Chapter 32 #2
Frannie turns to find Elsa watching her knowingly. “I know.”
“Do you?” Elsa asks, her voice soft.
Frannie opens her mouth, but only manages a strangled sound. She looks down at their hands and scrunches her eyes closed. She doesn’t want to give voice to any of it—wants to stay in the fairy-tale surety she’s been maintaining.
But this isn’t her book. It’s their lives, and it’s real, and if anything does go wrong tomorrow, she can’t let the night pass without saying something.
“Are you sure?” she whispers, opening her eyes to meet Elsa’s. “Are you confident you’ll make it across?”
Elsa’s eyes search Frannie’s, and she raises their hands to press a firm kiss to the back of Frannie’s hand.
“No,” Elsa says simply.
Frannie’s stomach plummets. “Elsa—”
“But we’re confident it’s what we want to do.”
“But if something happens—” Frannie starts.
“Then we’re at peace with that,” Elsa says, her voice soft and lovely and breaking Frannie’s heart.
The words come out in a panicked rush: “I’m going to leave my laptop in the office, in that old bin of books and DVDs in the right-hand back corner.
If you can’t get out, you can text me, and we’ll figure something out.
I’ve had a key made, too, so I can get into the office if I need to, and I know Jose won’t say anything if I come in on weekends, at least for a little while.
We could probably bring Suzie in, if we really had to.
And when Brad and Gretchen’s show comes out, maybe we can get more ghost experts to weigh in, and—”
“Darling,” Elsa says, reaching up to cup her cheek. Frannie stares at her, her chest heaving. “I know you won’t abandon us if we’re still stuck here. I know you’ll visit, and we’ll talk. I’m not worried.”
“It’s not—” Frannie starts.
“The same, I know. But I want you to promise me something,” Elsa says, smiling at her even as Frannie feels tears gathering in her eyes again. “If we don’t make it across the street, whether it’s that we’re stuck here, or that we just … don’t make it, I want you to keep living.”
It’s like a cavern’s opened up in Frannie’s chest, sucking in all the light and happiness and hope she’s managed to build over the past year.
“I want you to keep writing, and stay in that wonderful apartment with Gretchen and Brad,” Elsa continues. “I want you to live a huge, beautiful life, okay?”
Frannie leans forward, pressing all her heartache and desperation against Elsa’s mouth. Tears are streaming down her face, and she lets go of Elsa’s hand to grip her turtleneck, tugging her as close as she can. Elsa sighs against her lips, stroking her cheek.
“I love you,” Elsa says when they pull apart.
The words don’t seem big enough, powerful enough, but Frannie whispers them back anyway, her voice hoarse.
“If we don’t make it, if we’re gone, I want you to find someone to spend your life with. I want you to promise me you’ll find someone,” Elsa says, her forehead pressed to Frannie’s.
Frannie holds back a sob. “I can’t just … go and pretend that I haven’t—that you, and Bridgette, and Michael aren’t—”
“Yes, you can,” Elsa says, leaning back to catch her eyes. “You’ll move on. I want you to move on.”
Frannie stares at her, horror eclipsing her heartbreak. “Are you hoping you’ll die? Because if that’s what you think is going to happen, I can’t let you—”
Elsa’s eyes go wide. “No,” she says quickly, bringing her other hand up to cup Frannie’s jaw, holding her steady.
“No. I’m desperately hoping you open that door tomorrow and we’re all there together for the rest of forever.
But if we’re not? If we try and that’s …
the end?” She smiles softly, her thumbs stroking Frannie’s cheeks, brushing her tears away.
“We had over sixty years together—more giggles, and mischief, and shenanigans than I can ever count. And we had you.”
“It’s not enough,” Frannie says plaintively.
“It’s more than enough,” Elsa says gently. “It’s everything. We did so good, Frannie. We’re happy. And if we end with happiness, then it’s all worthwhile. It would be a kindness for things to end here.”
She tugs Frannie in for another kiss and Frannie lets her, wrapping her arms around Elsa’s neck to hang on.
She didn’t know she had the capacity for this much love, this much feeling, before Elsa and Michael and Bridgette.
She didn’t know people could stamp themselves on your heart like this, twine themselves around who you are and make the world so much brighter, so much bigger, so much more.
If tomorrow goes badly, she knows she’ll never recover. She’ll carry them with her for the rest of her life, and she can only hope that at the end, there will be a way to see them again. She’d find faith, she’d fight God, she’d walk the underworld, if it meant getting them back.
When they part what feels like hours later, Elsa pulls her close, Frannie’s back pressed to her chest between her legs, both of them looking out at Central Park. The lights across the park twinkle back at them, New York City alive all around them, and Frannie grips Elsa’s hands.
All she can do is believe with her entire soul that their plan will work, because this between them, and their little family, is everything.