Chapter 13: Alive, On the Record

Livia's POV

My mother sat on the stoop of my grandmother's house with one small bag between her feet.

She wore a gray coat that wasn't hers.

Bruce stopped the car at the curb and stayed in it.

I got out and stood on the sidewalk, and I did not go up the steps.

"Livia, baby." She stood. "Please let me in. It's cold."

"No."

"I flew all night with a letter from a stranger. I have no money and no phone."

"You have a husband with a big house on the Island."

Her face crumpled, and for a moment I wanted to give her my key.

I didn't.

"You have one day," I said. "Bruce's letter ends at midnight."

"I know. I'll go to the county office tomorrow."

"Today."

"Livia..."

"Four million people watched me open that coffin," I said. "A video of it has been on every phone in New York since Thursday."

"I saw it in Bermuda."

"Then you know there is only one way you stop being dead."

She stared at me.

"Out loud," I said. "In front of the people you made cry."

The Nassau County clerk's office in Mineola had four news vans at the curb by two o'clock.

I hadn't called anyone.

The funeral video had done it for me.

Mom stood on the sidewalk with her bag held against her stomach.

Cameras turned toward her one at a time.

"Oh, God," she whispered.

"Walk," I said.

I stayed one step behind her, where the lenses could see us both.

A reporter shoved a microphone at her. "Ma'am, are you the woman from the Saint Brendan's funeral?"

Mom stopped.

I watched her look for the smile she used on waiters.

It didn't come.

"I'm Livia's mother," she said. "I'm alive."

The sidewalk went loud, and she held up her hand.