Page 65 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
Learn to braid my hair like Cordelia’s.
Ice skating lessons.
Live in a home filled with things that make my heart happy, no justifications needed.
Beatrice looked around—could this be that home? Some of the old timber still needed fixing and painting, and there wasn’t a single knickknack on any surface, and anyway, she had none to place on a surface even if she’d wanted to. Whathadhappened to her tchotchkes? Maybe she had a box of them somewhere. Grant had hated clutter—he’d always wanted his home to make anyone feel welcome.Like the best kind of hotel, neutral and inclusive.
The problem was that “neutral and inclusive” equaledabsolutely zero personality. Fuck that. Maybe she’d go to a flea market or thrift store this week and actively search out something just forher. Minna would surely know the best places to go—perhaps she’d come, too? Would Cordelia have the time to go with them? She could see it: Cordelia poking through a rack of polyester blouses, pulling out a pair of linen overalls covered in avocados, holding them up with the non-ironic intent to buy them. Minna with a book on sailing the West Indies under her arm and a cracked incense burner in her hands, peering eagerly at the creepy doll Beatrice would joke about buying (but would never), approving of the small blue paperweight Beatrice would buy instead.
Soon, hopefully, Reno would install the bookshelves that Beatrice would fill with things she loved: funky lamps from the sixties, framed postcards of places she’d explored, maybe a glass frog that was objectively ugly but meant something to her because of how she felt the day she found it.
That was, if she didn’t keep running Reno off like she just had.
And if Beatrice lived long enough.
She shook her head.
Next:If I have five years left.
Know where I belong.
Know who I love.
Be a good friend.
Be a great family member.
Why was this exercise getting scarier?
She didn’t want to think about the answer, so she rushed ahead to the next one:If I have one year left.
Help Minna decide on colleges to apply to, if she wants to go.
Help Cordelia with a problem. Any problem.
Learn how Reno takes her coffee and surprise her with a cup.
Do that Book Concierge thing at Keelia’s shop.
Accept Astrid’s offer to teach me how to knit.
Slowly, Beatrice double-clicked Astrid’s name and replaced it with Cordelia’s. She wasn’t ready to want anything from Astrid. Maybe in a year. But maybe not.
A boat’s horn blared outside. She jumped so much, she spilled tea into her lap, just missing the keyboard.
Then she typed the next time frame:
If I have one month left.
What would she do, honestly, if she knew for an absolutefactthat she had thirty days to live?
Beatrice closed her eyes and breathed, trying to still the throb that rose in her chest.
If she had just one month left, would she curl her body into a fetal shape and cry with the covers over her head? Would she take up smoking and drink herself to sleep each night? Whywouldn’tshe?
Slowly, she typed:
I would tell Cordelia, Minna, and Reno that I want to know them.
