“Ask me again in a few months.”
“And your mom?”
He shrugs. “We don’t talk. I know she didn’t want to come today.”
“Hope—Amaya—would have wanted her here.”
“She saw the best in people,” Merrick says.
Before we know it we’re talking about her. The memories hurt and heal. We laugh until we cry, and a few people stare at us with looks of disdain.
But that’s the thing about grief. You think it looks one way. The only way. You don’t realize you can laugh through the tears until you’re living right through them.
When most of the cars have pulled away and I see Jake, Mary, and the other girls climbing into the van, I know it’s time to go. Merrick walks me to the parking lot where his dad stands, shaking hands with the pastor. Hiroshi makes eye contact with me and I want to shrink inside myself. He’s intimidating up close.
“Thank you,” he says. Then he shakes my hand in a rather formal and “princely” way. I can see why Merrick was afraid of him for so long. But I can also see why Hope adored this man with every part of her soul.
I have no words as I hold back my tears. I nod.
He compresses his lips and walks to a black car where he climbs in the back seat.
“Some things never change,” Merrick says. “I think he’ll use a chauffeur until the day he dies.”
He’s right. Some things never change.
And some things do.
We don’t ask about the future. We don’t make promises to keep in touch or reconnect.
Merrick and I stay in the now. In this lingering hug. In the moment when he picks a yellow daisy from a patch of weeds and hands it to me. In this awkward closeness where I can feel his breath on my cheek, I question if we might kiss. But we don’t. There’s a sort of silent agreement there. One that says it isn’t the time, but maybe someday.
Or maybe not.
I don’t know. Because all we have is now.
And now, I watch him drive away.
Mee-Maw appears beside me. She clutches her purple handbag in her white-gloved fingers and sighs. “What a nice young man. A real prince.”
She has no idea.
I face her and the last bit of resentment I’ve lived in for too long joins the breeze, taking flight in the wind. “Mee-Maw, I—”
“Not today.” Her voice exudes kindness. Grace. “Today is about your friend. You and I? We’ll have our time.”
We hug and I promise to visit her soon. When I climb into the Fathoms van with the other girls, I close my eyes and lean against the warm window. Sunshine sends bright bursts of colors dancing beneath my eyelids. I listen to their song and bid farewell to two summers.
The summer of Coral that I couldn’t release until now.
And this one. The one in which I—Brooke—learned that life is more than just living.
Hans Christian Andersen had the right idea. “Just living is not enough . . . One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
I twirl Merrick’s daisy between my thumb and forefinger. Tuck it into my hair the way my older sister, River, used to do. I rarely let myself think of her. I’ve kept her so far removed from my story, she was hardly there at all. Now I picture her as she was. I imagine her and Hope together. Holding hands and walking along a private beach I can’t see.
They’re free, I think.
But so am I.
Autumn
Present Day
“Just living is not enough . . .”
Interstitial – Prince Letter
Forty-Five
Merrick Prince
One month.
It had been one month since Merrick watched his mom leave Amaya’s funeral without a word. She looked at him the same way she had the night she abandoned him—them—at the hospital.
But the regret in her eyes was never enough to make her stay.
He was not enough.
This time, Merrick no longer searched for his mom or waited for her to return.
This time, it was his dad he sought. On purpose. Who would have guessed that would ever happen?
September had nearly come and gone, but the corner office with the skyline view was the same. Photos of his dad’s Navy days decorated the wall alongside an organized cluster of achievements and awards. Shaking hands with the president. Three American Business Awards in different categories. He’d even made Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For.
Merrick had been intimidated by this wall. His own wall had nothing. No Little League trophies or student-of-the-month awards. Not even a spelling bee win. He’d felt average in his father’s ever-present rising shadow.
Crossing to the wall of windows that overlooked the Bay Area, Merrick took in the familiar view. San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge in all its glory was lit, standing out in stark contrast to the autumn night sky. The promise of it taunted him, daring him to escape again. His life was an even bigger mess than it had been last year. When Amaya was still alive. When Merrick blew his chance to save her.
He let out an inaudible curse and stared through the city to the water beyond. He’d only hurt Amaya more by taking her away. Merrick couldn’t help her. He’d waited for the inevitable then. Had been sure his dad would press charges and Merrick would face the much-deserved consequences.
But the charges never came.
He never asked his dad the reasons behind the silence over his crime. They’d hardly spoken since that day in the hospital over a year ago. Another cry for help. Another chance to save his sister.
But in the months that followed, even Fathoms Ranch couldn’t stop her from taking her own life.
He avoided his dad as much as possible during her time away, stayed with Grim at the beach house rather than return to an empty home. But now, in the wake of his sister’s funeral, Merrick could no longer put off facing the man who had done everything in his power to help Amaya Hope.
The office door opened and his father entered. Alone. There had been a period when every knob rattle or hinge creak made Merrick jump. Had him worried this was it—his dad was finally having him arrested.
But nothing.
He’d thought more than once about turning himself in. But with Amaya so fragile, he needed to be available, not serving time. Merrick had sent her letters and care packages and even visited her at Fathoms once. She asked him not to come again. It was then he knew his sister’s healing was never something he could force.
Hiroshi closed the door behind him and moved to his leather desk chair. He opened a drawer, withdrew a file, and donned his reading glasses.
Lay it on me, Dad. Tell me what a huge disappointment I am and how I’ll never learn from my mistakes.
A glance at the time set Merrick on edge. He’d arrived at 4:00 p.m. sharp, as his father asked. He sat in the lounge, thumbed through the most recent issues of Forbes and the San Francisco Gate to bide the time. It was now well after business hours.
How long is he going to draw this out? Amaya’s suicide is my fault. He’s disowning me. Ironic after I spent the better part of my life trying to disown him.