I grin. “Sounds awesome.”
“We’ve got a cool garden out back. Gina will be thrilled to have you, if you like to do shit like that, which I don’t. She’s our resident green goddess.”
“I’d love it. My mom and I gardened together a lot. I miss it.”
I run my finger along the table, thinking. A dream’s been forming in my head for a while now, ever since I started working with Ben at Castaways. I don’t know if it was Mae’s idea, me working there, or his, but I’m grateful. A job—one step toward independence, toward real life. A life outside the pills.
After graduation, I started working the morning shifts with Ben, making the sandwiches and soups and stuff for the lunch crowd, along with regular barista duties. I write acorns on the sandwich board outside.
And I love it. All of it. I really do.
“I’ve been thinking…”
Jo glances at me, eyebrows up. “Uh-huh…”
“Cooking chills me out. It helps me think. My dad always said that my mom did soup meditation. Remember I told you that whenever we’re stressed or something happens, we make soup? Like, the night of the wave, Mae and I made chili. We weren’t hungry, we just … had to.” She nods. “I was thinking … I’m writing a lot now, but I need a job, too. I don’t want minimum-wage barista work forever. What if cooking’s one of my things? Like, how I contribute to the world? Food is healing. Making it, eating it. Growing it. I could maybe take some classes?”
Jo throws an arm around my shoulder. “Hell yes! I fucking love that idea. Mostly because I will directly benefit from whatever delicious shit you make.”
I laugh, and it sounds good, that music coming from my mouth.
We peek into the sizable kitchen and the backyard, thick with trees and flowers and a big garden—tomatoes crawling up vines, rows of herbs, bunches of greens.
Jo tells me a bit about the others as she leads me to the second of the three floors. There are ten of us in all, including Jo, who’s the oldest at twenty-five. A few are students at one of the many universities and colleges in Boston; many are like me, just working and trying to figure things out.
“We’ve got a lot of artists here,” she says. “As you can see.”
The upstairs walls are covered in a collage-like mural: flowers and suns and moons. There are five bedrooms on this floor, and a communal bathroom.
“There’s a cleaning schedule, and you can sign up for your shower time if you need to be in there before work or something,” Jo says. “We’re strict about sign-ups and our commitments.”
“Is it insane, trying to get in there?”
“Each floor has two toilets and two showers. Usually something’s open if you need it.”
All of the bedroom doors are shut except for one. Jo knocks, then pokes her head in.
“Hey, V. Got our new sister here. Come say hi.”
My heart tightens at that word—sister. It’s only been six days since Mae got on a plane for Annapolis. But I miss her.
A girl maybe a year or two older than me comes out. Her whole head is covered in dreadlocks, and she has an elfin face that reminds me a little of Mae.
“I’m Hannah,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”
“Valerie. You, too. So what’s your deal?”
“Um…” I have a choice. Do I define myself by my addiction—or by something else? “I’m a poet. And I cook.”
She grins. “Right on. I’m a painter. I did some of the stuff on the walls here. You should contribute to my zine. Like, a poem. I can make the art for it.”
My words, with my name next to them. Not anonymous. Not secret. I can almost feel the stardust Mae is always talking about, falling on me. It tingles a little. All over.
“Okay. Yeah.”
“Cool. Well, knock on my door any time you need something.”
“Thanks.”
Jo leads me across the hall, opens the last door on the left.
“And … here we are.”
Pale yellow walls.
Thick wood floors.
A wide window overlooking a side yard crawling with flowers and bicycles.
A polished teardrop crystal hangs from the window, catching sunbeams and turning them into rainbows all around the room.
“My little present to you,” Jo says, nodding at the crystal. A new kind of diamond.
The room is warm and cozy, big enough to roll out my yoga mat. I’ll put a desk by the window, my bed in that corner, by the large closet.
A gilded mirror on the wall, so I’ll remember I’m not invisible.
“Thank you, Jo. For everything.”
“You won’t want to thank me when you hear we have a curfew.” I groan, and she cackles as she heads toward the door. “I have to check on my curry. You want to come down or do you want to soak this in before the guys get here?”
“I want to soak a bit,” I say.
When Jo leaves, I lie in a patch of sunlight on the hardwood floor and look at the little tattoo on my right ankle, sitting in the same spot where Mom’s Om was. Mine is one of Yoko’s drawings from Acorn, a beautiful dot-art fly for her poem “Life Piece VII.”
A promise. To myself. To my dead.
To dream of flying, to trust that I won’t fall. I whisper the last line of the fly’s poem, out loud: “Try to remember the feeling when you are awake.”
“I remember,” I say. “I remember.”
The scent of roses and seawater hits me, and I turn my head. Mom is lying next to me, in corpse pose. Her lips are turned up in a smile, eyes closed.
That Death card I’ve been getting all year? It just means the end of one journey and the beginning of another.
I’m not afraid to die. But I’m not afraid to live, either.
“This is the last time,” I say to her, “isn’t it?”
Her palms are turned up to the sky, and her fingers twitch the tiniest bit. I reach out and hold my mom’s hand.
Just like when I was a little girl, we walk home together.
Epilogue
Mae
ISS Location: Low-Earth Orbit
Earth Date: 29 August
Earth Time (MYT): 18:06
It is the one-year anniversary of the wave.
The beach my parents died on is littered not with bodies or debris, but with white roses. Hundreds and hundreds of white roses.
For so long, it felt like Nah and I were the only ones who’d lost people in the wave. But here, now, surrounded by women and men and children from all over the planet who are crying, but also smiling and laughing and remembering, I realize we are not alone. Not one little bit.
This grief, it is collective.
This loss, it is the world’s.
It is so beautiful here. I can see why Mom wanted to lie on this beach, walk in this sand, put her toes in this warm water. This gentle water, a sleeping giant. Even though a part of me knew better, I thought I would hate it. This ocean that took them.
But you can’t be angry at water.
And I don’t believe in God.
So there is no one to be angry with.
That’s nice.
Nah carves the words in the sand with a piece of driftwood. When she’s done, I stand beside her and slip my hand into hers.
Last Words