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Ring-a-ring-a-rosie
A pocket full of posies
When they first enter the café, just the two of them, over-worn and over-wrought, they’re dressed for the winter and craving a little heat.
They’re huddled close together even as they stumble across the floor—past a few curious eyes that look away once they find nothing of interest—and stand in front of the counter, heads tilted to scan the handwritten menus above the nineteen-year-old manning the bar. They spot familiar drinks (well, familiar enough) and place their orders.
“A truckload of coffee? Again?” Norman asks, and it’s an old tease (Don had coined the term ‘truckload’ and given Ray’s prone-to-accidents disposition the word had stuck. An immovable object describing an unstoppable force.)
“I need to make up for the lack of energy,” is Ray’s answer, and it catches him off-guard, though there’s no evident surprise on his face. Just the quiver of his brow.
A flash of understanding in his eyes.
“That’s a lot of energy to make up for,” Norman says, cradling his mug of tea. Frozen fingers are warmed. Ray nudges him with an elbow as they walk out of the store, and back into the cold.
“At least I’m not turning into an old man.”
Ray’s voice is lost to the blizzard. Just like them. Like her.
And as they trudge along the streets, drinks in hand, Norman can barely come up with a reply.
We all fall down.
He doesn’t feel the weight of sleep on his eyelids anymore. There is only exhaustion, heavy and dark, wrinkling the bags beneath his eyes.
He’s dreadful, and so is the ever-present cup of coffee in his hands. It’s a comforting addiction.
Norman glances away from the map—he rarely ever does that, these days, now that it’s been a year, a goddamn year—and pries the fragile thing from his fingers before it slips and spills across their battered shoes.
He takes a sip. Shudders.
“It’s bitter,” he says, frowning. Those blue eyes cut deep, even now, and there’s a bitterness in them Ray cannot savor.
“So what,” is the mumbled reply. He rubs his eyes.
Norman tips his head back and finishes the cup. “Sorry,” he says, setting the cup down and wiping his mouth, “There’s nothing left for you.”
The king has sent his daughter
To fetch a pail of water
“Why the sudden interest?”
Ray’s glare incites transparency, and Norman has to quirk a smile, his eyes closed like he’s hiding a laugh. He’s wearing Anna’s apron. Despite how tall he’s become, his bones are still smaller. Ray’s seen twigs thicker than his wrists.
“Anna mentioned you were baking today.” Norman brushes his hand through his hair, and Ray knows he’s hiding the mist in his eyes. “I wanted to help.”
“You can slice the carrots then,” Ray acquiesces, because the ‘no’ in “Norman” is simply another one of his mother’s terrible mistakes.
Norman pauses lengthily just as they’ve settled into a quiet rhythm. Ray stops whisking the batter. He doesn’t ask.
“I wanted to be somebody,” Norman says eventually, and the bowl hits the side of the cake pan with a distinct clang. Norman looks at him, something blank and decidedly restrained lurking behind his gaze.
As always, Ray understands. “How do you be somebody to someone who isn’t here?”
We all fall down.
“You know, Ray,” Norman murmurs, and on the cot next to him Ray shifts, listening. “I’m tired of waiting for someone who isn’t coming.”
“Does that mean you’re going to stop?”
He shuts his eyes, and curls like a child into Ray’s warmth when it’s offered. But there remains a space between them that can’t be filled, and Norman aches in this bereavement.
“No. Of course not.” His fingers twist into loose cloth. It bodes another sleepless night.
“I’ll never stop.”
The robin on the steeple
Is singing to the people
They certainly aren’t helpless. They have an entire family eager and determined to assist them in their search for the girl who disappeared. These people—these kids—are relentless and reliable, though Ray knows they’re worth more than that. Much more than that.
“What was she like?”
He overhears this one evening, as everyone is heading to bed. The door to Oliver’s bedroom is open just a crack, and it’s large enough for Ray’s eye to peer through it.
Norman’s sitting straight, cross-legged on the floor—still exuding his all-business persona. Ray smirks at the stark embarrassment on his face.
Oliver doesn’t know him well enough to notice, but he wears a warm, familial smile, and as stories of an Emma he’s never witnessed fill the air, Ray closes his eyes and listens.
We all fall down.
“What was it like, for you?” Ray asks, his eyes still focused on the holographic map displayed in front of them. His dry expression reveals nothing about his thoughts as usual.
But Norman understands the question—decodes the syllables faster than anyone else can try to guess.
“I prayed for you every day,” he replies simply. “Looked up at the stars.”
Ray glances at him then, more serious than he’d ever been in his life. “She’s still looking at the same sky.”
Norman has to smile. “Yeah. So was I.”
The wedding bells are ringing
The boys and girls are singing
In the weeks before they find her, Ray folds a faded piece of paper into Norman’s hand.
“I found it when I was rummaging through old things,” is the only thing he says. “She obviously would have wanted you to have it.” He pauses. “Wants you to have it.”
Norman’s thumb brushes over it. For the first time since, he cries. A single, lone tear that Ray wipes away with his sleeve.
It’s an old card, written and scribbled over carefully. 2046 is printed in small figures at the corner and it’s smudged—like wet ink—over the forty-six, but it’s recognizable all the same.
Norman tucks it into their album later, right next to two cards dated August 22, 2047 and 2048.
He closes it gently, and to Ray, the way his fingers linger over the cover is a promise.
We can’t fall down.