“Poi?” I call out hoarsely. I’m running around the back of the house, checking the dog run I helped build.
Where the fuck is that damn dog? Why isn’t she barking and yapping and being her obnoxious guard dog self?
And where is Mr. Watanabe?
I come back to the front steps, and Aunty Ani is standing there with her hands up like she’s trying to get me to slow down.
“Where is he?” I ask with so much fear in my throat.
“Calm down, okay? He’s in the hospital. You didn’t have a phone, so I couldn’t call you. I tried to get in touch with Kai, but it kept going straight to voice mail.” She reaches for me, and I realize I’m shaking like I’m standing in subzero temperatures.
Something powerful punches me in the gut. My rib cage feels brittle and weak, like my heart is about to roll out of it.
“What do you mean he’s in the hospital?” It’s my voice, small and empty.
She starts rattling on about chest pains and complications from an old surgery and his age and how the doctors are taking care of him, but I can’t deal with it. I can’t process it.
“Is he going to be okay?” My voice is a pebble tumbling to the bottom of an empty well.
Aunty Ani’s eyes move back and forth. She pulls me close to her chest and hugs me. “I hope so, sweetheart. I hope so.”
Angrily, I bare my teeth and sneer, pushing her away from me. “Who just leaves like that without saying good-bye? What a selfish bastard. What a giant pain in the okole.”
I tear back through the gate, past Aunty Ani and Mr. Yamada and a worried Kai with his open arms desperate to comfort me, and I tuck myself away in my bedroom and close all the doors and walls and center myself in a place nobody can touch me.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
I’m sitting on the floor with a racing heart and an unimaginable migraine when I realize I don’t know how many days it’s been. The world feels dark again. I don’t know how Hawaii can possibly be this dark, but it is.
Aunty Ani doesn’t give up on trying to talk to me. She says she’s not going to let me retreat into the darkness. She said she let it go on for long enough.
I want to tell her it’s not her choice, but I’m too angry. At her, at Mom, at Mr. Watanabe. I’m even angry at Poi, for being in the care of some random family member who never visited instead of here, barking through the night and annoying the crap out of me. I wonder if I’ll ever see that obnoxious, wonderful dog again.
He has to get better. He just has to.
Aunty Ani says a lot of other things too, about knowing I need Mom and Lea and being sorry I only have her, but most of it is white noise. Unintelligible, garbled white noise.
I stare at Mr. Watanabe’s ukulele for a long time, thinking of how I haven’t played since the camping trip. I thought I stopped being this angry, yet here I am, with the urge to break every one of my fingers just to prove how mad I am.
He can’t die. He just can’t.
* * *
It’s late, but I can’t fall asleep. I’m too busy staring at the ceiling, picturing the whirl of the fan from Mr. Watanabe’s living room, thinking of all the memories I have of lying on the floor trying to feel whole. I didn’t think I’d ever feel like a complete person again, but I was starting to.
I was trying.
Wasn’t I?
I shove the covers away from me and find my flip-flops next to the welcome mat. I make my way next door, searching for Mr. Watanabe’s spare key in a small fake rock he keeps hidden beneath the mock orange, and force my way into his living room.
It’s so quiet in here. No barking, no records, no music. No Mr. Watanabe.
I flick the switch near the wall and slowly sink to the floor, lying back until my head is pressed into the hardwood boards. And with my arms spread like I’m making an angel in the snow, I watch the fan.
Around and around and around.
Is he going to die? Is he going to the place where Lea is?
Does a place exist for them at all?
I take a breath and close my eyes. There are no angels here. Only the demons that follow me everywhere.
A memory
I hear Lea’s footsteps on the stairs. Even if Alex’s car hadn’t woken me up, I’d still have heard her. Lea might have the build of a ballerina, but she walks like she belongs on a football field.
She presses my door open and peers inside.
“Are you lost?” I say with my hand tucked under my pillow. “You have your own room now, remember?”
She giggles because she never notices right away when I’m in a bad mood. She thinks I’m being my normal grumpy self. Closing the door quietly behind her, she half skips toward my bed and collapses behind me. “I had the best night of my life.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m trying to sleep. Tell me in the morning.”
She gives out a melodic sigh. “I can’t sleep. I’m too excited.”
“It was just a date. You’ve been on a hundred dates.”
“Not like this one.” She pauses, and I can feel the joy build in her hesitation. “Alex kissed me.”
I feel something horrible grow inside me. A horrible, ugly monster that wants to claw and swipe and tear at her happiness.
She leans away from me so she can sigh into the ceiling. “It was perfect. He wrote me this song on the guitar—it was so adorable—and then we had pizza at Luigi’s, and ice cream. After that we played at the arcade for a while and then hung out on the playground swings like we were kids.”
“That sounds dangerous,” I say dryly.
Lea wraps her arm around me and squeezes. “Come on, talk to me. I want to know what you think.”
“About what? About how irresponsible you’re being?”
She pulls her arm away and sits up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I sit up too, because I’ve started and now I can’t stop. “We move houses, Mom finally has extra money, and you go around wasting it on pizza and ice cream and arcade games?”
She looks wounded, but I don’t stop. I never do.
“Mom didn’t work as hard as she did so you can go on a new date every Friday night,” I say.
“That’s harsh, Rumi. That’s really fucking harsh.”
“Well, it’s true. I spent my whole life being poor too, you know. It’s not like I had money for arcades and pizza and going out with guys.”
“You could go out if you wanted to. Mom said—”
“Mom isn’t going to tell you no. Not after she waited all these years to be able to spoil you. You’re her baby, right? The good one. The happy one. And you’re taking advantage of her.”
I’m green, green, green from head to toe. But I can’t stop. She’s always had it so much easier than me, and it’s not fair.
It’s easier for Mom to love her.
It’s easier for her to go out with her friends because Mom has money now and she doesn’t have a little sister she’s responsible for.
And it’s easier for her to know who she wants to go out with because she’s more sure of herself than I am. She’s not confused like me, or working through things like me.
Life comes so much more naturally to Lea.
I can’t help it—I’m jealous of how easy everything has always been for her. I’m bitter it hasn’t always been as easy for me.
Lea scowls. “Why are you being so mean to me? What did I ever do to you?”
“Dad never wanted you. If you had never been born, he would’ve stayed. I wouldn’t have had to grow up the way we did. I could’ve had piano lessons and summer camps and fucking pizza. But I didn’t—none of us did—because of you. And you don’t even understand what kind of sacrifice that is. Because you always had me growing up, when I needed my parents. I was a mom to you so you didn’t have to miss out, but I missed out on everything. You ruined our family—you made it so Mom and me and Dad could never be together.”
Lea scrambles off the bed full of fury and pain. “You take that back.”
“No,” I say.
She chews her lip. “It’s my wish. I’m using my third wish. You take it back right now.”
“I won’t.”
“A wish is a wish.”
“Screw your wishes. Leave me alone.”
I never took it back. We made up, but I never took it back. I didn’t even apologize. Lea simply forgave me, in silence, like she always did.
I was an awful sister to her. Not all the time, but when I was, I was really awful.
Why did I say those things? Why was I always so mad at her? Why did I never tell her how much I really loved her? How it wasn’t her fault I mothered her—I did it because I loved her and I wanted to protect her. When Dad left, I didn’t run after him—I ran to Lea.
I should’ve told her that. It feels important now that she’s gone.
Around and around and around goes the fan.
Just like my anger.
I hate this feeling. I hate not being able to take it all back. I hate not being able to give Lea her wish. I hate everyone leaving me, like I’m the poison that corrupted them all. I hate that right now, when I feel broken and empty and I need my sister more than ever, she isn’t here for me to talk to.
I hate that I loved her so much I have to feel this kind of pain.
Around and around goes the fan.
And I scream and scream and scream, like I did the days after Lea died, like I did the day I got to Hawaii, like I did the days after Mr. Watanabe went to the hospital, when I found myself alone all over again.
I scream to get the hurt out. I scream to be heard.
And then I see her.
Lea is standing above me, her face blossoming with kindness. She sits down next to me. I sit up so I can face her.
I should tell her I’m glad she’s back. I should tell her I’m happy to see her, that I hope she never leaves me, that I’d rather have her ghost here with me than none of her at all.
But I say something else instead.
“I’m so angry at you.”
Lea blinks carefully, her eyes waiting for me to finally tell the truth.
“I’m angry because you took Mom with you. You died and you should’ve left her to be with me. To take care of me. But you took her with you anyway. Why would you do that? Why would you leave me all alone?” My voice clips the air.
She reaches for my hands. I can almost feel them pressing against my skin, like a rush of cold air.
“I know it’s not your fault, but I have to be angry. It’s the only thing protecting my heart.” I squeeze my fists together and push them into the floor. “That’s why I can’t cry. I’m too busy being mad at you and mad at Mom, because even when you stopped existing, she chose the grief of you over a life with me. And I’m worried . . . if I’m not mad at you . . . that you’ll disappear for good. Because everyone I love disappears.”
I twist my mouth, wondering if my anger is what’s hurting me the most. I know I can’t be mad forever, but how do I stop?
I want it to stop.
I look at her ghost. Is she listening? I hope she is.
“I’m sorry, Lea. I’m sorry I blamed you for Mom not loving me enough. I’m sorry I was so jealous of you. I’m sorry for every horrible thing I ever said to you. I’m sorry I was too selfish to give you your last wish.”
She doesn’t have to say a word—I already know Lea’s forgiven me, wherever she is. Because that’s who she was.
My stomach coils and tightens, and I shut my eyes to find enough strength to finish what I’ve started. “I’m sorry that you died and I got to live.”
My words feel brittle. I look for Lea’s ghost, but she’s fading fast.
“Don’t disappear. I need you.”
But the shape of her continues to blur. I don’t know how much longer I can keep her here with me.
I don’t know how to stop being mad. I don’t know how to turn off these feelings. I feel like my heart is dying.
Maybe I’m too weak to hold on to her.
Or . . .
Maybe it’s just time.
I close my eyes and think of Lea. My sister, twirling around our room, strumming chords on her guitar, wrapping her arms around my neck and giggling like she was forever a child.
And she forever will be.
Because Lea’s gone. She’s really, really gone.
My nose tingles. I feel my chest tighten. And tears pool in my eyes.
I miss you.
A tear falls down my cheek.
Where did you go?
Two more follow.
Lea.
And then I feel all of it—the weight of her death, the crushing guilt, the suffocating jealousy, and the immense love I have for a sister I’ll never see again.
Because I love her. I loved her in life and I love her in death, and that kind of love only comes around once in a lifetime.
Fuck romance—Lea was the love of my life. It was beautiful and horrible and messy and angry, but it was also the purest, most innocent kind of love I’ll ever feel.
I wish I had protected her. I wish, when I had held her hand the night Dad left, that I had kept my promise and kept her safe.
The tears come, and they don’t stop. I cry until my face is sore, and then I cough and choke on the floor because I feel like I’m suffocating.
And then I hear the footsteps. I bolt upright, tears covering my face like an extra layer of skin, and I see the blurry image of my mother.
“Mom,” I gasp, my eyes burning. “Mom.”
And then I’m on my feet and her arms are around me, and I don’t stop crying, even when she buries my face back in her beautiful, wild, wavy hair and tells me it’s all going to be okay.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
I’m standing beneath the whirling fan in Mr. Watanabe’s living room when Mom tells me she’s sorry for leaving.
She says she needed help, but she should never have made me feel so alone. She asks me to forgive her for causing more hurt and tells me that she loves me.
She promises to be stronger for me.
* * *
I’m still wrapped in Mom’s arms when I tell her I’m so angry at her. At everyone.
She tells me that sometimes being angry is easier than letting the sadness in. She says anger attacks like a dagger; sadness is more like a wave.
I tell her that I don’t know how to stop being mad. I don’t know how to turn off these feelings—how to turn off the hurt.
Her nose is buried in my hair when she tells me I’ve been running from a wave and that I’m tired. She says it’s time to stop running.
I cry until my face is swollen and my voice rips away.
* * *
I’m staring at my hands in the middle of the night, the light slipping through the leaves of the palm trees right outside the window, when I realize I don’t recognize my hands anymore.
They aren’t mine or Lea’s. I don’t know what that means.
* * *
I’m sitting with Mom and Aunty Ani at the table when the phone rings.
Mr. Watanabe is going to be okay. He’s coming home soon.
I feel so relieved and exhausted I can barely hold my head up. I just let the tears fall onto the notebook beneath my nose, leaving teardrops on the pages of lyrics I still don’t have the right words to finish.
* * *
I’m eating macaroni salad in the dining room when Mom brings me Lea’s guitar. She asks if I could play her something. She says it helped her get better, to imagine what it would sound like to hear me play again.
I strum until my fingers hurt.
* * *
I’m sitting on the couch when I tell Mom the story of Lea’s three wishes. I tell her about “Summer Bird Blue” and why it’s so important that I finish it.
Mom’s crying before I even finish the story. She presses her nose into my neck, and for a moment we’re the same person, sharing the same grief over the beautiful soul we both lost.
* * *
I’
m writing lyrics in my notebook when I hear a car pull up to Mr. Watanabe’s house. Part of me wants to race outside, to go and see him and to make sure he’s okay.
But the other part of me knows I’m not ready.
I need to say good-bye to my sister first.
* * *
I haven’t spoken to Kai in weeks. I haven’t even left the house.
I just write and write and write and write and . . .
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Mom and Aunty Ani sit on both sides of me like a protective sandwich. I think they’re afraid I’ll fly away again.
But I don’t intend to go anywhere. I’m just glad I have my mom back.
She passes me a cup of tea from the coffee table. “It’s the right temperature,” she says. She was always good about that—reminding me when my drink was ready before I’d forget.
I take it from her and sip carefully. She’s being gentle with me, and maybe I’m being a little gentle with myself, too.
Mom points to my notebook. “May I?”
I nod.
She pulls it into her lap and flips through the pages. It reminds me of how she used to read through our lyrics when we were younger, whenever she could find the time. She was always busy, but not too busy for me and Lea. Not too busy for our music.
She sees the letter I wrote her first. It’s everything I wanted to say to her and everything I’ll probably want to take back. But she reads it like she’s soaking in every word, and at the end she nods like she understands. Like the words make sense.
And maybe they do. Maybe they’re necessary for us to get past this.
When Mom gets to “Summer Bird Blue,” she stops turning pages. I hear her breathing quicken, watch her press her fingers to her mouth, and look away when the first tear falls.
“You finished it,” she says finally.
“It wasn’t as hard as I thought,” I say simply. “Turns out I’ve been living it. The words, the lyrics—some more literally than others, of course.” I point to my fading blue hair.
“I like it,” she says. “Lea would’ve liked it too.”
And it makes me smile, thinking about how Mom knows Lea almost as well as I do.
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