Second Star

37

Driving home later, I wonder what Mary would say if she knew I went to Kensington today, if she knew that now I’ve seen what’s really there. Mary would argue—she has argued—that I have every right to mourn the loss of Jas and Pete and Belle and Kensington and the life I thought I knew there. She’d say since they had all been real to me, I ought to grieve for them now that they’re gone. It’s the kind of logic I’ve always hated. You shouldn’t be able to have feelings for things that aren’t real. Or for people who aren’t real.

So I’m not crying over my loss as I drive down the PCH, putting miles between Kensington and me. Instead, I’m laughing. I’m laughing because I should have known all along that it wasn’t real; it was so obvious, now that I think about it. I left myself such an enormous clue, right in the center of my delusion:

There’s no way I ever would have really taken a wave, no matter how much I wanted to.

By the time I get home, I’ve decided that I’m going to major in math when I get to Stanford. There’s no such thing as imaginary numbers.

Except, of course, there are.

I go to my room and close the door. The other day my mother gave me back the notebook she’d confiscated months ago, the one in which I’d kept all my notes when I thought I was living in Pete’s house. It’s lying forgotten on my desk, but now I open it, run my hands over my scribbles. Even my handwriting doesn’t look like my own; it’s messier, somehow desperate-looking. The handwriting of a person having a mental breakdown. I slam the book shut and drop it into the trash can beneath my desk.

In therapy yesterday, Mary asked me whether I ever said I love you to Jas. I didn’t answer her. Already my memories—or whatever I’m supposed to call what I remember of my hallucinations—are beginning to fade. They’re fuzzy, like a painting onto which someone has thrown a bucket of water, the borders between each image bleeding together until they’re indistinct.

She pushed me; I must have loved him, she said, if I was planning on running away with him, traveling the world with him, giving up my whole life—school, family, friends—just to be with him. I must have loved him, she said again. Didn’t I?

I never actually told her that I was planning on running away with Jas. I must have said something about it when I was half-conscious, babbling endlessly, calling out in my sleep. She must have sat by my bed taking notes.

I refused to answer her. And I certainly didn’t tell her that when I woke up in the psych ward months ago, my first thought was the words I love you, too. In the water, when he was trying to save me—when he told me he loved me—I never had a chance to say it back; the water was crashing over me so rapidly, I hardly had time to open my mouth to take a breath, let alone utter four syllables.

I decide that next week, I’ll answer Mary’s latest question. I’ll tell her that I didn’t say I love you to Jas because you can’t love someone who doesn’t exist. Whatever this ache in my chest is, it can’t be the pain of missing him, because he was never here to begin with. This ache is just wasted space.

The next morning, as I make myself a bowl of cereal, I discover that we’re out of milk. My mother will send me out to the grocery store for more later. She doesn’t even think twice about sending me out on errands anymore. It’s even a little annoying how quick she is to say, “Wendy, dear, can you go pick that up?”

Just a few weeks ago, that would have been such a big deal. A few weeks ago, I was excited to be sent out for milk. I smile as I eat my dry cereal, Nana’s enormous head resting in my lap; that’s progress, I guess.

I haven’t bothered getting dressed yet today; I’m still wearing pajama pants and a shirt I stole from Michael a couple years ago, long before he and John disappeared. He used to wear it to the beach, and it got so soft and faded in the sunshine that when it was accidentally folded in with my laundry, I never gave it back. He huffed and puffed looking for this shirt, and I never confessed to him that I had it all along, tucked away at the bottom of my drawer, waiting to take it with me when I left for college, a little piece of home.

Now, at least, I don’t have to hide it anymore.

I’m tossing the last of my dry cereal when my father comes bounding through the front door.

“What are you doing home?” I ask. Since I got back from the hospital, he’s actually been going to work on time every day. My parents’ daily routine is beginning to look more and more like it did not just before I washed up on the beach but before my brothers ran away. My mother gets up and dressed every morning, goes for a long walk with Nana around the neighborhood. My father goes to work five days a week, and even works late once in a while, just like he used to.

He doesn’t answer me, just calls my mother’s name. She practically skips from her bedroom to meet him, her hair still wet from her morning shower. Nana dances at her feet, giddy because my parents are giddy.

“Wendy,” my dad says, barely keeping a straight face. “There’s a delivery for you in the driveway.”

I raise my eyebrows. They already got me a car, and that gift didn’t come with nearly so much fanfare. My father and I went to the dealership together; I test drove a few models and crunched the numbers alongside my dad before we decided which was the right one for me. I drove it home myself; there wasn’t any big reveal, no car waiting in the driveway with a big red bow tied around it.

What could possibly be in the driveway?

My bare feet squeak against the tile floor as I walk to the front door. A few months ago—a million years ago—I would have thought that it was my brothers, waiting there for me. I would have believed that somehow, some magic had led them back to the glass house, where they were waiting patiently in the driveway to surprise me with their presence. But today, the idea doesn’t even cross my mind. My brothers are dead, and I’ve finally begun the long process of learning how to live without them.

The sun is bright in my eyes when I open the front door. I squint, holding one hand like a visor against my forehead. There, leaning against the side of my car, all wrapped in a big red bow, is a surfboard. I take a few tentative steps toward it, as though I think it might sprout legs and run away if I get too close too fast. I glance back at my parents, who are grinning from the doorway.

The board is beautiful. Creamy white on the sides, with fading blocks of pale green, yellow, and pink floating across its center. It’s actually the perfect length for someone my height; even in my fantasies, I never actually surfed on a board that was the right size for me. Still, the new board towers over me. My father has even tied a block of wax to the board, and it dangles from a string beneath the red ribbon.

I reach out and touch it, feel the familiar texture of fiberglass, eye the sharp fins at its bottom. I turn back to my parents.

“This is for me?”

They nod, coming through the door arm in arm.

“It’s for you,” my father answers.

“We know how badly you want to learn to surf,” my mom says. “You talked about it in family session all the time. And then, the other day at the beach, we just thought…” She pauses, chewing her lip. “We thought maybe this was something you wanted.”

I nod. I think maybe I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to grab this board and run with it into the waves.

“We could go to the shop later and get a rack installed for you on the roof,” my father adds, gesturing to my car. “You’ll need it to drive the board up to school with you.”

“To school?” I echo.

He nods. “I know Stanford’s not exactly on the coast, but there are plenty of beaches in driving distance.”

I nod; the words he doesn’t say float between us. The beach where I was found is only a couple hours’ drive from Stanford.

“Just be careful,” my mother begins, but my father shakes his head, silencing her.

I study my parents’ faces; they’re smiling, but there is such fear behind their eyes. My mother has her fingers wrapped around Nana’s collar to keep her from running into the street, but she’s holding on more tightly than is really necessary, like she just needs something to hang on to. I realize just how much this gesture means, what a sign it is of their trust in me, of their bravery, to push me out onto the water, where I most want to be, despite everything that happened to me and everything that happened to my brothers.

“If it’s not the right height,” my mother adds, “or if you don’t like the color—”

I shake my head. “No,” I say, a smile creeping across my lips.

I can already imagine the water beneath my beautiful board, the sensation of falling as I drop into a wave.

“It’s perfect,” I add, pulling my mother into a hug. “I love it.”