Chapter thirty

My grandfather had said that to pray was to speak from my heart. So that’s exactly what I did. I pressed my palms together and closed my eyes, feeling shaky and nervous and self-conscious. I talked silently, in my head, so my grandmother couldn’t hear what I had to say. We had started to get to know each other, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to know everything. I still wanted to keep some things to myself.

Hey, God, I said. I know you’re keeping Mom and Marin safe up there and everything, and I’m really glad about that. I’m sure they were scared when they got to you. So thanks for taking care of them. I took a breath and squeezed my palms together tighter. I’m, um… not sure how to do this, but I’d really kind of like to talk to my mom, if that’s okay. I haven’t gotten to say anything to her since she died.

My knees pressed into the soft ground, and I let my butt sink slowly to rest on the backs of my legs. I squeezed my eyes tight, like I’d done before, and tried to picture Mom’s face in my mind.

And just when I thought the image would never come, it did.

She was smiling at me. Laughing, maybe. There was sunlight highlighting the top of her head and she was wearing that ridiculous pair of sunglasses that I’d always made fun of because they were so huge.

I felt such love radiating off her, the words poured out of my heart.

Hi, Mom, I said in my head. I’m sorry you haven’t heard from me until now. I didn’t know how to talk to you at first and I was afraid that if I started talking to you it would mean you were really dead. Which is stupid, of course, because you’ve been really dead all along. I’ve just had a hard time believing it.

So I guess you’ve seen everything that’s happened since you died. All the stuff with Ronnie and Clay and Lexi and Meg. I’m not gonna lie, Mom, it’s been hard. And scary. And every day I wish I had died with you. Not that I’m suicidal or anything, so you don’t need to worry about that. Just that I wish I hadn’t been left behind, all alone. That part really sucks.

But I’ve learned a few things. Like that Ronnie loved you so much he can’t live without you. Which, even though it hurt me, is kind of cool in a way.

And that Clay is maybe the worst man on earth and I will never, ever be stuck in the same room with him again. At first I didn’t understand why you lied to me about him leaving us, and I felt really betrayed. I thought everything I knew about you might have been a lie, but since meeting him and your parents, I’ve realized that the parts of you I knew weren’t untrue; they were only part-truths. There were lots of things about you that I didn’t know, and learning those things has actually been comforting in a way. They make me feel closer to you. And I can see that actually there’s one real truth, and that is you loved me enough to do anything it took to protect me. I think that’s something I’ve known my whole life. I’m thankful for it.

Grandma Patty and Grandpa Barry. Well, they’re not so bad, Mom. Maybe I just haven’t seen the bad side of them yet, and maybe someday I will and I’ll totally understand all the things you said about them. But right now I don’t feel like I have to hold my breath when I’m around them as much, which is good, because they’re my only choice.

I think about you all the time. You and Marin both, but mainly you. I remember all the stuff we did together, and the little moments when you did awesome things like get us out of bed to go get ice cream or buy us snowboards or that time you read the entire Harry Potter series out loud to us. It took you like six months, but you never complained.

Do you remember that time you took me to the water park? Just me, because Marin wasn’t born yet and you hadn’t even met Ronnie. I think I was in third grade, maybe? You wore your red polka-dotted swimsuit and I had that bikini with the stripes that I hated because it made me feel fat.

Anyway, we went to the water park and we rode that huge slide. I think it was called the Slippery Cyclone. Remember how you had to talk and talk to get me on it? I was so scared. That slide was so tall and the pool at the end looked so deep and I wasn’t sure if I could touch the bottom.

I was afraid something would happen to me if I sat down and let myself go. But, worse than that, I was afraid something would happen to you. That you’d fly off into the woods and smash onto the rocks below or that the slide would cave in and crush you or that you’d just never come down and I’d be treading water at the bottom of that slide forever and ever waiting for you. Waiting for those red-and-white polka dots to swoosh around that last corner.

That’s how I feel now, Mom. Like I’m treading water and you’re not coming down the slide. I can’t touch the bottom here, and I’m scared. I want you back.

There are some things I never got to say. I’m sorry, Mom, for all the times I got mad and was mean to you. I’m sorry about the time I told you I hated you because you wouldn’t let me go to Jane’s house on Ronnie’s birthday. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I loved you when you took Marin to dance the night of the tornado. If I had to do it all over again, I would like to say I’d take all those things back, but I don’t know if I would. We were close, so close sometimes we screamed at each other, and I’ve been thinking that maybe those things were just different sides of the same coin. When we were screaming hateful things, it was only because we were feeling loving things. I don’t know, maybe that sounds stupid. But I like to think that way, because it makes me feel as if even though I didn’t show it sometimes, you still knew how much I loved you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the word “everything.” Whenever something horrible happens, you hear people say they “lost everything.” They lost their house, or their car or their stuff or whatever, and to them it feels like “everything.” But they have no idea what it’s really like to lose everything. I thought I knew, but now I realize even I haven’t lost everything, because I still have that polka-dot swimsuit in my memory. I still have those ice cream nights and the snowboards and the scorpion that scared Marin and the Barking Bulldogs sweatshirt and the robin’s-egg-blue nail polish. Somehow having those things makes the other stuff matter less.

I’m wondering if it’s even possible to lose “everything, ” or if you just have to keep redefining what “everything” is. Because I didn’t know it before, but somehow Grandpa Barry and Grandma Patty fit into my “everything” now, and even if I’m not sure yet how they fit, they’re there.

I guess that’s just my way of saying you don’t need to worry about me giving up. I’m just going to keep redefining “everything” for as long as I need to, because I’m pretty sure that’s the best way to keep on going when you feel like you’ve lost it all.

I’ve learned a lot of new things about you from a lot of different people, but one thing everyone agrees on is that you were headstrong. You were tough. You taught me how to be tough, too. You taught me how to tread water and how to swim out of the deep end. But I’ll probably be looking for that red swimsuit for a while yet.

I love you, Mom, and I miss you so much. Tell Marin I said I love her, too. And I miss the way she hums.