“Is it sleeping?” Phoebe asks.
“I bet it’s just sleeping,” Gary says.
“Since when do birds sleep with their necks all crooked like that?” the mother asks. She points to the other birds against the wall. “Look at them all. They look like they’ve been assassinated.”
“Well, yeah, when you line them up against the wall like that, it’s creepy,” Lila says.
Phoebe takes a closer look. “Ravens actually sleep like that.”
“Of course you know things about the sleeping habits of ravens,” Lila says.
“They tuck their heads into their chests,” Phoebe adds.
“Well, that doesn’t seem very comfortable for them,” the mother says.
“And why is everybody messing with the hotel’s décor?” Lila asks. “The Cornwall hired award-winning designers to plan out every detail of this place. You can’t just move things around.”
“Carlson said I can do what I like,” the mother says.
Lila looks at Gary and Phoebe. “Go on without me.”
Lila starts to bring the bird sculptures back inside her mother’s room as Gary and Phoebe walk down the hall. They don’t say a word until they turn the corner.
“How do you know things about the sleeping habits of ravens?” Gary asks.
“At some point, every lit professor has to spend a full day researching ravens,” Phoebe says. “They’re everywhere. Writers can’t resist a raven. You know, symbols of death and grief and the underworld and all that jazz.”
“Oh, yeah, love that jazz,” Gary says. “Poe, right? That was the raven poem?”
“Nevermore, nevermore.”
“God, I haven’t read that since high school,” he says. “I remember liking it, but now I don’t remember why.”
“It’s very emo,” she says. “Most of my students tend to respond to it for that reason. Brokenhearted man never gets over dead wife.”
She says it without thinking, but he doesn’t seem rocked by her words.
“I’m just impressed they care about the middle-aged longings of a grieving widower, to be honest,” Gary says.
“My students tend to love characters who sentence themselves to never-ending grief,” Phoebe says. “It seems noble to young people, I think.”
“Little do they know the truly heroic thing is somehow … taking a shower and getting yourself to the grocery store.”
They laugh.
“I just want to say thanks for helping Juice with her dog,” Gary says, still sounding caught up in some emotion from earlier that day. “I know it probably seemed weird, making such a fuss over a little toy, but she got the dog from her mother just before she died.”
“Oh, trust me, I get it,” Phoebe says. “I could tell it wasn’t just any dog.”
He said that even as Juice got too old for it, she checked on Human Princess every day. She still announced her major achievements at breakfast, like, “The Human Princess is eating,” or “The Human Princess has not been tucked in,” and he and his wife would laugh so hard they’d cry.
“I told her I’d get her a new one after the wedding,” Gary says. “But that’s crazy, right? I mean, even as I said it, I didn’t believe myself. We probably won’t get her a new one. I mean, she’s going to be twelve soon. And my dad’s probably right, it’s probably best we get her a real dog, no?”
“Probably,” she says. “But then again, real dogs require real work. You can’t just drop them in the ocean when they die.”
She and Matt debated for years about how much work a dog would be and would it be worth it. Sometimes, she thought just getting a dog would have been easier than endlessly debating about whether to get a dog.
“But maybe it’s a good thing you can’t just drop them in the ocean?” he asks.
They both seem to feel confused for a moment, thinking about Human Princess falling to the floor of the ocean, not being fed, not being tucked into its virtual bed, when Gary’s Uncle Jim and Aunt Gina come out of their room.
“Gary, the man of the hour,” Uncle Jim says, and pats Gary on the back.
“How are you two doing?” Gary asks, in what sounds like his doctor voice. He turns it on very quickly—smooth, controlled, friendly without being overbearing.
“Oh, just terrible,” Aunt Gina says. “Your uncle slipped on the floor yesterday and hurt his ankle, then played a terrible round this morning.”
“Just terrible,” Uncle Jim says.
Some days Uncle Jim does great. Some days Uncle Jim stinks.
“Lost my swing,” he says.
“You’ll get it back,” Aunt Gina says. “You always do.”
“I’m not worried, Gina,” Uncle Jim says. “I know I’ll get it back. Jesus.”
Then Uncle Jim leans in and says, “Hey, son, we have a question for you. It’s about your Aunt Gina’s bowels.”
