Diane,
If you are reading this, you have made it through at least a few months of living without me. Which means, the worst is behind you. I know you, and I know you think you’re doing everything wrong. You’re not. You’re better at this than I ever was. Please, for the love of God, stop baking so much. And tell Cassie I’m sorry about the time I ruined her ant farm. She was right; they are technically livestock. Give Nathan hell if he ever hurts you. And tell him if he ever thinks of painting a portrait of me, not to make my nose too big. If you’re reading this at a party, or a memorial, or any kind of gathering, I want you to remember one thing: You are allowed to live, to love, and to be happy. It doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten me.
Love, Sara
I hold the letter to my chest, laughing and crying at once. When I return to the main house, I fold myself into the empty armchair in the living room—Sara’s armchair—pull Cassie into my lap, and let Nathan rest his head against my knee. Around us, the stories spin on.
It is still her house, but it is also ours. The ocean wind carries voices out to the porch, into the evening, and for a long time, I listen. I want to remember all of it.
The ache is still there, but it feels less like a wound and more like a place to begin.
Epilogue
5 MONTHS LATER
It’s always colder than you think, first thing in the morning. Even in May, even this far south, the air pinches at your bare arms and wrists, the wind threading itself into the spaces between your bones. I have my knees hugged to my chest, my toes buried in the cool, uneven sand, and I watch the sunrise turn the Atlantic into one of those color-gradient T-shirts Cassie used to wear when she was little, a mix of topaz, flamingo, then the faintest powder blue. I’m not sure I’ll ever get tired of it.
Nathan sits beside me, so close our shoulders nearly touch. He’s wrapped in one of Sara’s old blankets, the one with the faded paisley pattern and the fringe that tickles my arm. His sketchbook is open across his lap, and he’s hunched over it with the kind of concentration that makes him oblivious to everything except the arc of graphite in his hand. If I look quickly, he could be anyone, but then I see the scar at his jawline, the way his foot makes tiny, absent circles in the sand, and he’s only ever Nathan.
A few yards down the beach, Cassie is a streak of blue and silver, her hair even wilder now that she’s let it grow out for summer. She’s bent double, examining something at the water’s edge, and every so often she stands, shell in hand, and yells tous. Usually, it’s some untranslatable mix of Latin taxonomy and pure, unfiltered excitement.
I have my own notebook open, the pages already damp and stippled with sand. It feels different this time, the act of writing. Not just because the first novel is out there in the world, but because I can finally believe that every word might matter to someone who isn’t me. I draft the chapter headers in neat columns, circle a phrase, double-underline another, then scratch it out again. The motion is familiar now, almost routine. I don’t have to apologize for taking up space in the world, or in this family. I just do it.
The waves break in their practiced way, shushing the beach in soft, regular exhalations. Above, a single tern glides low over the surf, then veers inland, chasing some invisible pattern on the wind. Nathan looks up from his sketchbook, catches me watching, and smirks.
“Don’t judge,” he says. “This is a no-pressure zone.”
“I would never judge a man wrapped in a paisley blanket,” I reply.
He makes a show of wrapping the blanket tighter around himself. “It’s growing on me.”
“Or just growing something,” I say.
He snorts and leans back, bracing himself on his hands. His fingers are stained with charcoal, the skin just above his knuckles permanently creased from years of this exact posture. We sit like that for a minute, watching Cassie work her way down the shoreline, her stride stubborn and unhurried. The sun is higher now, pulling itself free of the water, and the whole sky is streaked in the kind of pastels you only see on tourist postcards.
“Did you get anything good?” Nathan asks, nodding at my notebook.
I flip the cover closed, feeling a strange surge of pride. “I think so. There’s a voice emerging.”
He grins, all teeth and gratitude. “Yours, or the character’s?”
“Why not both?”
He laughs. This is what passes for flirting these days: who can be more earnest, who can say the truest thing without blinking.
Cassie jogs up, arms loaded with a haphazard pile of shells and a perfectly intact sand dollar balanced on top. She’s barefoot, her feet already pink from the cold water, and her shorts are damp in a line that says she misjudged the size of a wave by at least a foot. She plops down beside me, scattering her treasures onto the sand.
“Look,” she commands, and we do.
There’s a razor clam, a few pale coquinas, and something that might be part of a whelk. The sand dollar is pristine, its center marked with a five-pointed star. Cassie turns it over, inspecting the underside with reverence. “Did you know these are technically the skeletons of sea urchins?” she says.
Nathan raises an eyebrow. “You’re sure about that?”
She sniffs. “I am the reigning champion of marine trivia in this family.”
I reach over and ruffle her hair, and she submits to it for once, still distracted by her findings. “Can I keep it?” she asks, holding out the sand dollar.
“Of course,” I say. “It’s yours.”