondered how the others were. He’d been gone over half a century, things had to have changed since the last time he saw them. Joe and Nicky were likely more or less the same, but Nile would definitely have changed. Whether for better or worse, seventy years of living will always change a person. She’d be over a hundred years old now, if he remembered correctly. Her hundredth birthday was yet another thing he’d missed because of his selfishness.
4pm came much sooner than Booker had anticipated. At fifteen minutes to four, he stood from his sofa and dressed, checking himself in his mirror to make sure he looked okay. He didn’t want their first impression of him in nearly eighty years to be that he had been wasting away. It was seven minutes to four by the time he decided he looked okay, and he grabbed his keycard and headed down the stairs and out of his apartment, towards Jardin Vauban. He only lived two streets away, so it was a short walk, but the whole time he felt on edge. Booker hadn’t been truly nervous in so long- he’d had no real cause to be. But that day, making his way down the clean streets of Lille on the way to reunite with his estranged family, he could have died again from nerves alone.
He reached the garden in a minute or two, looking around to check for the others, but not seeing anyone yet. In the summer, this garden was usually thick with people, but they were in the middle of autumn now and the cold was starting to bite. He found a bench near the centre of the garden, with good visibility from the entrances, and sat there to wait. If his nails were a little shorter from biting tonight, he’d pretend he didn’t notice.
He heard voices a few minutes later, and looked up to see Joe, Nicky and Nile walking together, Nile carrying a small box in her arms.
“Booker,” Nicky greeted when they were close enough to speak, “sooner than we’d thought.”
It was the first time anyone had called him by his nickname in so many years. It sparked something inside of him, a flame that had dwindled in his isolation.
“I’m kinda wishing it wasn’t, if this was always going to be the reason,” Booker replied, “but I’m glad to see the three of you.” Italian felt foreign on his tongue. Having not left France in so long, he’d barely had to use it. His Italian had never been perfect in the first place- Nicky was immediately putting him on the back foot. Booker wasn’t sure if that had been a calculated choice or not.
“You’ve been well?” Joe asked, both his tone of voice and the look on his face telling Booker that he still had not forgiven him, not entirely.
“I’ve been okay. Been keeping myself busy… I learned cross stitch, had a brief and generally unfulfilling relationship, nothing too out of the ordinary.”
There was a silence in the air for a moment, as if none of them knew what to say after so long apart.
“How long ago?” Booker couldn’t stop himself from asking. It was one of the only things he could think regarding the current situation, that and “Was it peaceful?”
“Two weeks ago,” Nile replied, in Italian. It was obvious that she would have learned by now, but hearing her speak like it came so naturally to her was jarring. She must have spent a lot of time with Joe and Nicky. “And it was peaceful. She was happy with how it ended, said it was her time.” At this, Nile shifted the box in her arms to place it on the bench beside him, and Booker could finally see what was inside- five bottles of beer. “I brought these to toast to Andy.” She passed the bottles around, one to each person, taking the spare one in her other hand once she had her own drink open.
“To Andy,” Nicky said, bringing his bottle between them all. The others met him in the middle, echoing “to Andy” before taking a swig. Nile opened the spare bottle on the bench, before tipping it gently to pour the drink out into the grass. To Andy.
They were silent for much longer after that, working through their drinks and leaving each other to their thoughts of their lost friend. It was only when they’d all reached the bottom of their bottles, and there were tears in Nile’s eyes, that Booker spoke up once again.
“What happens now?”
It was a question he dreaded asking. Up until then, he could at least pretend that this was it now, that he had his family back- even if one short. But they still had the power to deny him that, to make him wait those extra twenty three years regardless.
“We had a discussion before we came here,” Joe said, his hand resting on Nicky’s lower back, “and… while Andy was still alive, she told us what she wanted.”
“What did she say?”
“Let the fucker come home,” Nile quoted, in a tone that was unmistakably Andy. Booker couldn’t help but smirk, for the briefest second.
“We thought it over a lot, both before and after she died,” Nicky added, “and we decided on a compromise.”
“We are going to forgive you of twenty years,” Joe elaborated, “missing Andy’s death is payment enough for those. But you still have three. We will come for you before the new century, and we will see it through together, as a family. After that, you can work on repaying your debt to us in person.”
“I’m planning to have a lot of laundry that weekend,” Nile joked.
Three more years. Just three more years, and then Booker would have his family back.
He could do that.