prologue
"never been less empty, all i feel is free now"
The sun is well on its way up in the sky when he sets out east down the Pacific Coast Highway. He’s got the top of his convertible down and the breeze sends his curls flying into his face, which is pleasantly tan, warm and weatherworn, and slathered in Nivea After Sun spray. His hair is still damp and smells faintly salty, his surfboard is in the backseat, gently laid over a pile of sand-crusted beach towels, and Fleetwood Mac is blasting from the radio. Life, he thinks, is finally good: something he never once anticipated growing up.
He read Steinbeck when he was in high school, curled up in his bed in his posh upstate New York preparatory school that his mother habitually wrote astronomical checks for, and he clutched his tattered, earmarked copy of East of Eden, with that one single line underscored in brown ink on the first page: “I always found in myself a dread of west and a love of east,” and he thought that Steinbeck was crazy. As soon as he could, he would be on his way out, as far from the East Coast as his feet would carry him, as far from the Black family name, and from the Black family itself, and the West seemed as good a place as any. He longed for open-air spaces and felt suffocated under the crushing weight of the NYC skyline whenever he glimpsed out of the window of his childhood bedroom on Sixth Avenue.
He kept a picture of Big Sur he cut out from a magazine taped above his bed, and lay in bed at night dreaming about the North Pacific, and the California sun, and the freedom that would come with nearly three thousand miles between him and his mother’s heavy hand. A lot of sacrifices lie between that scared teenager he once was and the man he is now, the worst of which has his eyes and his lips, and the shape of his nose and no longer talks to him, but he likes to think he’s finally free. Even when guilt rears its ugly head inside his chest sometimes and its voice sounds just like his brother’s.
A gull spreads its wings above his head, taking a dive towards the vast, endless blue of the ocean to his left, its scratchy, coarse caws out-belting Stevie Nicks, and he lets himself savor this moment, and the one after it, and the next one too. This is all his life is: a string of moments he enjoys. It’s his day off; he woke up at the crack of dawn to chase the best waves down at the beach; he’s on his way to pick Harry up and take him out for birthday breakfast—bacon and pancakes smothered in maple syrup—at his favorite diner while James decorates the house for his party; he’s happy, and sober, and he’s got everything he ever needed, and more.
When his phone rings, he takes his hand off the steering wheel to turn the music down and let the call go through to his speakers.
“Hey, Lils,” he says when he picks up.
In the background, somebody is calling over the intercom for Doctor Vance to report to the NICU immediately. Lily’s ragged breathing indicates she’s on the go too, undoubtedly hurrying up and down stairs to check up on patients before her next surgery.
“Hi,” she says, after a noise that sounds suspiciously like sucking through a straw, “sorry, I’m trying to finish this smoothie before I head into the OR—”
“No worries, Evans, I didn’t even expect to talk to you until tonight.”
“Well, yes,” her tone is a little exasperated, “I have that coronary revascularization scheduled but Jamie called and there’s been a change of plans.”
Sirius can picture her in his head, running around the hospital in her pristine white coat, phone squeezed between her ear and her shoulder, stethoscope digging into her chin, smoothie clutched in one hand, a patient chart in the other, her mane of fiery curls pinned atop her head in a bun that threatens to topple over, and it brings a smile to his face.
“What change of plans?” he asks, readying himself for another of James’s ridiculous, over-the-top fake emergencies whenever throwing Harry a party is involved, “Does he need another lifesize cutout of Lightning McQueen, or is it the bouncy house—”
“Nope,” Lily says around a slurp—she’s a doctor and should really, really know her food intake can’t all be in liquid form, “Harry now wants a Frozen-themed party so James needs a last-minute Olaf suit, and I asked Pandora to go pick it up for me, and she said she’s my resident, not my maid, which—fair, but, could you please, please, pretty please, with a cherry on top pick it up instead?”
Sirius glances at the clock on his car screen, quickly guesstimating how much time it would add to his trip, even though he knows he’ll say yes regardless. He’d pay good money to see James in an Olaf suit.
“You know it, sunshine,” he tells her, pushing his shades down his face as the sun has finally reached a perfect spot in the sky to become a problem.
“Perfect, love you, see you at dinner,” her voice sounds slightly distant, and he can tell she’s put him on speakerphone so she can take her coat off and start scrubbing in.
“Love you too, Lils.”
“Any chance you’re bringing a plus one?”
The question stings, even though he expected it. They have been trying to get him to start dating again; both Lily and James have been concerned that he’s lonely and the more time passes, the more insistent they seem to get that he should find someone, but he’s perfectly fine and happy the way he is. He feels no need for further complications in his life.
“Not in hell—don’t you have a surgery to get to?”
“Just saying it would be good for you,” she says over the sound of running water and then her hands furiously rubbing at each other.
The second phone call comes in just then, and Sirius isn’t in the habit of picking up when an unknown number lights up the screen but he’s really looking to get out of this conversation. A quick glance tells him it’s an East Coast area code and his heart catches in his chest. Nine-one-seven. New York City. The five boroughs.
“Lily,” he lets out, all of a sudden having trouble swallowing, “I gotta go, I’ll—see you tonight, yeah?”
He doesn’t wait for her to respond.
Regulus’s number is still saved in his contacts, even though he hasn’t called it in years, save for the birthday texts he always types up and saves as drafts instead of pressing Send. He’s made sure to transfer it every single time he’s switched phones, even though he’s certain he’d recognize it anyways. He’d know it in a heartbeat. Just as he would their parents’ numbers, the digits burnt into his brain, still haunting his nightmares on occasion.
It’s probably a coincidence, then, that it’s a New York number calling him. Wrong number, or just fate making fun of him, or a cruel joke, or—He’ll never know if he doesn’t pick up, and so he does, keeping a steady gaze at the road ahead of him, his left hand clutching the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles have gone white.
“Hello?” he says, and then he waits, his heart violently slamming inside his chest.
The low, breathy voice that replies is unfamiliar, cool and professional.
“Hi,” it says, “Am I speaking to Sirius Black?”
Not a coincidence. Sirius tries to calm the rabid, clammy beat of his heart; he contemplates pulling over, a wave of panic washing over him and threatening to drag him under. He’s standing at a cliffside, the tsunami of his old life looming above, all the pain and hurt he left behind snipping at his feet. It would be so easy to lie, and say no, and slam the door on whatever this is. None of it belongs to him anymore. He’s not even a Black, at least not in name after Effie and Monty legally adopted him.
Something tells him not to do that.
“This is he,” he lets out, voice embarrassingly shaky.
“Oh, good,” the woman from New York says, “he was pretty sure you still had the same number but—I’m glad.”
For a brief moment they sit in silence that stretches out so uncomfortably long in Sirius’s mind that he contemplates hanging up. He has a pretty good idea who the “he” the woman is referring to is.
There’s a heavy sigh on the other end of the line, and then, “I’m sorry, this is a hard phone call to make.”
He should pull over. He knows he should pull over because nothing good is coming out of this conversation, but he keeps driving, his grip on the wheel the only thing somehow holding him together.
“My name is Dorcas Meadowes,” the voice adds, “I am—I am your brother’s friend and his attorney.”
The words are somehow melancholy in tone, if not in meaning, and laced with grief, and Sirius doesn’t want to know anymore. He wants to hang up, and go back to a few minutes ago when life was good, and he was happy, and carefree, and driving with the top down and the wind in his hair on his way to celebrate his godson’s birthday. But there is no going back now. He’s headed straight off the precipice to whatever nightmare it’s leading.
“Why,” he whispers, “is my brother’s attorney calling me?”
“Mr. Black—Sirius, if I may?”
He nods, then realizes she can’t see him.
“Yeah,” he says, “Sirius is fine.”
You’re so fucking selfish. I hate you. Don’t even come back, you’re dead to me. The last words Regulus ever said to him still ring in his head, as loud and clear as the day he first heard them. Suddenly, he’s faced with the very real possibility that he’ll never hear Regulus say any other words to him, at all. The ever-present, incessant itch under his skin becomes more pressing. He grips the wheel tighter.
“Sirius, Regulus has named you as his health care proxy,” Dorcas Meadowes says, then pauses. “Do you understand what this means? I can explain.”
“His… health care proxy,” he repeats, dully. He knows what it means, he just can’t accept it. It’s nonsensical. There surely has been some kind of mistake, because Regulus wouldn’t want Sirius in charge if anything happened to him. He’d ask their mom, because he always chooses her over Sirius, invariably.
“It means you’re in charge of making health care and life-sustanining decisions for him, should he ever become—incapacitated,” it sounds like she’s struggling to force the memorized phrases out, a prepared speech she needs to get through, and there’s a strain in her voice as if she’s trying not to cry.
“Well,” Sirius forces out, “Tell him I don’t want it, and he can ask—Walburga,” he can’t get himself to call her mother, not anymore, “and he could have told me himself, and—”
“Sirius,” Dorcas Meadowes cuts him out, with certain resolve, “I’m calling you because he can’t—”
Sirius doesn’t hear her, and instead keeps going, his hands shaking so badly now that he has no choice but to pull over as he speaks. The tires hit the gravel with a screech, and he turns his hazards on, blinking rapidly to chase away the angry tears.
“—and he doesn’t need it anyways, he’s always been such a hypochondriac, he’s very much…capacitated—”
“Sirius,” his brother’s attorney snaps at him, and he finally finds himself unable to respond. His breath rattles in his ribcage.
“Tell me he’s okay,” he hears himself saying, and suddenly he’s five years old again, and terrified, reaching for a mother who doesn’t want to hold him.
Dorcas Meadowes remains silent.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathes out, and now he’s certain she’s crying, “He instructed me to call you when your power of attorney went into effect—when he was no longer capable of making decisions on his own.”
“No,” Sirius says stubbornly, ever the petulant child, and he finds himself shaking his head over and over.
“I—I’m so sorry,” she says again.
The waves of the North Pacific crash against the cliffside, mocking him.