I still pictured my baby sister as wearing pigtailed braids, but she was clearly a full-grown adult. Especially when she called my phone six times to wake me up and yell at me about turning lazy.

"You're serious?" I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. "You're calling me lazy?"

"You're hanging around the house doing fuck-all!" she shouted through the static on the wires. "Honestly, what are you even doing here?"

The fact that I still had no real answer to this question was driving me towards the brink. I'd even tried knitting, of all things, like Ruby had suggested. Something to soothe myself. But after a few stitches I'd thrown the fucking nightmare against the wall, pissed that it wasn't doing what it was supposed to. "I don't know," I said, slow and steady. "But I'm thinking of leaving right the fuck now, I'll tell you that much."

But instead of backing off, Claire just laughed. I was reminded again at how with the four of us gone all those years she had essentially grown up and only child. She'd gotten very used to having her own way. "Well instead of sitting here on the phone, you should go do something for me."

I smacked my forehead and then dragged my hand down my face. "This was your plan all along," I sighed. "Shaming me into doing your bidding."

"And it's working too, right?" she chirped. "Come on Jonah, it's not even really a favor for me. It's for Ruby."

I sat up straighter. "What's wrong with Ruby?" I asked, a little too quickly.

"She needs help," Claire had said and now, five hours of watching the clock later I was finally here in the auditorium, all set to get right in there and help Ruby with whatever she needed - and hoping what she needed involved minimal clothing. But I couldn't hear a word she was saying because there were a million kids screaming all at once.

She widened her eyes for a moment. And then I watched her square her shoulders. She seemed to grow several inches in height as she whipped around to glare at the screaming kids.

Every single one of them shut up instantly.

It was pretty fucking sexy.

"Okay then!" she said, suddenly smiling as she clapped her hands. "I want you all to say hi to Mr. King. He's here to help us with the music today."

I blinked. When Claire had asked me - not, more told me - to come help Ruby, I'd just agreed without question. Now the pieces were sliding into place. "Is this the Spring Play?" I asked.

She turned and nodded. "Yeah," she said softly. "Gid was supposed to direct."

I felt the downward rush of grief, still so fresh, still so raw. I was starting to expect it now. But what I didn't expect was the rush of warmth that came with it. "You stepped in?" I asked, and my voice sounded thick and unfamiliar in my ears.

She nodded, her dark eyes bright.

The seven billion children onstage watching us were the only reason I didn't close the space between us and kiss her with all I had. How had I missed who she was all these years? How had she slipped past me?

Because you weren't here, a voice in my head reminded me.

I cleared my throat. "Thank you," I told her. And I meant it.

She blinked and then smiled slowly. "Thank you for coming to help," she said in return. And it sounded like she meant it too.

"So what am I doing?"

She turned and addressed the kids. "Mr. King just needs to practice a little bit before he starts helping. So let's all put on our listening ears and be very quiet while he plays the piano for us." She spread out the handwritten sheet music and gestured for me to sit down at the piano.

I looked at it, and then looked again. "Did...?" I started to say before my words got choked with emotion. "Did Gid write this?"

She nodded.

Taking a deep breath, I sat down at the bench.

Gid and I had played together since I was old enough to hold a guitar. I'd heard his music all my life, but I'd never played it until this moment. My fingers felt clumsy and thick. I could feel Ruby's eyes on me, watching and waiting for me to do what I supposedly did best.

I took a breath and summoned all the years of stuffing down nervousness, fighting back the stage fright.

And I played.

Gid's music flowed from my fingertips and the more I played the more I wanted to play. Each note was a connection with his memory, each phrase a part of him that still existed in my world. The closer I got to the end, the slower I played, not wanting it to be over, but then it was over, way too fast and something was tickling my cheek and I looked up to see that Ruby was quietly brushing the tear away from my face before she brushed them off her own. "I've heard it already," she murmured, low so the kids couldn't hear. "But I didn't cry until now." She dabbed at her eyes and laughed. "That's insane right?"

I took a deep breath. "Sounds totally sane to me, but then I've never been a good judge of sanity," I told her, making her laugh again. I looked back at the music I had just played. "Wow, this piece is incredible. Nice hook, too." I looked back at Ruby. "He really wrote this for kids to sing?"

"Gid was never one for censoring his genius," Ruby said with an eyeroll.

I burst out laughing and it felt fucking good. She grinned back at me and turned to her kids, lining them up in rows to do warm-ups. At her direction, I played the scales, then the first bars of the opening number before turning them loose a cappella.

And all around me was Gid's music. Coming from the instruments, coming from the kids' mouths.

Ruby had stepped in to make sure that this music was heard. That thought was like a bubble, filling my chest, squeezing my heart and making it difficult to breath.

When the first parents showed up to collect their kids, I couldn't take it anymore. "Come here," I told Ruby, reaching out and grabbing her arm.

She looked down at where we were connected. I brushed the pad of my thumb over the delicate bone of her wrist and she pinkened. "Come where?" she asked.

"With me."

"Where are we going?" she asked as I led her away from the piano.

"Right here," I said once we were in the shadows backstage. I pulled her flush against me.

"Jonah...what - ?"

"You're amazing," I interrupted her.

Her eyes somehow got even bigger. "What?"

"What you're doing? What you've done?" I cupped her face in my hands, tilting her so I could look her in the eyes when I said. "You're amazing and I don't know why it took me so long to realize it, but I know it for certain now." And then just so she was certain too, just in case my words didn't mean what I meant them to mean, I kissed her.

This time there was no testing. This time I went in, meaning to mark her. To sear her mouth with mine and make her feel all the awe and wonder she'd made me feel from the moment I'd returned to this town. To make her understand that I'd been thinking about her non-stop and now I was done thinking and ready to start doing.

I meant to brand her as mine because that was how I saw her now. Mine.