She giggles and kicks her hands and feet.
I beam. “That is EXACTLY how I reacted when I learned that stuff, too. We’re obviously related.”
Nah stands as we reach her, and when my sister looks inside the stroller, she stares and stares, her face turning Karalis red, like it always does whenever she feels anything intensely.
“Do you think…” She swallows. “Do you think I can hold her?”
“Of course you can,” I say. “She’s our sister.”
Nah takes a breath. Reaches inside. Lifts Pearl out of the stroller.
“Hello,” Nah breathes.
Pearl reaches up with her little dimpled hand and rests it on Nah’s cheek. They stare at each other for a long, long time.
Nah leans down and brushes her lips against Pearl’s forehead. “Thank you,” she whispers to her.
I reach out and brush my fingers across Pearl’s dark hair. She has Dad’s eyes. I am so sad that my father doesn’t get to meet his daughter. That she doesn’t get to meet him.
The anger I’d been holding inside me against my dad melts away. I guess babies do that. They melt things.
Pearl is giving us back our dad. Bringing him back to life. I can feel him, can almost hear his soft laughter.
I turn to Nah. “We have to let it go. For her sake. And his.”
There is nothing more to say to Rebecca about what happened. And there is nothing we can do to change the past. My dad was a good dad. The best. And there is only now. Only love.
“Okay.”
“And. When Pearl’s old enough, we should eat it. The three of us. Don’t you think?”
Hannah knows what I mean. The last of Dad’s egg bake. Uncle Tony had had it specially frozen so we could take it across the country. We thought it was the last thing he made. But it wasn’t. The last thing he made is lying in my sister’s arms.
It’s time. To let him go. Wherever he is.
Hannah’s face turns splotchier. I don’t think that is a word, but it’s what happens on her skin.
“We’ll take pictures,” Nah says. “Get her a science nerd bib.”
I squeeze Pearl’s fingers. “Something to look forward to,” I say to my baby sister. “Solids are awesome.”
Hannah laughs.
I take our gift for Pearl out of my bag, and Nah settles her on her lap as I open it up to the part our little star in the constellation of us needs to hear the most, the part that is about our dad:
“I will live on one of those stars. I will laugh on one of them. And when you look up in the sky, it will seem to you that all the stars are laughing. Only you will have the stars that can laugh!”
Pearl grins.
We laugh.
And the stars keep shining.
An Ode To A Rose
Let the tigers come with their claws!
I am not afraid anymore
And neither should you be
You are loved
You ARE love
Don’t you know that, silly girl?
Bedroom Wall
The Pink House
Cambridge, MA
48
Hannah
The Pink House is unapologetically pink, a gorgeous Victorian three-story rambling place that looks like it could be a bordello, if it wanted to.
The wide, wraparound porch is lined with wind chimes. Every different kind you could imagine. Mom would have loved it. There are huge honeysuckle bushes lining the porch, too, so that the air smells like a good day.
I’ve never seen a house like this, where the kids are in charge. There’s graffiti on the actual walls, some of it very good, and crap everywhere: bicycle parts, abandoned craft projects, and the kind of random, busted-ass stuff you see in front of people’s homes on trash day, but lovingly or cheekily repurposed, such as the dog bowl that now serves as an ashtray on the porch. There’s an elaborate lamp with no lampshade near the stairs, and the scent of Nag Champa wafts from one of the rooms on the second floor, mingling with the scent of something spicy in the kitchen.
Over the fireplace mantel in the living room is a sign from the universe that I have made the right choice to move here: Someone has painted a quote by Yoko in beautiful calligraphy.
What is the most important thing? To love yourself and the world. In that order.
Jo comes out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. She gives me a wild biker-girl grin.
“Welcome home, Blue.”
“Thanks. That sounds really nice.”
Nate and Ben are coming by later with my boxes and some furniture, but I wanted to come here on my own first, to take this first step into the unknown by myself: Just Hannah.
“Come on,” she says. “I’ll give you the tour.”
Despite the thrift-store furniture and scribbling on the walls, the place is immaculately clean. There’s an order here, once you start looking. The books on the shelves are organized by color. Notes to housemates tacked neatly to a corkboard in the large dining room. Labeled bins: CLEANING SUPPLIES, THINGS FOR YOUR LADY PARTS, EMERGENCY CHOCOLATE.
“So, this is the common room,” Jo says, waving a hand around the large, sunny living room. “This is where we hang for our daily meetings and other gatherings. You have to come to at least three meetings a week here. If you have Twelve-Step meetings somewhere else you also want to go to, that’s fine.”
This is part of what being in a sober home is. I want this structure, this support, even though the rules make me feel like a kid again. I need people around me to stay on my ass so that I keep the promises I’ve made to myself. It’s too easy to stay at home and not go to a meeting.
“If you have guests,” Jo continues, “they’re welcome to be in here or the dining room or your bedroom and they can use the downstairs bathrooms, but we ask that you respect the privacy of the rest of the house. Especially since this is an all-female-identifying space. Lots of trauma here, you know?”
I nod.
I’ve heard too many sad stories in meetings—girls being hurt by their dealers, by guys taking advantage of them when they were out cold on drugs. Getting attacked. I still don’t know what happened with Sean from Harvard. Mae said my pants were on. But I don’t know. That alone might be enough to keep me sober for good.
“I have a friend coming to help decorate my room tomorrow,” I say. “That girl I told you about from my meeting—the poet?”
Jaipriya and I have hung out once already. There was a poetry reading at Grolier Poetry Book Shop, which my mom used to go to a bunch back in the day. It’s where she met Dad. The cashier asked if I was a writer, and I said yes.
“Right on. Obviously no drugs or alcohol are allowed in the house—that includes your guests. I will kick your ass out if you use here or anywhere else. No exceptions. Okay?”
“Okay. Yes.”
“We drug test pretty regularly, and that’s also mandatory. They’re always done randomly, so you can’t fool us. We depend on one another to support our sobriety, so we have to be on top of this.” Jo leads me into a large dining room, with dark wood paneling and a pretty stained glass window. A rustic wooden table with mismatched chairs that seats at least twelve sits in the center. “We eat in here. We have group dinners a few times a week. I’ll show you the schedule later. We make the meal together, eat together, clean up. It’s really nice. The rest of the time, we all just do our own thing. But we often potluck it together. I’ve got a kick-ass curry on I’m gonna make you try. I call it Vicious Vegan Delight.”