What’s your relation?
Sister. I’m her big sister.
Has Nicole taken any drugs that you know of?
I don’t think so. I don’t know.
Was she responsive when you found her?
She was on the floor. Her lips were blue. I-I picked her up. Was that wrong? Was that bad? Did I hurt her?
The human heart is an amazing thing. It can stop for up to twenty minutes before starting back up again, more if the body has been in cold water. In fact, most organs can survive death for considerable periods. Blood circulation, for instance, can be stopped in the entire body below the heart for at least thirty minutes. Detached limbs may be successfully reattached after six hours. Bone, tendon, and skin can survive as long as twelve. But the brain, as every boxer knows, is another story. It injures faster than any other organ. Without special treatment, full recovery after more than three minutes of death is rare. And by the time Bonnie found Nicky, she had already been dead for four.
—
Bonnie tossed the rest of her sandwich and headed toward the gym before she could change her mind. She had done this journey so many times, her feet guided her without thought. She passed the elementary school whose playground was converted into a flea market on weekends, the dusty Italian bakery Avery would order all their birthday cakes from. She walked until she was almost at Columbus Circle, where the traffic thickened and congealed into a slow crawl. There, on a quiet run-down block in the sixties was Golden Ring. It had a large front shop window, so the entire gym was visible from the street; Bonnie had often glanced up after sparring to find a gaggle of tourists or students from the nearby high school pressed against the glass watching. Now, she was in their place, peering inside as the July heat beat down on her. Pavel was there, as she knew he would be, leaning against the far wall watching the darting, flitting figure of a young man shadowbox.
—
The day after Nicky died, Bonnie sat with her family and described finding her over and over again. Lucky and Avery had flown overnight from London and Paris; they begged her, faces hollow and exhausted, to go over each second again, as if by mastering every part of what happened they could somehow change it. Bonnie told them every single detail except one: that Nicky had called her to ask her for the drugs. Whether this was to protect Nicky or herself, she did not know. It was the police who found the Ziploc bag of pills on the kitchen counter. There were ten of them, pale pink, Nicky’s favorite color. Bonnie was so naive. She had never even heard of fentanyl before. That evening, when everyone went to bed early, Bonnie went back to the gym. She didn’t know what else to do. Pavel found her working the heavy bag in the dark, the streetlamps outside casting long orange streaks across the floor. He touched her shoulder gently, but she did not stop. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with sadness.
I cancel the fight.
Bonnie kept hitting the bag. Jab, jab, cross. Jab, hook, cross. Jab, jab, uppercut.
Bonnie, did you hear me?
Bonnie shot another hook off the jab.
I’m taking that fight, she huffed between punches.
Bonnie, stop. Go be with family now.
Bonnie kept hitting.
You said it, she said, her voice flinty. Boxing first, family second.
Pavel looked at her with a pained expression.
Not like this.
Isn’t—jab—that—jab—what you told me?
She shot her straight right so hard the chains holding the bag groaned. Pavel put his hand on her back to stop her, but she swung around and pushed him away from her. He stepped forward again, but she shoved him back. Her voice tore out of her.
Isn’t this what you wanted me to be? She pounded her chest with her glove. You made me this! You made me!
He tried to stop her hands, but she turned her gloves on him, beating at his chest. She was not hitting hard; her punches were too ragged to be forceful. Pavel took the hits without flinching until, in one quick movement, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. She leaned against his heart, heaving.
Is okay, he murmured, though of course it was not, would never be again. Is okay.
He ran his palms over her head, from her crown to her neck, like a benediction, like a blessing. Then, clutching either side of her face, he pressed his forehead to hers, holding his face an inch from hers. It was the closest their lips had ever been. Bonnie was still between his hands.
What do I do? she whimpered.
If you want to fight, he whispered. We fight.
—
Sixteen years after she’d gazed through the window for the first time beside Nicky, Bonnie stood outside Golden Ring gym again. Pavel looked at her through the glass. He was not a man who was easily surprised, but she saw him flinch. What did he see when he looked at her now? Bonnie with her pale blond hair and paler blue eyes, her compact body in which nothing was superfluous. She was like a still stone in the river of his gaze. Half her life had passed since the first time they met, but she was still young, still capable of surprising herself and him. If Nicky had been there, she would have grabbed Bonnie by the hand and led her inside. So, Bonnie imagined it, her sister’s warm palm in hers, and opened the door.
Chapter Six Avery
In her perfect living room, decorated with a vintage sofa reupholstered in handmade fabric from a third-generation block printer in Jaipur, a coffee table consisting of a marble plinth shipped from Denmark, and £840-a-roll gold-embossed wallpaper from Soane Britain, interior designers to the Royals, Avery was preparing to excoriate her less-than-perfect youngest sister.
“It was a party, Avery,” said Lucky, going on the defensive before Avery could even begin the blistering opening statement she’d practiced in the shower that morning. “Remember those? I drank too much, like everyone did, and had a bit of trouble getting my key in the lock. Please don’t make a big deal out of this.”
“I found you half naked and unconscious outside my front door and you’re asking me not to make a big deal of it? Why are you not making more of this? Do you have so little concern for yourself?”
Lucky rolled her eyes with such force Avery was surprised she didn’t cause ligament damage. They were standing on either side of the room, the coffee table laden with its glossy gallery exhibition books and New Yorkers Avery never actually got around to reading, forming a buffer between them. Lucky was silhouetted against the large sash windows overlooking the street. Outside, the sunshine from yesterday had vanished with such completeness it was as if it had never been at all. It was a typically English still, gray day.
“Everyone was drunk!” Lucky said. “You’re just out of touch, not to mention a born catastrophizer.”
Avery emitted a derisive snort.
“A catastrophizer? Where do you even get this stuff? I’m a realist. I live in reality. Maybe you should try it.”
“Negativity isn’t some higher version of reality. It’s just being judgmental. By your standards every person in Britain would have a drinking problem.”
