I SIT DOWN next to Callie at one of the old plastic tables outside Jackie’s. She’s reading a book, drinking a smoothie, letting the sun spill over her.
“You’re not working?” she asks, taking note of my regular clothes.
“Not today. Is that the mango one?” I ask her, gesturing to her drink. “It my favorite too.”
She slides it toward me and I take a sip.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
She flips the book over to show me the cover: Little Women. “Getting started on summer reading early—I blame you for that,” she adds, trying not to smile.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I joke. “Hey, can we talk for a sec?”
“Okay,” she answers uncertainly, setting the book facedown on the table.
“You know, Callie . . .” I take a breath before continuing. “I guess I’ve been realizing that maybe I haven’t really been there for you. I mean, wanting us all to be together isn’t the same thing as us being there for each other. Does that make sense?” I ask. “I think I got confused about what was important.”
She nods. “Yeah, I know.”
“I wanted to tell you, I went to go visit our grandmother—Mom’s mom.”
“What?” Her eyes go wide. “I thought she was dead.”
“Why did you think that?” I ask, laughing.
“Don’t know. Just assumed, I guess.” She pauses, pondering this new information, then asks, “What’s she like?”
“Um . . .” I try to figure a way to describe her. “She’s kind of odd, actually. But nice. A good person. We’ve been talking, and I wanted you to know I’m going to move in with her.”
She holds up her hands, as if pushing something invisible away from her.
“No, no, I’m not asking you to go with me. But she wants to meet you.”
She nods, listening more closely.
“You know, she has a pool. Not hers, really, but at her building. It’s very blue. Shaped like an L. It has a diving board. And Caroline—that’s her name—she wants to invite you over to go swimming sometime.”
Now she’s nodding and smiling.
“Sound like fun?”
“Yeah,” she says, and pauses before she continues. “You could finally teach me how to dive.”
“I could,” I agree. “I will.” I wait a few minutes, let the silence settle things between us. “Well, I’m gonna go—I have to take care of some last things at the apartment. Pack up what’s left. Is there anything you want me to keep?”
She shakes her head.
“Okay.” I give her hand a squeeze and she lets me. “Later.” And as I look at her, I finally see how much she’s changed too, just like the rest of us.
On the walk home—my last walk home—I think about how the spring suits Callie. It makes her brighter, like something inside of her is in bloom, something coming back to life. And maybe we’re all like a season in that way. If we are, then Aaron would be the fall—all fiery and fickle, complicated and beautiful in his own way, in this way that lets me forgive him for doing whatever he needs to do to keep going. And me, maybe I’m most like the winter. Maybe I need that stillness, as much as I’ve tried to fight it. I need it like oxygen, that quieting of the world around me, so I can finally listen to myself.
Mom and Dad. I think they’re both like the summer. And maybe that was the problem. They were too similar; they needed the same things from each other. I have to think that their love was like the sun, warm at first, comforting, peaceful. Perhaps they thought they could bask in each other forever, but they burned too hot, too fast, too bright, until all they had was a fire that raged out of control, uncontained and wild—dangerous. And maybe I have a little of that heat inside of me, too. But I have enough of their good parts in me, I think, to balance out.
Dani and Caroline are waiting downstairs, both of their cars full. I stand in the doorway, one foot in the past, one in the future, my last cardboard box perched on my hip. Inside, it contains my globe, the atlas and the leather bag from my birthday, the snowflake book, and the picture of all of us together in that fancy silver, now glassless, frame. And for once time isn’t jumping backward or forward.
I think about how I’ve finally learned something here after all. About what love is and what love isn’t. It’s not so monstrous, not so dangerous and unknowable—not something to fear. And it’s not as simple as just finding someone else to hold on to; it’s not letting that other person crawl into those hollow spaces inside of you. I think love also means you have to stand on your own for a while, stand with yourself and for yourself, before you can ask someone to stand there next to you. I think maybe that’s the trickiest part, and that’s where our parents got it wrong.
There’s a line. Between right and wrong, truth and lies. But that line moves every second; every moment of our lives it seems like we’re just drawing more and more lines that we swear we’ll never cross. Until we do. And I guess we all have to live in the gray area, the space between the lines, between darkness and light, good and bad, love and hate.
For so long all I wanted was to be free. But it never occurred to me that I was the one who was holding on, that I’d be the last to let go. I take one more look, in the here and now. And I say my silent good-bye to every crack in every wall. Good-bye to every stain, every mark, every scar. As for the memories, I’ve boxed them up too, and I’ll take them with me.