When We Collided

Gold melts into every color of blue where the ocean dips off into nothing. Do you believe in heaven? Vivi asked me once, and I told her the truth: that I want to. In one painting, she gave me something I’ve needed for months now: happiness even in uncertainty. What’s past that horizon line? And how many of us get our somedays? I don’t know.

But just because I don’t know doesn’t mean it can’t be great.

It takes me a second to notice the small letters painted in the bottom corner. But I knew they’d be there like I know they’ll be all over the world someday.

Vivi was here.

On the wall opposite the patio, she painted me a mural.

My heart beats like tripping feet. I try to imagine her, balanced on a ladder all night with a sling on her arm. The patio lights are on—I never leave them on—so she must have painted by the light of them. She did this for me. How We Say Good-bye.

The Verona Cove lighthouse is in the right foreground. Beyond it, there are ships in the harbor—seven of them—all with white sails. I’m not sure how she gave a flat wall so much movement, like each sail is flickering. I can almost hear them beating against the wind. There’s one bigger boat in the distance, sailing toward the upper left corner. The horizon, gold and blue, looks inviting and limitless. The lone boat’s sails puff out in pride, a pioneer to the unknown. The seven boats in harbor seem to be waving good-bye, cheering Bon Voyage! Vivi crammed all her vivification into this one painting, right down to the nautical flags on the biggest ship.

I learned the letters associated with nautical flags when I was a kid. The first is a “D.” The second, blue and white: an “A.” Wait. My eyes skip down the mast. They spell out D-A-N-I-E-L-S. It strikes me like whiplash—there are also seven little ships in harbor. One for every living member of my family.

This is not a painting about Vivi and me saying good-bye.

The large boat sailing away for new adventures . . . it’s my dad. Oh my God. She painted a family portrait. She painted us as sailboats. I see it now—how could I have missed it at first?

My eyes fill, hot with tears. Because, apparently, casual crying is just something that I do now. My chest caves in with missing my dad

Dear Jonah,

I lied. “Good-bye” is my least favorite word in my entire vocabulary, much worse than even “squish” or “protuberance,” and I just can’t say it to your handsome face. Give your family kisses from me, will you? I think I fell for all seven of you a little more every day. But mostly you, Jonah. Mostly, madly, beautifully you. Don’t tell okay? He’d be crushed.

Maybe in my next life, I’ll be a wave in the ocean, and you’ll be a mountain, and we’ll spend years and years brushing up against each other. You’ll shift so painfully slowly, and some days I’ll crash right into you and other days I’ll approach gently, licking your sides. That sounds like us, doesn’t it?

Or maybe we’ll meet in this same life. Maybe I’ll be working as a costume designer for a movie that’s filming in a city where you’re the chef of your own restaurant, and our eyes will lock in the middle of a busy street, and I’ll whisper, “It’s you.” Maybe I’ll sneak into your little bungalow house while your fiancée is out of town on business, and we’ll make love like we have in past lives and in this life. That doesn’t sound like something you’d do, but a girl can dream.

Either way, Jonah, I simply cannot wait to see who you become.

Until someday,

Vivi

P.S. I left something for you on the restaurant patio. Took me all night. I call it “How We Say Good-bye.”

I blink, taking in the sharp lines of her name and, next to it, a red lip print, kissing me good-bye. Of course she’d make a dramatic exit, even without being here. We can’t keep each other—I know that. But I wanted to see her one last time. I wanted to say thank you; I wanted to make one last attempt at memorizing her.

It comes to mind because Vivi climbed into my life with her fossil brush, and she swept away the dust. She rediscovered me under all that rubble, and that means I’ll always be a little bit hers. How am I supposed to say good-bye to someone like that?

I’m still yards away from the park when I realize she’s not here. You can feel a girl like Vivi. She shifts the ground under your feet. And I don’t sense them, the tremors beneath me.

I shower and shave and try to make my hair look presentable. There’s a sailor’s knot in my throat. I’m supposed to walk to the park, toward Vivi, and that part’s fine. It’s the walking away from her that I can’t imagine.

Leah swings her feet below the island ledge. “I wish Vivi didn’t have to leave. It makes me sad when I think about it.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”

Naomi shakes her head. There’s something ironic in her smile. “You know what? Me too.”

I already gave her one. She came over yesterday morning, and we played.”

“Vivi came over while I was at the restaurant?”

“Yep! We played ponies and stuff.”

I glance at Naomi for more information. “Were you here when she came over?”

Naomi nods, not looking up from her waffle. “We all were.”

I texted Vivi yesterday, to see if she needed help packing. She said no. I was so disappointed that I almost went over anyway. But then she told me to meet her at the park today. Of course—it’d be a dramatic farewell, with a meeting time and anticipation. I’m half dreading it. I’m half desperate for it.

Hey,” my mom says to Leah. “No spoiling your breakfast with pure sugar, missy.”

“Swrry,” Leah says, with her cheeks puffed out. She’s clearly not sorry

My family is everywhere, busy with individual tasks and reaching over one another. But, somehow, doing it all together. It’s such a familiar scene that part of me expects to turn the corner and see my dad. I know he won’t be there. But it feels like he’s in the kitchen all the same—in Naomi’s determination and Silas’s easy humor and Bekah’s sensitivity and Isaac’s precociousness and Leah’s everyday excitement. In my . . . well, I don’t know what. But I hope something. Something good.