"And you can tell ahead of time?"
"Yes."
"All right then."
"Here," Kiko said, patting a box on the coffee table. "This is stuff I think you'd like to have."
Mathew opened the box top and found April's copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, followed by photos and her old portrait drawings. His eyes misted. Kiko handed him a stack of different sized documents.
"Verity will need these," Kiko added. "Perhaps have her go through the channels to legally change her name to Verity. It would be easier for both of you."
Mathew accepted the documents. Birth certificate, social security card, passport. All April's. Verity was similar enough to his sister. This could work.
"What about my parents listed on the birth certificate?"
Kiko smiled. "Already changed."
Mathew unfolded the certificate and found the information had changed. "How?" Kiko didn't respond, so he added, "Got it. Us mere mortals can't know everything."
"April wanted you to have this too." She handed him a folded wad of cash and…a check. Mathew turned the check over and his mouth gaped open.
"What's this?"
"April insisted I give you her emergency savings. She said she won't be needing it anymore."
Mathew was floored. The kindness of his sister made him drop onto the couch. "I wouldn't take if it she was here."
"I know."
"I can't believe she just handed me this much. I knew she was saving for whatever she decided to do with her life, but this is just too much." And Mathew then realized he forgot to give his sister the bank account card in his wallet. He surmised she didn't need it anyhow. What was he going to do with it now?
"I know."
"Thank you, Kiko. You've saved my life in more ways than one."
"I know."
"Right." Mathew stood and gave Kiko a tight hug. Tears formed in his eyes and he used a hidden hand behind her back to wipe them away.
"As someone with far more years under her belt than usual, do you have any pointers for us regulars?" Mathew asked.
"Pointers, no. But I was very surprised to find out that after age thirty, you don't change much. Your body does—not mine exactly, but you get the idea. Your mind is still just you. The ability to learn more things, gain more empathy, understand patterns of history, to care about the future, all comes with time. But you and your personality, stay the same."
"Makes all those 500-year-old vampires who fall in love with twenty-something women stories seem more plausible," Mathew said, remembering his sister going on and on about books like those. "Not that I read any of them, you know. April was a fan."
"Right," she mimicked him.
"Am I going to see you again?"
Kiko smiled. "I may steal away one of your assistants."
Mathew quirked his brow. "I hope you're talking about Becca."
Kiko nodded and covered her lips with her index finger in a hush.
"Well, good luck to you and your matching. I've got another errand to run before I can return to my future bride, oh, and my lips are sealed."
"Good luck to you, Matt."
"And to you."
Mathew pulled out of the driveway and went straight to the jeweler. After logging into his bank accounts this morning from his phone, he found balances as expected. It was surreal to see zero balances for his student loans, SUV loan, credit cards, and the seventy-thousand-dollar gamble loan. It had all paid off and now he was set. Mathew chose a beautiful ring that still didn't compare to Verity's stunning uniqueness. And he had more plans to come.
On his way home, Mathew unlocked the clinic to check the hidden fireplace drawer. It had creaked open without a fuss, which supported April having broken it loose already. Inside was a stack of fragile papers and a dusty current-model smartphone. Mathew had brought the phone to the desk for charging and unfolded the papers with care. They were aged, worn, and dusty.
The first one was a portrait of little Mathew snuggling his family, including Audrey and Doug. A letter describing his first teeth, first steps, and first words. Mathew's eyes had watered. Turned out little Mathew sounded like his mother, but occasionally used some of dad's words, like lass. Mathew smiled. April wrote that a happy and beautiful Audrey stayed with them for almost a year before leaving home. The blacksmith business was booming, and they were doing great. Some droughts gave them setbacks, but they weathered on. The letters had stopped after a family portrait where little Mathew, a spitting image of his mother, was a teenager.
Mathew wondered what had happened to them after, but he didn't have the strength to find out, since they had lived over a hundred years ago. Mathew had brought the papers and charged phone home and digitized and preserved them. When he had a moment, he turned on the phone. It was dead—a paperweight.
Disappointed, Mathew remembered her android had a micro SD card. He disassembled the case and ejected the card. He scrambled for a card adapter and attached it to an old laptop he kept at home but rarely used. He scrolled through the photos. There was no trace of Levi, her ex-boyfriend. Instead, he found dozens of photos of her and Sam, Audrey and little Mathew. She made videos. Mathew's eyes watered when his sister used selfie mode to film her own family. The kids weren't fazed by the technology, but Sam's face and April's speech made Mathew chuckle. What a treasure. Mathew made copies of the all the files to keep forever.
***
VERITY RODE IN Mathew's SUV with excited anticipation until…they passed endless rows of cornfields. How disappointing to find out cornfields surrounded their new city of Green Bay. Mathew explained corn was used for much more than eating, which Verity rejected.
They pulled into a long gravel driveway of a two-story farmhouse. It had a long front yard, woods behind it, but no farms in sight. It quiet except for the birds chirping, and off into the woods, frogs sang their mating calls.
A sign in the front yard had someone's name on it with a phone number, and a bright red car was parked in the driveway ahead of them.
"What are we doing here?" Verity asked.
"We are house shopping. Remember that trip to New York City saved the clinic? I had enough left over so I can buy us a house."
"You want to live here? What's wrong with your house by the clinic?"
Mathew chuckled. "So much. There is so much wrong with living in a dingy one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a neighborhood I wouldn't raise..." He cleared his throat. "I want something better for us, for the baby."
Verity's hand instinctively covered her lower belly. Mathew had already given her more than she ever deserved, and he wanted to give her more. But living in isolation brought back memories she didn't want.
"Can we pick something in the city?"
Mathew's brows rose. "Sure. I figured something resembling a familiar landscape would be preferable to you. But if you'd rather live in town, that's fine with me. Great, actually. Less commuting means I'll be home more."
Mathew apologized to the realtor and backed down the driveway, answering a call on his phone while driving. He navigated the car through the city, and they pulled into another driveway. This time the house was one story, small, with a driveway wide enough for two cars and a garage stall for each. The front yard was small, but she would have to see beyond the wood fence to see the backyard.