Chapter 3: A Garden in Winter
I don't sleep much. Not because I can't — I can. But most nights, it just doesn't feel worth the effort. When you've lived as long as I have, dreams start to feel like reruns of a play you've already walked out of. There's nothing new behind closed eyes. So instead, I walk.
The city at 3 a.m. becomes something else entirely. It's not dead, just stripped of the pretense it wears during daylight. The grifters are sleeping, the ambition has paused, and the darkness doesn't lie. You hear different sounds — the hum of a streetlight about to die, the gentle sob of someone on a payphone, the click of high heels too far from home.
That night, I walked through Chinatown, past shuttered dim sum parlors and lanterns still glowing faint red. Past a man sweeping his stoop like it mattered. Past memories I couldn't quite name. I was thinking about Margaret. About her stillness. Her voice when she said, "The tea's gone cold." That moment stuck to me like wet leaves to a windshield.
I ended up on the Manhattan Bridge. Not for any symbolic reason. It just gave a better view. I watched the lights ripple over the East River. A thousand stories, flickering in windows across Brooklyn. People with lives. Regrets. Plans. People who would die one day. People who could forget.
I stood there until the sun started bleeding over the skyline.
Then my old rotary line rang.
---
The phone only rings for one reason. Nobody else has the number.
"Tony?"
A voice I hadn't heard in nearly twenty years.
"Claire."
"You still in New York?"
"Always," I lied.
She hesitated. "It's me. I'm ready."
That gave me pause. Not because she remembered. But because she sounded... calm.
I nodded to no one. "I'll come to you."
---
Upstate in March still feels like winter. Snow crusted the shoulders of the road, gray and half-melted, and the air had a bite to it that reminded you spring was only a rumor. Claire lived just outside of a small town that looked like it had been frozen in the 70s — faded signs, a corner diner, a gas station that might've also been a bait shop.
Her house was modest. A single-story home with chipping green paint, wind chimes, and a crooked mailbox. But there was a garden out front. Dead now, but carefully arranged. Even the dried flower beds looked like they had meaning.
She opened the door before I knocked.
"Come in," she said, smiling. "You look cold."
I stepped inside. It smelled like cinnamon, old paper, and something faintly floral. The walls were covered in photos. Not posed ones — real moments. A boy with crooked teeth grinning beside a dog. Claire in a wide-brim hat, laughing. A man I didn't recognize, face turned away.
She handed me a mug of coffee. Strong. Hot. Real.
"You remember," I said, sipping.
"I remember everything," she replied. "The ink. The way you never smiled. The vial you gave me. It smelled like rust."
"How is he?"
She motioned to the wall. "That's him now. Samuel. Twenty-one. Pre-vet program. He volunteers at animal shelters."
"He knows?"
"No." She looked down at her hands. "He thinks it was a miracle. I let him believe that."
"That's kinder than the truth."
"I think so too."
We sat in the kitchen a while. No need to fill the silence. She brewed more coffee. I helped chop carrots. For a moment, we could've been two people in another life. The kind with shared groceries and matching mugs.
Then I reached into the satchel and placed the Wheel on the table.
She didn't flinch.
"You still carry it the same way," she said softly. "Like it's made of bones."
"It is."
She looked at me. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Is it always... bad? The Wheel?"
I shook my head. "It's random. Sometimes it's severe. Sometimes not. There's no pattern. It's not justice. It just is."
She looked down at the Wheel. "So it might not kill me."
"It might just... inconvenience you."
"That's somehow worse."
"Sometimes," I said, "people spin and lose a limb. Others lose a memory. A few get away with something you might call mild."
"And you don't know which it'll be?"
I shook my head. "Not until it lands."
We went outside. The garden was still frosted over, thin sheets of ice catching the morning sun. She knelt in the frozen grass.
She placed her hand on the Wheel.
Click. Click. Click.
The spin was slower this time. As if time itself was holding its breath. Then it stopped.
Segment 2: Sleeplessness. Three hours max per night. Permanent.
She blinked. "Wait… that's it?"
"You'll never sleep more than three hours again."
"I expected... worse."
"Three hours a night adds up. You'll feel it in your bones. But you'll also see more of life than most people ever do."
She sat back. Snow crackled beneath her. "So I live longer... sort of."
"Kind of. You stretch time. But it comes with a price."
"Everything does."
We sat on the porch after that. The sun warmed the wood steps beneath us.
"I thought I'd be scared," she said. "But I'm not. I just feel... awake."
I looked at her, smiling gently. "Get used to that."
She grinned. "Stay for dinner. Please."
---
She made stew. It tasted like memory. We ate slowly. She told stories. Some were funny. Some were quietly tragic. She talked about her ex-husband, the car accident that made her believe in signs, and the day Samuel got accepted to college.
"I want to write him a letter," she said. "Just in case I don't make it long enough to say everything."
"You will."
"But if I don't... I want him to know I chose this. That I'd do it again. No regrets."
"You sure about that?"
She nodded. "Because he got to live. And he's good. That's what matters."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was full of every word we didn't say.
I left just after midnight.
She hugged me. Not tightly. Not dramatically. Just a quiet thank-you.
As I walked to my car, I looked back once.
She was standing in the window, the garden behind her, and the stars above.
And for the first time in a long, long while, I felt something shift inside me.
Not regret. Not sorrow.
Just... warmth.
Like maybe, just maybe, I hadn't forgotten how to feel.