Miriam turned her back. “I’m done for tonight.”
They’d barely started, but Becky didn’t bat an eye. “Sure. Just let me finish pulling these last few things out.”
As Miriam navigated to the laptop’s shutdown menu, the cursor flashed across a desktop folder she hadn’t noticed before:
Project Parents.
She hesitated. What could Talia possibly have been working on for her parents? Did she even want to know?
She clicked it open. The contents of the folder fell off the bottom of the window. Video files, spreadsheets, documents with complicated programming code names, others labeled “heads” and “tails” in a series of numbers, and still others with names as inexplicable as “Ketchup.” And at the top, what appeared to be a program titled Projectparents.exe.
She hesitated, then double-clicked.
The computer spun for a few seconds. Then a video box sprang up, and Miriam found herself staring at the last thing she’d expected.
Her children.
3
9:20 PM
“HEY, THERE, MOM AND Dad.”
“Mom. Dad.”
Miriam recoiled, her hand accidentally smacking the keyboard. The video froze Talia and Blaise in time. They were stretched out across this very bed, resting on their elbows. Talia’s beautiful hair, thicker and darker than Miriam’s, was tied up in the same scarf Miriam now wore. The fresh sweetness in those brown eyes took Miriam’s breath away. The way her mouth buttoned up on the beginning of her next word. The single zit on her cheek.
And Blaise, with his thick-rimmed glasses, the fine stubble around his jaw, and the deliberately messy state of his hair, which he worked so carefully to achieve every morning.
They looked so much like him. How had she never noticed?
Miriam closed her eyes against the reminder of everything she wanted to forget. The pit yawned before her, waiting to suck her back down. She could feel the ground sliding away. She was so tired of resisting.
The mattress compressed beside her. Becky’s hand spread warmth in a circle around her back. “What did you find?” she asked.
With effort, Miriam pulled herself back from the breach. “I’m not sure.” The fog was descending again. She clenched her fists—a physical reminder that she was alive, that she had both the ability and the responsibility to carry on.
Miriam examined the frozen image on the screen. It was winter in this video; they were both wearing sweaters, and Talia wore her jingle bell earrings. So long before the fight. Months before they died.
“Are you going to watch it?” Becky asked.
Swallowing, Miriam hit “Play.”
“So if you’re watching this, we’re obviously at Interlochen.” Talia’s eyes danced. She and Blaise had been so excited about getting to spend six weeks at one of the world’s preeminent music camps. They’d missed it by two months. “Blaise is probably hogging a piano someplace to avoid talking to anyone—”
Blaise shoved his shoulder into his sister’s. “And Talia’s flirting, I’m sure.”
Talia laughed—the dusky, silvery laugh that delighted everyone who ever heard it. “I don’t flirt.”
“Do too.”
“I just like people. Unlike some people I know.”
Blaise looked straight at the camera, raising his eyebrows and dipping his chin with an eloquence that rendered words unnecessary. Miriam’s heart skipped. Actually skipped. How long since it had done that?
“Anyway”—Talia elbowed him—“the point is, we know very well you guys are useless without us around. The last thing we need is you stalking us, showing up every weekend. Blaise and I have an assignment for you while we’re gone.”
“It’s a road trip,” Blaise said. “And don’t try to weasel out of it by claiming you don’t have the money. We’re working our butts off to get scholarships, so pull out the tent and camp if you’re that worried about it.”
“And no using the ‘work’ excuse either.” Talia pointed a finger at Miriam. “You said yourself, Mom: there are very few liturgical emergencies.”
Miriam chuckled. She’d forgotten how alive these two made her feel. No, not forgotten, exactly, but the visceral reality of it was electrifying.
“So,” Talia went on, “here’s the deal. This is a special kind of road trip, and I’m warning you …” She leaned into the camera until only her eyes were visible. “It’s gonna be a stretch for you, Mom.” She retreated. “This is called a flip-a-coin vacation.”
Blaise mimed holding a microphone to his mouth. “What’s that mean, Miz Tedesco?” he asked in a game-show-host voice, and thrust the imaginary mic in front of her.
“I’m so glad you asked, Mr. Tedesco. It means at every stop you’ll flip a coin and open the corresponding file, which will take you to a Google map leading to your next destination. Every file is locked until the one before it is opened. And once you open it, you can’t go back, whether you like what you see or not!”
“Oh, lordy!” Becky laughed out loud. “She sure pegged you, didn’t she?”
“Rules of the game, guys,” Blaise said. “This is serious. Talia’s been working for weeks to figure out that programming gem.”
“Don’t try to second-guess it,” Talia said. “You can’t predict it, so don’t try. You’re going all the way across the country, from coast to coast, and it’s completely out of your hands. You’re just along for the ride.”
“But,” Blaise said, “we promise the last stop will be someplace nice and romantic.”
“Ugh, Blaise, seriously. Did you really need to say ‘romantic’?”
Another shoulder shove. Miriam laughed even as she brushed at her eyes.
“You gotta give them some hope, or they won’t go at all,” Blaise told his sister.
Talia made a guttural noise of disgust. “Fine,” she said. “We’re going to find you the most beautiful beach on the West Coast. See? I’m not completely unreasonable.”
“Darling girl,” Becky told the screen, “you are a wonder.”
Miriam put an arm around her friend and squeezed her thanks for expressing what she couldn’t say herself.
“By the way. You have to do this, because I have
