“We’ll be back in a bit,” my dad says as he pushes up the tailgate. He gives me a hug, his strong arms wrapping around me, his shirt smelling of dust and sweat. Normally, I’d grumble about it, chide him to take a shower in a voice I know is as similar to my mom’s as my face, but this time I don’t try to resist.
They hop in the truck, turning the radio up and rolling down the windows like they’re back in high school. It’s wild how things can change so much and still be exactly the same.
I wave as they pull off, driving down Green Street and out of view.
“This is a pretty house,” Blake says from somewhere behind me. I start at the sound of her voice, realizing we’re going to be completely alone now. No packing left to do today now that my dad’s been appeased by a donation run and we’re out of boxes. Just me… trying not to be awkward.
I turn to look at the house, taking in the familiar crisp-white exterior and the sash windows and the front porch with a swing. The afternoon sunlight trickles softly through the large trees around our house, and I can’t help but smile at the deep green of the grass and the bright yellow sunflowers in the garden that my dad and I carefully tamed in the spring.
It hits me that that was it. The last spring sunflower bloom, already over.
We definitely don’t have the same green thumb my mom did, but we’ve worked tirelessly the past three years to keep the garden looking as good as she left it, from testing the pH of the soil to pest-control stakeouts on the front porch. I saw my dad get into it with a squirrel just last week after it tried to get some sunflower seeds.
“It was pretty perfect.” I spy the red and white for-sale sign smack in the middle of the lawn, the flaw in it all. “Someone’s sure going to love it.”
I head up the front path and the steps and across the porch, Blake following just behind me.
“You want some water?” I call behind me as we round the corner into the living room.
“Yeah, sure.”
We head into the kitchen, and I swing open the fridge door, grabbing the water pitcher off the top shelf, the cool air feeling nice after being outside.
“So,” she says, sliding onto the marble kitchen counter as I take two cups out of the cabinet and start pouring out the Brita. “Why don’t you want to move?”
I’m so surprised, I nearly dump all the water onto the counter.
“Who said I don’t want to move?” I ask, quickly pulling myself together and handing her one of the cups.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just the look of disgust you gave the for-sale sign five minutes ago,” she says, pausing, the glass halfway to her mouth. “Or maybe it was the look you gave the pile of boxes in the back of the truck.”
She raises her dark eyebrows at me and takes a long, slow, calculating sip.
“Jeez, Blake,” I say with a laugh. “You didn’t have to call me out like that.”
I’m surprised to find, though, that I like the honesty. It’s refreshing. It’s been three years and I still find people tiptoeing around me, bullshitting.
It makes me want to be honest too. To not tiptoe around the things my dad wouldn’t want to hear.
“Because,” I say, taking a deep breath, “all of this just feels like I’m getting farther and farther away from my mom. The move. Cleaning out her closet. All of it.”
Blake is quiet for a moment. Thoughtful. She pulls her hair slowly into a bun, and I try to focus on the cup of water I’m drinking from instead of the way her face looks when her hair is pulled back. It’s not fair for anyone to be that pretty.
Finally, once her hair is tucked away, she starts talking again. “Back in Hawaii, I used to go rock climbing at my mom’s favorite spot. When my dad first showed it to me, he told me she liked it the most because when you get to the very top, everything else looks small. The people down at the beach. The cars. The trees, even.” She puts her cup down on the counter. “She used to say that when you’re that high up, even your problems can look smaller.”
I nod. I like the idea of that. Though I’d probably need to be on the moon to make all my problems look small.
“You know I never met my mom, but whenever I wanted to feel close to her, I would go rock climbing at that spot because it made me feel like she wasn’t that far away,” she says, pausing for a moment to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. “Anyway…” She shifts her position, her eyes meeting mine, like she can sense I’m wondering where she’s going with this beyond commiserating about our joint membership in the Dead Moms Club. “What I’m trying to say here is that you should do something to feel close to her. In a new way. New memories to substitute for that house-shaped void you’re feeling.”
She grins and points at my pocket, the outline of the folded list pressing through the fabric. “Actually, you could even do that bucket list. I mean, what’ve you got to lose?”
I laugh at that, but her words stick with me. Through our conversation about our shared love of Schitt’s Creek, through our dads coming back from Goodwill, through the Carters leaving to go walk their golden retriever named Winston, through a quiet dinner of spaghetti and meatballs with my dad.
Not just something to feel close to her. Twelve somethings I never even knew she did before.
Could I do them too?
5
The
