“Now. Miss Eureka Boudreaux.”
“Yes!” She jumped, craning her body so her good ear was closer to Fontenot, who cast a pitying smile in her direction.
“Your father is here as your guardian.”
“I am,” Dad piped up hoarsely. And suddenly Eureka was glad that Rhoda was still at work, that the twins were being looked after by the neighbor Mrs. LeBlanc. For half an hour her father didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t mourning Diana. His face was pale, his fingers laced tightly together on his lap. Eureka had been so caught up in herself, she hadn’t considered how her father might be taking Diana’s death. She slipped her hand over Dad’s and squeezed.
Fontenot cleared his throat. “Your mother bequeaths to you the following three items.”
Eureka leaned forward in her seat. She wanted these three items: her mother’s eyes, her mother’s heart, her mother’s arms wrapped tightly around her now. Her own heart beat faster and her stomach churned.
“This bag contains a locket.” Fontenot withdrew a blue leather jewelry bag from his briefcase and slid it carefully across the table to Eureka.
Her fingers tore at the silk cord that held the bag closed. She reached inside. She knew what the necklace looked like before she even pulled it out. Her mother wore the locket with the smooth, gold-flecked lapis lazuli face all the time. The pendant was a large triangle, each side about two inches long. The copper setting holding the lapis was verdigris with oxidation. The locket was so old and grimy the clasp didn’t open, but the brilliant blue face was pretty enough that Eureka didn’t mind. Its copper back was marked with six overlapping rings, some recessed and some embossed, which Eureka had always thought looked like the map of a distant galaxy.
She remembered suddenly that her mother hadn’t worn it in Florida, and Eureka hadn’t asked why. What would have prompted Diana to store the locket in the safe-deposit box before their trip? Eureka would never know. She closed her fingers around the locket, then slipped its long copper chain over her head. She held the locket against her heart.
“She also directed that you were to receive this book.”
A thick hardback book came to rest on the table before Eureka. It was sheathed in what looked like a plastic bag but was thicker than any Ziploc she’d ever seen. She slid the book from its protective case. She’d never seen it before.
It was very old, bound in cracked green leather with ridges on its spine. There was a raised circle in the center of the cover, but it was so worn that Eureka couldn’t tell whether it had been part of the cover design or a watermark left by some historic glass.
The book didn’t have a title, so Eureka assumed it was a journal until she opened the cover. The pages were printed in a language she didn’t recognize. They were thin and yellowed, made not of paper but of a kind of parchment. The small, dense print they bore was so unfamiliar her eyes strained staring at it. It looked like a cross between hieroglyphics and something the twins might draw.
“I remember that book.” Dad leaned forward. “Your mother loved it, and I never knew why. She used to keep it at her bedside, even though she couldn’t read it.”
“Where did it come from?” Eureka touched the rough-edged pages. Toward the back, a section was stuck together as tightly as if it had been welded. It reminded her of what happened to her biology book when she’d spilled a bottle of Coke on it. Eureka didn’t risk ripping the pages by trying to pry them open.
“She picked it up at a swap meet in Paris,” Dad said. “She didn’t know anything else about it. Once, for her birthday, I paid one of her archaeologist friends fifty bucks to carbon-date it. The thing didn’t even register on their scale.”
“Probably a forgery,” Maureen said. “Marcie Dodson—girl at the salon—went to New York City last summer. She bought a Goyard bag in Times Square and it wasn’t even real.”
“One more thing for Eureka,” Fontenot said. “Something your mother calls a ‘thunderstone.’ ” He slid over a wooden chest the size of a small music box. It looked like it had once been painted with an intricate blue design, but the paint was faded and chipped. On top of the box was a cream-colored envelope with Eureka written in her mother’s hand.
“You also have a letter.”
Eureka jumped for the letter. But before she read it, she took a second look at the box. Opening the lid, she found a mass of gauze as white as a bleached bone coiled around something about the size of a baseball. She picked it up. Heavy.
A thunderstone? She had no idea what it was. Her mother had never mentioned it before. Maybe the letter would explain. As Eureka drew the letter from the envelope, she recognized her mother’s special stationery.
The dark purple letters at the top read Fluctuat nec mergitur.
It was Latin. Eureka had it memorized from the Sorbonne T-shirt she slept in most nights. Diana had brought the shirt back for her from Paris. On it was the motto of the city, and her mother’s motto, too. “Tossed by waves, she does not sink.” Eureka’s heart swelled at the cruel irony.
Maureen, who had ben trying on her inheritance, yanked one of Sugar’s clip-on earrings off her lobe. Then the lawyer said something, and Beau’s soft voice rose to argue, and Dad pushed back his chair—but none of it mattered. Eureka wasn’t in the boardroom with them anymore.
She was with Diana, in the world of the handwritten letter:
My precious Eureka
,
Smile!
If you’re reading this, I imagine that might be hard to do. But I hope you will—if not today, then soon. You have a beautiful smile, effortless and effervescent
.
As I write this, you are sleeping next to me in my old bedroom at Sugar’s—whoops, Beau’s—house. Today we drove to Cypremort Point and you swam like a seal in your polka-dot bikini. The sun was bright and we shared the same tan lines on our shoulders this evening, eating boiled seafood down on the dock. I let you have the extra cob of corn, like I always do
.
You look so peaceful and so young when you are sleeping, Eureka. It’s hard to believe you’re seventeen
.
You’re growing up. I promise not to try and stop you
.
I don’t know when you’ll read this. Most of us are not graced with the knowledge of how our deaths will find us. But if this letter makes its way to you sooner rather than later, please … don’t let my death determine the course of your life
.
I have tried to raise you so that there would not be much to explain in a letter like this. I feel we know each other better than any two people could. Of course, there will still be things you have to discover on your own. Wisdom holds a candle to experience, but you’ve got to take the candle and walk alone
.
Don’t cry. Carry what you love about me with you; leave the pain behind
.
Hold on to the thunderstone. It’s puzzling but powerful
.
Wear my locket when you yearn to have me near; perhaps it will help guide you
.
And enjoy the book. I know you will
.
With deep love and admiration—
Mom
9
NOWHERE BOY
Eureka gripped the letter tightly. She pushed back against the possibility of feeling what her mother’s words nearly made her feel.
At the bottom of the page, Diana’s signature was smudged. At the edge of her cursive Mom lay three tiny raised circles. Eureka ran her finger over them, as if they were a language she had to touch to understand.