25

MY CURTAINS SNAP OPEN AND I SQUINT MY EYES AGAINST THE harsh glare.

“Sweetie, it’s Thursday afternoon,” my mother says, wielding a can of Febreze. “You have to get up at some point.”

I roll to my other side, bringing my iPad with me and readjusting my pillow. “I’m tired.”

“You probably have a vitamin D deficiency at this point! This isn’t healthy, Amelia.” She sighs and perches on the end of my bed. “What if you just spent a couple hours on the patio? Bring your laptop and finish whatever you’re watching out there. That’s not asking a lot, is it? To get me off your case?”

It might be, but the worry is etched deep in her face, so I change into a fresh T-shirt and shorts and drag myself into a patch of sunlight in our backyard. The patio is covered in ants, so I settle in the grass and prop my iPad against one of the many sundials that my grandfather collected, which litter the yard.

I only have a few scattered memories of Gramps, but I do distinctly remember wandering around out here by his side when I was little and him teaching me about gnomons and styles and why his sundials with straight hour marks told time differently than his ones with curved ones (it has to do with the fact that the sundial’s face is a perfect circle but the Earth’s orbit changes throughout the year from circular to elliptical).

Back then, I was more interested in Disney princesses than scientific principles, but I did love the funny little sayings etched into the stone or metal of the dials. For example, the sundial next to the back door reads Let others tell of storms and showers, I tell of sunny morning hours. That one’s in English, but most of the others are written in Latin and I’ve long since forgotten Gramps’s translations.

Sundial mottos usually reference time in some way. The one holding my iPad at the moment reads: ultima latet ut observentur omnes.

Omnes like omni, probably. Something about all, or maybe always? I open a translator app on my phone and type in the phrase. As soon as I see the words in English, I wish I hadn’t.

Our last hour is hidden from us, so that we watch them all.

I can’t appreciate any “seize the day” sentiments when my last hour doesn’t feel so hidden at all. More like it’s dancing right in front of me taunting: Nanny nanny boo boo, I’m gonna get you.

Crap. Coming out here was supposed to let me dip a toe back into the world. Vacation week is nearly over and I have my regular appointment with Dr. Wah tomorrow, where I’m sure she’ll tell me how much worse my MELD score is, even if the yellow I thought I saw in my pupils the other day was either a trick of the light or has gotten better since. I know I’ll have to be back in school on Monday, given how alarmed my parents are growing about my total withdrawal from everything and everyone. Yet I can’t imagine mustering the strength to wander past our property line.

And this is exactly why. There are hidden minefields everywhere. I thought the backyard would be safe, and still the shadow of death found me within five seconds.

“Excuse me, do you have the time?”

It’s a joke Dad makes at least once every time we’re out here, surrounded by Gramps’s collection, but I hadn’t heard or seen him approach so I jump sky-high. My elbow sends my iPad toppling into the grass.

“Dad! You shouldn’t sneak up on people—you scared me to death!”

He winces at my word choice, and there’s the shadow, peeking out again. If anyone ever wanted to be hyperalert to just how many of our offhand sayings are morbid, they should try getting diagnosed with a terminal condition. I’m dying to know. Stop, you’re killing me. I’ll just die if I can’t get tickets. How can you drive this death trap? I’m so hungry, I could murder this pizza. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that. I’m going in for the kill. It’s your funeral. Over my dead body. Knock ’em dead!

“Sorry, Sunshine. I didn’t realize you were lost in thought.”

I focus my attention on untangling my headphone wires and avoid his eyes. “I’m not. Mom’s on my case about getting fresh air, so I’m continuing my binge out here.”

“Netflix and chill? Can I join you?”

I choke. “Um, Dad, that definitely does not mean what you think it means.”

“It doesn’t mean ‘hang out and watch consecutive episodes of a show’?”

“Er, no.”

“Oh. See, what would I do without you keeping me on fleck?”

“On fleek, Dad, but a. never say that again, and b. you don’t need me; you need urbandictionary.com.”

“I need you, Sunshine,” he says quietly.

Peekaboo, taunts the shadow.

I swallow and try to compose a response, but before I can formulate anything he’s plopped down next to me and crossed his legs. “So . . . what are we watching?”

“Project Runway, but—”

“Sounds good.” He reaches past me and unplugs my headphones, then hits Play.

He’s not out here to watch a show with me, I’m sure of it. My guard goes up, but when five minutes go by and he doesn’t attempt to initiate any conversations, I relax a little and settle onto my stomach.

We finish the last few minutes of my current episode and begin another.

Aside from the fall of tenth grade when we watched every season of West Wing together, my father adheres mainly to a TV diet of sports, CNN, and home renovation shows, so I’m having a hard time believing he could be into catwalks and catfights. But, to his credit, he does seem to be paying close attention and I have to confess it’s kind of nice to just be with someone after my forced isolation this week.

When the credits roll, I ask, “How much would someone have to pay you to wear an avant-garde jacket made from the contents of a Jersey City storage unit out in public?”

I slide a quick look at him and note the smile poking at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t know,” he says, “although I kind of dig the cape the nonbinary contestant created. The way they repurposed that carpeted toilet seat cover was pretty genius. But the tattoo artist? C’mon. She’s clearly only getting through these rounds because the producers need someone in the sewing room to stir up the drama.”

“Totally. The judges aren’t even being subtle about it.”

The countdown to the next episode begins and I settle back into place, but he pushes the pause button. Warning bells clang again. I knew he had an ulterior motive for being out here.

“So . . . ,” he says, with a breathiness that holds his nerves in it. The fact that my dad is nervous is hard to reconcile with the version of him I carry around in my heart—this all-powerful superhero who would kiss my boo-boos and make them better, and toss me over his head in the community pool, masterfully swat any creepy crawling thing that made their way into my bedroom at night, and use his bike to chase down cars so he could offer a salty-worded lecture to whoever just drove around the flashing lights of my stopped school bus.

“Mom and I have been trying to give you space, but we’re worried.”

I knew this already. They’ve both tiptoed around me this week. Neither has tried to “wake” me when they’ve checked in, though I’m sure they could tell I wasn’t really asleep. There’s been no mention of my previous—reluctant—agreement that April vacation would be our deadline for contacting Amherst’s admissions department to ask about options for the fall. They haven’t forced me to join them for any meals.

But Mom’s pleas for me to get fresh air today held more than a whiff of desperation and I was half expecting this “big talk,” just not the person delivering it.

“So you drew the short straw?”

“Hey!” Dad says. “I may be a little . . . emotionally challenged, but I can handle a chat with my daughter without being forced into it. We didn’t draw straws—and I resent the accusation!”

I don’t point out that he just sat through an hour plus of sewing challenges to avoid starting this “chat.”

“So rock, paper, scissors then?” I ask.

He sighs. “She always plays scissors! Why would she pick today to play paper?”

In spite of my own nerves, I laugh, sitting up and tucking a leg under me. “I hate to break it to you, Dad, but you’re not emotionally challenged. You’re actually super-embarrassing about your, um, I think the right word could only be effusive shows of affection. Remember when I had exactly one line in Once Upon a Mattress in fifth grade and you stopped the whole play after I delivered it with your very embarrassing standing ovation?”

We both smile at the memory, then I force myself to be serious because it’s suddenly really important to me that he really, truly believes I don’t see him as some emotionless robot just because we don’t indulge in daily heart-to-hearts. “Dad, I always know you do, okay? Love me, I mean.”

He smiles and bumps my knee with his. “Thanks, Sunshine. That means a lot to me. Except that’s not what I’m referring to. I think our family is pretty decent about showing our love, in our own goofy ways, but we don’t really talk about stuff so well. Especially the, well, the darker stuff. And I didn’t want you to interpret my avoiding that as some kind of indication that I’m not here for you during all of this.”

“I don’t,” I whisper around a lump in my throat that appears.

“Good,” he says. Then, more quietly, “So, how are you? Honestly.”

My pulse races because it feels dangerous to continue this conversation, not because I don’t expect him to be supportive, but more because it feels like there’s no going back from here. Like somehow, having an open discussion about this stuff, the way two grown-ups would, is this line in the sand that would mark the exact moment I stop being his little girl. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I know how to be his Sunshine. I don’t know how to navigate “two mature people having an adult conversation” with him yet.

But I’m eighteen years old; I’m not a little girl, no matter how much of a baby I feel like these days. And I can’t be alone with all these thoughts anymore—I just can’t. I’ll break. So I bury the edgy jitters and confess to him: “I’m upside down.”

My dad grimaces. “Yeah, I can see that. I might need more to go on, though, sweets.”

I sigh. “It just seems like everything I believed in was wrong and backward. I thought I’d figured all this important stuff out about myself and what I cared about and what I wanted to use my time and energy fighting for and I was feeling really confident about who I was as a person before all this. But now . . .” I sigh. “But now this happened and it—it pulled the rug out from under me. Not only because of all the medical stuff and the uncertainty about . . . you know.”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“But also about who I am as a person, ya know?”

“That’s easy, though. You’re my Sunshine, best daughter a guy could ask for.”

I smirk and award him a small smile. He doesn’t disappoint, my father. “Thanks, Daddy, but that’s not what I meant.”

“Gimme an example, then.”

I sigh, then tell him about Sibby’s accusation that I am full of bravado but not bravery.

I’ve missed Sibby something fierce this week; as out of it as I’ve been, a small part of me has been keeping tabs on how many days until she comes back from New York (two more, at the moment). I’m still upset about our fight, but so much has happened since then and I don’t even know which parts of my anger about the way things went down with us is directed at Sibby versus at me versus at this fucking disease that’s ruining my life—literally. It’s all a jumble. What I do know is that we won’t be angry at the other forever, especially since I might not have forever.

But Sibby challenged me on the one thing I most needed right now: my identity.

As frustrating and impossible as it’s been to try to get everyone else to see me as anything but Dying Girl, at least I was able to see myself as fierce and confident and kickass.

And now I’m doubting all of that.

Which hurts.

I try to hold my tears in, but a couple slide down the crease of my nose. I swipe them away when they reach my lip, and my dad shakes his head, moves my iPad to the side, and pulls me in for a hug. He’s wearing one of his many T-shirts advertising the hardware store, and this one’s been washed so many times that nestling against it is like nosing into a burrow of bunnies. He smells like Bounce fabric softener and Dad.

There was a time a hug from my father could make the whole world safe and friendly again. I’m too old now to accept intellectually that he has this power, but a part of me still believes, and as he holds me close my few remaining tears air dry on my cheeks.

“Does Sibby need me to drop-kick her all the way back Down Under?” my father mutters into my hair.

I muster a smile and turn my head so I’m not speaking into his shoulder. “Nah. She’s so tiny, I’m pretty sure I could handle it myself if I wanted to.” I pause. “But I don’t. I just want to know whether she was right.”

My father releases me from his embrace and considers me for a few beats. “You want me to answer that?”

I nod, bracing for the truth. Dad likes to joke around, but he’ll always be brutally honest with you if you ask for it.

What I’m not expecting is for him to begin with, “Did you ever wonder—”

I cut him off with a groan. “Hey, I’m kind of having an existential crisis here, so I’m not sure I care what hair color they put on the drivers’ licenses of bald men.”

“Ha! That’s one of my favorites.” He flicks my arm. “But if you’d let me finish, I was going to ask if you’d ever wondered why I like ‘Did you ever wonder’ questions so much.”

“I figured it was because you love being cheesy and making us roll our eyes at you.”

“Well, yeah,” he agrees, “that’s a definite plus. Your mom’s world-weary sighs are seriously cute. But the real reason I like them is because they point out how little sense we humans make. And how contradictory we can be.”

He takes a breath and adds, “Mostly, I love that they force people to answer with the greatest three words in the English language.”

I squint at him. “I love you?”

He scoffs. “Meh. Those are okay, I guess. But I prefer mine.” He ticks them off on his fingers: “I. Don’t. Know.”

“Seriously? What is remotely great about being clueless?”

He smiles. “Nothing. But if you’re the curious type, the not knowing is going to make you want to find answers. And if you have curiosity, you have everything: 1. It’s nearly impossible for you to be bored. 2. You’ll be a lifelong learner. 3. You’ll probably be a traveler. 4. You’ll definitely be an empathetic person, because you’ll want to learn people’s stories and what makes them tick. So bravery/bravado? To me it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what other qualities someone has, because curiosity’s the critical one.”

Oh.

Do I have it? I’d say I do, but maybe there’s some nuance or distinction that I don’t grasp and need someone else to point out. Like, I might think I’m curious but really I’m . . . I don’t know, thoughtful or—or something close but no cigar.

Dad hears my unspoken question and smiles. “The thing that makes me most proud of you—and the reason I’ve never, ever worried about who you would turn out to be as a person—is that you have curiosity in spades, Sunshine. You jump into every new interest with two feet—literally, in the case of derby. But you did the same with your art. And, though my ears have only just stopped bleeding, the ukulele. Heck, it’s because of you I retain the unsettling mental image of Calvin Coolidge’s morning ritual of having his head rubbed with Vaseline and of John Quincy Adams’s daily skinny-dips in the Potomac. I want you to see the incredible person I do when I look at you. If you did, you wouldn’t doubt your identity, I promise you that.”

Something warm and peaceful settles in my abdomen, like an unexpected hug or reggae music. Like a gulp of oatmeal spreading across my rib cage, sticky and sweet.

“Thanks, Daddy,” I whisper.

I like the girl he described better than any other version of me I’ve tried on. I think I could get very comfortable inhabiting Curious Amelia; she feels like the best aspects of all the others combined. She feels like me.

But then my eyes fall on Gramps’s sundial and my confidence whooshes away. Because the one thing I’ve been fighting off any curiosity about, any consideration of at all, is death. Specifically, my possible death.

Even if I did let the possibility of it settle around me as I spoke to the arts commission woman earlier this week, I still haven’t let myself explore what that means for me. What I think about it or feel about it. I mean, other than that it sucks, which is a given. I’ve refused to let myself wonder what might happen afterward or what it would feel like to have to say goodbye to everyone I love or how much it might hurt physically to have my liver fail and how fast things will spiral after that.

Am I ready to stare any of that in the face now?

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Dad’s favorite words.

The one thing I have to admit is that nothing else I’ve tried has worked. If the last few weeks haven’t shown me that, I don’t know what could. But it still feels too dangerous; there’s too much unknown. The questions are too big and potentially unanswerable, and then what am I left with?

Dad has begun aimlessly pulling weeds within his reach, clearly picking up on the fact that I’m working through some big stuff in my head. But now he says, “I gotta tell you, I certainly never expected to be having a conversation like this with my kid. God, when you’re young and innocent and caught up in baby fever and considering trying for one, you don’t know what you don’t know. If you even bother to think about those babies one day turning into teenagers, you might imagine having the sex talk or the ‘don’t do drugs’ talk, but this stuff? Never ever.”

“Yeah, but if you had imagined it, would Alex and I still be here?” I keep my tone light, when what I really want to know is, If you’d known you might lose your daughter at eighteen, would you still have had me?

“From this vantage point, knowing you and your brother as two amazing people who’ve made my life about a million times richer? No brainer. As that nervous twenty-five-year-old who wasn’t sure he could hack a diaper change and was more interested in biking the Minuteman Trail on the weekends than pushing a stroller? Am I a terrible person if I say . . . maybe?”

I smile. “Yes.”

He’s trying to turn the conversation light and part of me appreciates that, but another part hates that he didn’t really answer my question.

Maybe because you didn’t really ask it, Lia.

“Don’t worry, I have zero regrets about you and Alex or any other decision I’ve made,” Dad continues, laughing, oblivious to my inner turmoil this time.

“Really?” This surprises me—he’s forty-three, so I don’t see how that could be possible.

“Nope. Not a thing I would have done differently.”

The question lingers in the air in front of me. I know I need to grasp it; need to ask.

“But what if—” I drop my eyes and whisper, “If things go bad from here . . . would you—would you regret it then?”

Would you regret me?

His sigh is shuddering and harsh, and he shakes his head so hard it could almost be described as violently. “Never. Never. Not for a second.”

He pulls me against him roughly and my throat closes up so tight with emotion I can barely breathe.

“Don’t you ever think that, even for one tiny instant!” he orders.

I burrow into his shirt, struggling to keep it together.

“There’s only one thing I’d regret then, because there’s only one thing I want for you.”

“A liver. I know,” I murmur.

His laugh is biting. “I’m pathetic. Yes, that, of course. But that wasn’t what I was thinking of. Two things, then.”

I hold my breath, almost afraid for his next words. What does my father want for me?

“You know earlier, when you asked me if I remembered when I clapped so loud and long at your school play?” he whispers, stroking my hair.

I nod into his shoulder and he continues. “That’s what I want for you, Sunshine. More ‘remember-whens.’ I want you to have a whole lifetime of remember-whens.”

I’m too choked up to answer, and I’m grateful when he simply holds me quietly. After a minute or two he says, “I love you like fireworks, Sunshine.”

He’s been saying this to Alex and me since we were little. It stretches back to the first time my parents took us to the Fourth of July fireworks on the Esplanade. I was only a toddler, so I don’t remember it, but as Dad tells it he had me up on his shoulders as the fireworks burst and I put my arms out wide and yelled, “It’s just like how love feels!”

Even though I’ve heard the expression from Dad a million times, it’s never hit me with the force it does now. I lean my forehead into his chest. “I know, Daddy. Same.”

He collects his breath in his lungs and it’s shaky when he exhales.

We sit like this for a few more minutes before he says, “I guess I should go start dinner before Mom sends a search party out.” He releases me and stands, brushing grass from his legs. “Think you might feel up to joining us and experiencing a meal at an actual table today?”

I inhale deeply and try to compose myself too. “I could probably hack that.”

Dad stretches his neck. “Good. Then we await the pleasure of your company.” He leans down and picks up my iPad, passing it to me. “In the meantime, I’ll be sorry to miss out on that tattoo artist’s sewing room mayhem. Maybe you can give me the SparkNotes version over burgers.”

“Count on it,” I tell him.

We stare at each other for a second, something indefinable passing between us, then Dad nods and heads toward the patio.

Before he reaches it, I call out, “Wait! I have a question about your theory.” I struggle to remember one of Dad’s recent “I wonders,” then say, “Even the most curious person isn’t going to be able to figure out an answer for, say, ‘What is the exception to the rule that every rule has an exception?’ So what then?”

He winks. “That just means some of life’s mysteries aren’t meant to be solved.”

He ducks around the flip-flop I throw in his direction.