Chapter Text
“If you need a friend,
I’m sailing right behind,
Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water,
I will ease your mind.”
—Simon & Garfunkel
Chapter One.
Ten years ago, his wife made a cassette tape. Ten songs, short and sweet and dripping with raw, untempered emotion are burned seamlessly onto the film, but Cosmo does not know their names.
In years past, the two of them would burn a new cassette every month. He likes to think of them as time capsules—a selection of songs, each handpicked for their significance to their love—but this tape is nothing short of an anomaly. He hadn’t even been aware of its existence.
It seemed to just appear one day. Cosmo found out about it, not too long after, he thinks, when he was rummaging through their dresser drawers in search of batteries.
Today, he can recall his confusion, and the feeling of it morphing into betrayal in the pits of his stomach. He knows it’s silly to feel so distraught over something so trivial, but he can’t help but feel it tugging at his heart, biting down where it hurts the most.
He remembers how damaged it was; the film in the tape had come loose and tangled itself among the several items in the dresser. He remembers trying to fish it out, only for the film to lodge itself between his wife’s other things. He remembers how he had to hold his arm out at an angle to keep it from ripping.
And above all else, he remembers her calling his name.
“Sweetie,” she said—and he’s certain it’s exactly what she said; he never forgets a word she says. “Found them yet?”
“Nooo. I think we might have to go out and buy new ones. They’re nowhere! And trust me, I've been looking.”
“I’ve not had any luck either. I know we had them. I thought we were just using them the other day.”
He wanted, then, to rush over and hold her face in his hands, to run his thumbs gently against her skin, but he knew it would have been an overreaction. So, instead, he shrugged.
“Welllll. Maybe it’s a good thing we lost them.”
“How so?”
“How does dinner sound?”
“Dinner?” She looked almost confused, as she so often is in his moments of impulsivity. “I was just doing to reheat leftovers.”
“No, no, no. Not like that. Dinner—” he reiterated as he scrambled for the words running from his tongue, “—We could go to the Pointy Crown, or the Diner, orr—”
“Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Well, I wasn’t not asking—” And he doesn’t quite remember what he said next, but he does remember her smiling, shaking her head in that way she does, before taking him by the arm and pulling him out the room, where they would plan for the day to come.
The memory dissipates, and he is drawn back to the thought of the cassette. It’s moved now. When he’d brought it up to her, she was quick to assure him it was just a playlist of songs she liked. She relocated it to the rest of their collection that night.
But it sticks out like a sore thumb. A thick layer of dust that never quite washed off coats its plastic shell and hides the tracklisting on its back. The pungent scent of rot wafts off of it and infects the others. The tape itself is stained from heat damage. And yet despite it, he can still make out the faded title she had given it.
To Remember You.
It’s what puzzles him the most.
__ 🌿
Present Day.
Monday, April 14th, 1997.
5:00 A.M.
Cosmo starts his mornings the same way every day. Perhaps it's something to do with comfort—when you’ve been married as long as he has, you find yourself falling into routine, where not one thing needs ever change. Working a twenty-four-hour job keeps him comfortably wedged in place, and while it may be easy for the days to melt shapelessly into one another, his routine gives him something fresh to hold on to. He never has to fear the unknown because he knows tomorrow will be right there, just as he left it.
His day begins as follows:
At four-thirty, exactly, the A.C. in their bedroom turns itself off. It takes his wife no time to shake herself awake, and she’s out of bed—mumbling something akin to a “good morning, I love you” —before Cosmo has the chance to process it.
He’s also awake the second the A.C. shuts off, but the bed sheets keep him clinging to his dreams from the night before. Thirty more minutes of rest would be perfect, but he almost always takes an hour, instead burying his face back into his pillow without much regard.
On any normal day, he’d wake up again right when his wife comes back to lay out their work clothes, but today is an odd day.
At five, he stirs awake again, and the heat that fills the room is too nauseating for him to stay put. He reaches an arm out to find his wand, and he flicks it once to check the time, deciding, when he sees the hour, that it would be best to splash his face in cold water and get the morning over with.
Wanda makes crawling out of bed look so simple. Cosmo isn’t sure how she does it—because when he tries to stand, a static crawls up to the back of his vision and he loses his balance. Wanda’s always called this static “sea monkeys”. He, again, isn’t sure why; they don’t look like monkeys at all, and he thinks it would be itchy if they truly were. Besides, his eyes are no good a home for them. They’d be bored sick there. He likes the name, but he thinks it’s dumb.
And now he is here, staring at his reflection in the master bathroom, holding up two ties (one pink, and one black), but not quite settling on an answer.
He took the liberty of finding his own outfit for the day, though now that he’s put it on, he’s not sure if it treads on being too formal or just casual enough. He doesn’t have his wife’s eye for fashion; he’s not very good at matching colours, or styling textures, but he hopes whatever tie he chooses will make him appear less flashy.
He’ll admit, he still feels a little nauseous. Every little sound, sounds a bit louder than usual—a thumping in his head—and if he stares off into the distance for too long, he becomes aware of those persistent floaters that strain his sight.
He doesn’t want to alarm his Wanda, but it’s been this way for several weeks now.
As far back as he can recall, he has made it his life’s mission to keep her happy. He lives to see the smile on her face; he likes it most when it's there because of him. To tell her he isn’t feeling well is to deny her that smile, and he’ll lie himself all the way to the Anti World if it means she never has to know.
He can hear her now playing piano from the other room. She’s been there since he woke, and he can recognize the tune she’s playing from her old cassette. He’s heard it enough times in the past week to have it memorized, start-to-finish.
He follows the tune for a moment, bobbing his head along to the notes. It takes all of thirty seconds for it to falter. Wanda hits a wrong key, then another, and several more. Silence follows, and Cosmo can feel her frustration hanging in the vacant air.
And, though she has stopped playing, the tune continues to loop in his head. Lyrics he can’t quite conceive form into something nearly legible. He finds himself humming the rest.
When his focus is pulled back to his reflection, he is met with the, frankly unwanted, knowledge that his hair is still a mess. He leans forward, almost slipping but catching himself before he does.
He looks so. . . Normal. . . And about as nothing as that song. A long nose, sort of crooked, though it hadn’t always been that way. One too many fractured bones has kept it in dull pain for most of his life. The veins beneath his skin make holes out of his eyes. Big, sad eyes; a little too green, and a little too wide. His face reads a smile, but he always looks as though he might cry.
What exactly does she see in you? —a voice rings in the back of his mind— What a waste of her time .
It’s an old thought—several thousand years old, in fact—and he tries his best to push it down whenever it begins to surface, but some days it bubbles right back up, angrier than before and bursting with flame.
“Sweetie?” Her knock at the bathroom door saves him from his mind. “You still in there?”
“Right where you left me, lovebug!” He says, nodding, though he knows she can’t see it. “Figure it out yet?”
“No, not quite. I don’t know why it’s been so hard.” Something in her voice tells him otherwise, but he chooses not to press the matter. “Maybe it's the notes. I’ve got to cross my hands to get it right. I had it right before. . .”
Cosmo doesn’t play piano—was never any good at it. He tried his hand at guitar once, but found the number of strings too difficult to keep up with. Bass was much too heavy to hold, and he hates the shape of the flute. The triangle suits him much better.
But it’s no secret that Wanda is good at it. In fact, good might be underselling it. Having been classically trained in her youth, she can play any song just by hearing it first.
Just not this one.
“Or, maybe I’m losing my touch,” she adds.
“I think you just need a break,” Cosmo says. “You know how you are. Remember high school? I wouldn’t want you getting mad at yourself again.”
He imagines her nose scrunching in that way it does only when she’s deep in thought.
“I suppose you’re right. . .” And then a sigh. “Are you almost done in here, honey? I still need to get dressed.”
“I thought you got dressed an hour ago?”
“No, I’ve been busy.”
“. . .At piano?”
“It’s important to me.”
“How come?”
Another sigh. “I’d rather not right now, sweetie.”
Cosmo slinks back. Alarm bells go off in his head, but again, he chooses not to press on. He's learned the hard way before some things are better left as is.
“I’ve also been doing laundry,” Wanda says. “We fell a little behind last week with it. I wanted to get it out of the way.”
“I could’ve helped.”
“I know, sweetie,” she says, and Cosmo thinks he can hear, faintly, the sound of clothing shifting together in her hands. “But you were in bed, and you looked so snug. It wasn’t worth waking you over.”
“I would’ve gotten up.” He doesn’t know what else to say.
“I know, and it’s alright. I was already up.” Her voice, however possible, is even softer. “You never answered my question.”
“Oh, uhh.” Cosmo allows himself one final glance at his reflection in the mirror, taking notice of the tired, dark circles beneath his eyes. He pats his hair down flat, huffing at a rebel stand that doesn’t stay down, and, still holding both ties, pushes open the door, greeting her with a smile, big and wide and not one bit false.
Before Wanda has the chance to speak, Cosmo loops both arms around her waist and pulls her into a kiss.
“I didn’t get to say good morning when I woke up,” he says, and Wanda smiles. “You weren’t there.”
“Good morning to you, too. Ready for work?”
“Noo, I'm kind of hungr—” Her words remind him. “Oh! I need your help, actually!” He pulls away—a bit too fast, he should note, as the static fills his sight again—and holds out the ties for her to view. “What do you think? The pink or the black? Because I think the black matches more? But it’s velvet, and you know how much I hate velvet. And the pink is, well, pink, and that’s my favourite colour, but I don’t think it—”
“Sweetie—” she cuts him off “—Breathe, please.”
“Sorry. . .”
She smiles again. “The pink looks nice. But I’d focus more on your shirt right now.”
“Wh—”
“It needs ironing.”
“Well, you were just doing laundry.”
She raises a brow. “Sorry, honey. I’ve clocked out of that job for the day. Maybe call in with a reservation next time.”
“A reservation?!?” He drops his ties in faux surprise. “I can’t do that! Just how many other people do you have to make time for?” And to drive home the point, he forces his face into as big a frown as he can.
Wanda just shakes her head and laughs.
“Just you, Puddin’.” She takes his hand. “Maybe save the pink for next week.”
Next Week is code for Our Anniversary . They’ve been talking about it, on and off, for the past month. The thrill for the day never seems to weaken, despite never deciding on what to do.
“Why? Is it the ‘Plan Each Other’s Outfits’ anniversary?”
Her eyes seem to say It very well could be , but she says nothing in return; her smile only deepens.
He blows her a kiss as she steps past him, and she pretends to catch it, twirling before closing the door softly with her heel. He can almost feel his smile fade when she’s gone.
A stray thought reminds him he should iron his shirt, and he nods to himself, but he doesn’t know where they keep the iron. It escapes him that he could just use magic and be done with it. His line of sight darts to each corner of the room, finding nothing.
Perhaps then, he could get away with wearing something less professional.
It would get rid of the “too formal” problem, he reasons. But as he steps forward towards the closet, a shine catches his eye.
There on Wanda’s vanity sits a small, drawstring bag full of pearls, and he instantly identifies them as the pieces to a necklace that had once belonged to Wanda’s mother.
About a month ago, the string that held them together snapped. He’d spent a good half-hour helping her pick up what had fallen that day. And though he knows she was upset—it was hard to ignore the tears that brimmed her eyes—Wanda merely bit her lip and shrugged it off with nothing more than an “it was old anyway. . .”
Cosmo knew better.
Wanda does not have much to remember her mother by. A few tableware sets, some furniture, clothes that barely fit, a picture frame here and there is all she has. To lose one was like ripping the memory straight out of her hands—to dangle it above her head just out of reach.
He knows she maybe intends to fix it, to breathe it new life. He knows just as well that the possibility of change probably hurts too much to try.
He sends a glance towards the bathroom door.
The pipes in the wall drone as the shower on the other end of the wall trembles to life. The tapping of the water syncs with his heartbeat. One tap. Two taps. It beats faster than it should. He sucks in a breath.
If fixing it hurts too much—he decides—then he’ll take on that burden for her.
__ 🌿
12:00 P.M.
Every night, Cosmo writes in a journal, but today he writes at lunch, seated on the sofa, with both feet up on the cushions and all the lights off. He has to squint to see what he’s writing, but he doesn’t mind. He believes it will help him write faster.
On the coffee table in front of him, he’s laid out the essentials: his journal, leather-bound, made from only the finest cotton paper; his favourite ink pen; and a book of stamps to mark the date.
To clear his thoughts, he closes his eyes and breathes. One breath in, one breath out. Repeat. He doesn’t plan to write much. If he is going to fix his wife’s necklace, he needs only enough notes to give to a jeweler.
He breathes in one more time, picking up his journal and sitting it in his lap, then places his pen to the paper.
“I was up thinking about it all night,” he writes. “And I spent a little bit of time this morning figuring it out. There’s about, maybe, eighty pearls in the bag. I don’t think I counted that right, but I think some are missing anyway. Either seven or eleven are cracked, and a lot of them are dirty. I think Lambchop’s said before that they’re real pearls. There’s also supposed to be a matching bracelet. I could give that to the guy as a—”
“Uhh.” He comes to a stop. “Lovebug?” He raises his voice, just a tad, so she can hear him from where she stands in the kitchen.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“What's the word for when you. . . When you look at something to try and make something else that’s just like it?”
“Sorry? One more time?”
“Uh. Like when you play piano. . . to play it, you have to look at those papers to. . ?”
“. . .Reference it?” He can hear a smile in her voice.
“Yeah! Yeah, ‘Reference what’s on it.’ Thank you.” He elongates the final vowels, seemingly to embed a heart into what he says.
Cosmo marks out the last sentence in his paragraph, and continues to write: “I could give it to the guy as a reference. If I can figure out how to get it from Wanda, without her wondering why I want it.” He moves down a line. “I don’t remember the place. It’s near the park, I think, down the road, on the other side of town. But I don’t remember what it was called.”
He taps the pencil against the paper. The name is on the tip of his tongue. If he can focus for a moment, he can almost picture it in his head.
Jem, or was it Jen, And Grace? Or Pem’s Grace? No, that doesn’t sound right either. Jem, or was it Jane?
He doesn’t notice it until a crack from the plastic is felt between his teeth, but he’s begun to chew on his pen. A, sort of, shame begins to make a home within him.
He bites his lip and moves down the page.
“I wish I were smarter,” he writes. “I wish I could remember better. I wish I could say what I think. I can’t even ask her for the name, and I wouldn't even if I could. I wish I didn't bother her so much.”
And then he stops.
One breath in. One breath out. . .
And then, he’s met with an idea. He closes the journal.
“Wanda?” It’s strained coming out of his mouth. He almost doesn’t want her hear. “About next week?”
“Yes? What about it?”
“Maybe we could just go to the park?”
“For. . ?” she says, and the way the word curves tells him she’s interested.
“Our anniversary,” Cosmo says. “And we can watch the birds like we used to, or get home in time for a movie?”
Wanda considers it. “Maybe grab dinner, as well.”
“At home, or in town?”
She chuckles. “Maybe a picnic.”
Yes, perfect. That’s why she’s the smart one.
He can picture it now: the sun setting, but it pales in comparison to the beauty his Wanda is. She’ll be wearing her favourite dress, her hair will be down—he likes it most when it’s down. The day will feel as if it were just for them.
“I’d love to,” Wanda says. “Lunch is almost ready, if you’d like to set the table.”
Cosmo rises from his seat, saying little more than a “sure thing, Lambchop!” His knees pop, and his back aches from the way he’d been sitting. A part of him wishes he could stay sitting there, but he would never pass up a chance to help.
When he reaches the arch leading into the kitchen, he is starstruck. Wanda stands by the stove, wearing his arpon, and a whisk in hand. Her hair—akin to fresh, Spring azalea—is up in a loose bun. She leans against the counter, waiting patiently for some eggs to cook.
“Are you going to help?” she says, a lighthearted tint in her voice. “Or are you just going to stand there and watch?”
“Sorry.” He shakes his head clear of thought. “It’s just soo distracting.”
“What is?”
He makes his way over to her and buries his head into her neck for a moment—
“My beautiful wife.”
“That so?”
“Yeah, and I’d say it ‘til I'm blue in the face if I had all the big, fancy metaphors for it.”
—before pushing himself off and towards the cupboard. If she shakes her head, he doesn’t see it.
“I don’t think you need those to say it, honey.”
“No?”
“Any way you put it will be just right in my book.”
“Well, in that case, expect a handwritten letter next Sunday morning.”
“I’ll be holding you to it,” she says. “I’m also holding you to that date idea of yours. ‘The park’, as in our cliff?”
“That was the idea.” There is a noticeable difference between him and her, in that he doesn’t need to stand on the tips of his toes to reach the plates in the cabinet. He feels around until he is able to grab a hold on two. “We get the perfect view of the sky, and we both know the birds like it more over there.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, yeah. But if we’re too late to hang out with the birds, maybe we can catch the sunset.”
“I think I’d like that.” Wanda goes to crack another egg into the pan, but, out of the corner of his eye, he catches her stiffen. “Careful with those, Sweetie. They were my mother’s.”
“I’ve got ittt.” He places a supportive hand beneath the plates. “We won’t need a doc in the house tonight.”
“Oh, speaking of which— honey, you have a doctor’s appointment coming up soon,” Wanda says, flipping the eggs in the pan. “Sorry. They called this morning. I just remembered.”
“That’s okay.” He sets the plates on the bar, slowly, so as to not make a loud ‘clanking’ noise. “What for?” And he tilts his head off to the side.
She shrugs. “Dunno. I think it’s just a checkup.” And though she doesn’t turn to look at him, her eyes drift his way. “They said you scheduled it?”
He stops. “I don’t remember.” It was only one little white lie.
__ 🌿
7:00 P.M.
For the past several days, Cosmo has gone to work with an ache in his wings and a fog in his mind, but today he feels fine—a little lightheaded and a bit nauseous, but if he doesn’t turn his head, it’s easy to ignore.
The day has gone by relatively uneventfully. Just studying, studying, and more studying. Cosmo could fall asleep just thinking about it.
Wanda has been trying to help their godson, Timmy, with his math all day. A failing grade is no good to anyone, and with the end of the school year coming up soon, Cosmo knows she only wants to help before that stress arrives.
Truthfully, Cosmo feels rather useless. He’s never been good at school. In fact, it wasn’t until Wanda began tutoring him when they were in high school that he began to focus better.
So, he passes the time, sitting on the floor of their godson’s room, opposite of Wanda and him, toying with the strings of the pearl’s drawstring bag. By his feet lies his journal, opened to his notes. The emotional spat he’d spilled much earlier has been crossed out.
He nods to himself and writes, in correction, off to the side: “Total; seventy-seven. Eleven cracked. Some missing? No string; dry-rotted.”, and wonders, not for the first time, what makes them real as opposed to fake.
The pearls clack together as he brings them closer to view. They shimmer delicately in the lamplight, though they’re quite gritty. Some are not as round as others, and they each radiate a chill up his hand.
“Real? Ask later,” he adds. His pen doesn’t reach the page again before he is startled by a sudden outcry.
“Arughh! Not again!” Timmy yells out, shoving his books away with a scowl painting his face.
“It’s alright, Sport,” Wanda says, patting his back. “You’ve got to carry the four, remember? Let’s try it again.” From where he sits, Cosmo can just barely see her lift a pencil. He assumes she circles a couple of things, or writes a few numbers, but, honestly, he doesn’t know what they’re working on. “See, look. It’s not so hard, is it?”
“You make it look so easy,” Timmy says, a scowl still on his face.
“We all have to start somewhere. This is new to you now. It’ll get easier once you get the hang of it.”
“No it won’t! We’ve been working on it for an hour! I’ve got a test this week. I’m never gonna get it in time!”
“It takes more than a day to learn. This is just a part of it.”
Timmy sinks down to the table and buries his head into his hands. “I wish it didn’t have to be. . .”
“I’m sorry, Sport. . . but you know we can’t grant that.” Her voice holds a sympathy in it that Cosmo has only ever heard from her. “It’s okay to feel frustrated, but you need to learn how to do this on your own. What part’s giving you trouble?”
“All of it!”
Cosmo has always admired Wanda’s way with words. It doesn’t matter who she’s talking to, it seems no matter what, she always finds a way to find the good in the bad. But, he thinks, sometimes she gets too caught up in trying to find that good; she doesn’t always catch why it feels so bad to others.
She sighs. “You’ve only got four questions left. How’s about we work on those, and then you can do whatever you want for the rest of the night?”
Cosmo is about to interrupt and tell her he should get a break now, but he is stopped by a knock at the door. And with only a half-second to react, both he and his wife lift their wands, transforming into posters on the wall.
“Son,” Timmy’s dad says as he enters the room, uninvited, with a box in his hands. “How was school today? I didn’t see you come home.”
Timmy raises a brow. “What’s in the box?”
“Mr. Leadly’s daughter came in today with a box of her old things. Said she didn’t need ‘em anymore.” Timmy’s dad sets the box on the bed. Carefully, he folds the cardboard top back. The box is full to the brim with comics and related trading cards, both vintage and new. “I said I’d take it off her hand. ‘I know just the right someone who’d give it a great home.’”
Timmy’s eyes widened. “Whoa!” He digs around in the box, cautious as not to bend anything. He picks up a lone action figure. “I didn't know she collected this kind of stuff!”
His father chuckles. “I guess we were all kids once.”
“Wonder why she gave them away?”
His father shrugs, and he goes to say something but stops when his watch beeps. He brings it to eye level. “Oh, that’s my queue!” he says. “Your mother and I have reservations at that new karaoke steakhouse tonight.”
“You’re leaving? Now?”
“We can’t be late.” He taps his watch. “We didn’t have the time to hire the babysitter tonight, so stay out of trouble. Goodnight, son. Don’t stay up too late.”
And in a hurry, his father has fled from the room.
“Great. . .” Timmy drops the figure back into the box and pushes it away. “. . . It’s just like him to not mention my dinner. . .”
Cosmo didn’t know what to say. He’d like to be useful, just this once—to say everything will be alright, and, for once, be right. But ‘it’ll be alright’ feels too dismissive. He frowns.
From the corner of his eye, he notices Wanda frowning, too. She looks to him, then back to Timmy, and before she has the chance to raise her wand, Cosmo poofs them back to fairy form.
“Maybe—” Cosmo attempts to say, eyes trailing to the figure Timmy just dropped. His words are slow and a little unsure. “Maybe you can be done for today?”
“What?”
“With your homework, I mean.” He wrings his hands together and speaks without thought. “You’ve been working hard on it. Soo, let’s go get something to eat.”
“Really?!”
Cosmo nods a little too fast; the static in his head reemerges but quickly fades when Wanda stands by his side. She takes hold of his hand and squeezes it.
“The sunsets look a lot brighter this time of year in Fairy World.”
“We’re going to Fairy World?!”
“Well, duhhh,” Cosmo says. “Where else would we go to eat? You deserve something for working so hard today.”
Wanda grins. “And we know just the diner.”
__ 🌿
8:30 P.M.
The street is oddly lit this time of night, and the road, empty. Cosmo sends a glance Wanda’s way when the yellow of her raincoat shimmers under a street lamp. It casts a serene glow of orange upon her skin.
This outing has, perhaps, been among one of the best ideas he’s had lately.
After dinner and dessert—he bought them both ice cream to raise their spirits—he offered to walk them to the Fairy World park. In truth, it’s just a ploy to learn the name of the jeweler, but he finds himself taking a liking to the scenery. It’s nice to get away from home for a change, in the beauty of nature, where the birds are happier to sing for an audience of all.
From where they are now, he can just barely see the jeweler’s sign: Jem’s Grace . He hopes to remember it, but with the way his head hurts, he’s not so sure he will.
Thankfully though, he feels less nauseous now that there’s food in his stomach. He’d been a little worried it would have the opposite effect, but life surprises him more with each passing day.
Now, he and Wanda share a cup of ice cream, and as he goes for a scoop, she speaks:
“I think it’ll rain tonight.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You can smell it.” Wanda takes a scoop of her own. “And, look—” She points off into the distance. A flash in the sky catches his attention, and he wonders how he hasn’t noticed it before. “I don’t know which way it’s heading, but we might want to get home before nine if it’s this way.”
Cosmo nods, and digs his spoon back into the cup. “Smarty.”
“If you’d rather get drenched, that’s fine with me, honey—” she pushes her spoon against his, causing the ice cream he picked up to fall back into the cup. She smiles up at him. “—but I'd prefer not to.”
“We won’t be out long.” There’s a short pause. “We’ve got a game of cards at home to finish!”
“It wasn't finished when you lost last night?”
“I didn’t lose,” he says between a laugh. “You quit.”
“I most certainly did not,” She brings another scoop of ice cream to her mouth. “You admitted you didn’t know how to play. You got up and walked off.”
“So you both didn’t lose,” Timmy chimes in. He’s walking a few steps ahead of them. “How far away are we?”
“Not too far,” Wanda says. “You’ll know we’re there when you see the lightning bugs.”
“Lightning bugs?”
“Fireflies!” Cosmos corrects, even if both terms are correct. “They light up and float around. They’re like stars if those were bugs. I think I'd like to be one if I were a bug.”
“Like those?” Timmy gestures vaguely ahead. A twinkle, and several more make themselves known in the distance.
“That’s them!” Cosmo says, nodding fervently. “You’ve never seen one before?”
Timmy shrugs. “I don’t think they show up a lot at home.”
“Oh.” And Cosmo feels a little embarrassed. “Well, now you know!” He doesn’t like how the too-forced smile he offers feels on his face.
Wanda chuckles at his side. “I'm sure they’ve been around. You just go to bed before they come out.”
“I guess.” Timmy takes a bite of his ice cream. “Are they nice?”
“As friendly as can be. They take a lot of time out of their day to light the night for us.“ Wanda brings the last of her ice cream to her mouth. “Feeling any better, Sport?”
“Yeah. Thanks guys.” He looks up to them. “You guys didn’t have to do all this, you know.”
“Maybe, but we love you.” Wanda says, and, out of the corner of her eye, she seemingly notices Cosmo picking at his hands, his eyes at an intersection between detachment and rumination. She looks him up and down, then returns her focus back where it was.
“Why don’t you see if you can catch one?” she says. “They love a good game of tag.”
“They do?”
“Yes, and they always win.”
Timmy considers it for a moment. “I think I could win.” He turns to hand Wanda his cup of ice cream, then runs off ahead of them. He hardly gives her the time to respond.
And when she’s sure he’s out of earshot, Wanda looks back to Cosmo. “You know, if you wanted to scout the area for our anniversary, you could have just said so.”
He flaps his hand—a habit he is known for when startled out of his thoughts. “Who said this was for that?”
She smirks. “You’re an awful liar, honey.”
He shoots a foul look her way, but they know it’s all in jest. “I’m not lying.”
“Oh, I’m sure.”
Cosmo and Wanda step through the front gates of the park and onto the path towards the water, where their godson is peering over the stream, a firefly resting in front of him. He jumps to catch it, and it flies above him. They chuckle at his surprise.
The moon shines bright above the water. And when the night devolves into stillness, Cosmo is brought back to Wanda’s cassette. The song, almost fresh in his mind, withers away. Yet, it clings to the life it once held. Cicadas blanket the silence, humming the tune without rhyme and without name. And though they don’t know the song, they sing it like a funeral march.
It fills him with a warmth he’s been chasing all week. The pale night sky appears like liquid from where they stand—a watercolour painting not quite finished. He can see the individual brushstrokes and the rich, deep hues from when it was long ago crafted in the hands of Mother Nature. Its glow dips into the water below and settles between the gentle waves.
“I think you were right, though, Puddin’.” Wanda leans her head on Cosmo’s shoulder, her eyes in a daze. “The park would be perfect this year.”