Chapter 8

On the summer solstice, a rare hailstorm arrived. Asher knelt in the storm the entire night. He carried no umbrella. The hail struck his body with dull thuds, like countless tiny fists pounding. The next morning, when people found him, he was already unconscious from the cold, clutching the velvet box containing the ash stones tightly to his chest, his fingers still in a pinching motion. The hospital diagnosis read: "Severe pneumonia, complicated by multiple organ failure." Nurses said he kept muttering "Clara, I'm sorry" in his coma, that his temperature hovered around 39°C, like a burning, unending regret. Mother stayed by his bedside. While wiping him down, she discovered his back was covered in crisscrossing scars. He had burned them himself with cigarettes, old and new overlapping like an ugly map. I floated in the hospital room, watching the weak waves on the monitor, suddenly remembering a summer night many years ago. I had a fever of 39°C, and he stayed by my bedside ju