be so petty about that. I lost you! I know that we weren’t close, that…I’m learning more and more from Jake that you were struggling on your own, but I lost my sister when you left.
Jake tells me about you on a weekly basis. Not every day, but maybe once or twice a week, and it sounds like you and I have a lot in common. We both put on a show for the world to see. I plastered on the happy and charming face, while you were just contemptuous and didn’t need us. That’s what I thought for so long—that you just didn’t need anyone because you were so above us.
Jake said that I was wrong and couldn’t be further from the truth.
I’m sorry, Dani. I wish I would’ve known the real you in living, but I have the afterlife to appease me. I’ll be watching you, every chance I get, and I’m going to haunt your ass so much! If there’s a simple breeze that gets you—it’s me! I swear it!
I love you, living and in death. I’m always going to love you! Be there for Jake and Julia. They need you. And every time a bird flies by your head, think of me because I probably made it do that, especially if they take a dump on you. That really was me then. (Insert evil laugh with a smile and wink from me.)
Sincerely, in death and still alive for the moment—Erica
P.S. Tell that guy who bought that camel that I’m really sorry. I totally made that up. I didn’t mean for him to be spit on, at all.
(I guess camels aren’t that nice.)
I survived the flood that demolished Craigstown. Both Julia and I survived it. Jonah found all of us. It was an awakening experience to see the bubbles break the surface as the first diver pulled himself upright onto our bank.
I knew it was Jonah before he even showed his face. And it wasn’t that I recognized his body or how he moved—I just knew it was him. The first bubble bore his name, and I blinked back tears of gratefulness.
They weren’t tears that I was happy to be alive. They were just happy tears, just because.
You see—this story wasn’t about falling in love or reuniting with my estranged sister. It wasn’t even about me realizing that I’d been cheated by myself and others from Erica.
This story was about me. I came home, haunted, and I fought through the second storm. I needed to fight. And Jonah had been the first to spark that fight inside of me. I was grateful for that, more than I could ever put into words.
Trenton and Jake waited. Julia wept that she was alive as Jonah peeled off the facemask, but his eyes found me first.
He ignored my hysterical sister, as I stood calm. My petty side loved that.
Jonah caught me in his arms and wouldn’t let go for more than two minutes.
Julia grew silent, a bit miffed—if you asked me, but how do you gripe to a pair of lip-locked lovers?
Her brush with death had given her some maturity, but I knew then, Julia would always want the attention. That would never leave her because that was just my sister.
And then Jonah gave me a second gift. He whispered that Mae was alive, and my tears broke free at that moment. A fist curled against his chest, and he merely held me longer. My knees were unsteady. My knees were always unsteady around him. I’d grown used to it, but my knees gave out in that moment.
Jonah gave Trenton a side-hug. He gave Jake a tap on the shoulder, but then he swept me up and carried me to a private corner.
Julia and the others huddled with blankets, watching for more bubbles.
We stayed there as more divers popped up. They helped ready the others. Even Trenton. His hands and arms grew weak. He needed help getting the mask on. Then all of them dove back in.
Jonah held me against his chest with his arms around my front. He whispered into my neck, “I—I thought you were gone.”
“I thought I was supposed to go.”
His arms tightened. He dropped a kiss to my shoulder. “There’s a lot that I want to talk to you about, but before I lose the chance to say it—I am in love with you.”
The magic of dancing herbs and magical spices burst forth in me.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Jonah laughed. “Not the response I was going for.”
“No, I mean—thank you.” For giving me that spark back. For being the first one to give that spark back to me. I turned in his arms and grasped his face. “I love you, too.”
I had hope.
Jonah helped me get that back, and it wasn’t something I could tell. It wasn’t a feeling that could be explained. I left home with no hope, and I returned to get that hope again. I had it now, and it took a demolished town to realize it was there—inside me—the whole time.
“Thank you.” This time, I spoke to my mother and my sister. They were around. They told Julia to go south, even though Julia would never admit it. All sorts of channels will open in times of crisis, and that’s when belief can come flooding in.
Jonah and I swam back out and were welcomed with warmed blankets. Jake grabbed me in a bone-crushing hug before he set me back down and returned to Julia’s side. And I knew that my sister changed when she offered me a smile—an actual smile and looked content as Jake wrapped his arms around her once more.
Later, Julia would tell me that she received a phone call. Aunt Kathryn died nineteen minutes before the first wave crashed into Craigstown.
I’ve thought about that quite a bit since then. And the way I envisioned it—she merely closed her eyes, her hands folded over her chest, peaceful, as the first wave took her body. It was almost a beautiful way to go.
Through the rest of that summer and into the fall, Craigstown was rebuilt. It went a lot faster because of the grey pearls. Those little mussels came in useful when they were needed. In some way, it was like they were meant to be discovered when they were. There were a lot of other heroes hailed from the flood, but I was one of them. I didn’t run this time. I didn’t want to run, and I knew that whatever was broken inside had healed.
You see, I was my own monster. When you don’t have hope, something can grow inside of you that will just keep hurting, biting, snarling. You sink farther, and eventually the monster will overtake you.
Some people don’t fight back. They might hurt others, hurt themselves, or relinquish the fight for happiness.
I can’t explain what happened or how it happened, but learning my family’s secrets helped me learn who I was inside. I gained perspective and realized it wasn’t me. I wasn’t the one who screwed everything up. I wasn’t the ‘defect.’
It was them.
It was the lies that tore apart my family—that kept my sisters and me from banding together. We stood no chance as children, but now that I know everything—God help me, I was piecing my home back together.
Julia and I started slowly, but by the last brick that cemented Craigstown—she stood at my side. We even visited Sandra together. Mae still wouldn’t go, but that’s her fight with her own mother.
I just know that if my mom were alive, nothing would keep me from her side. Not anymore.
Boone returned to his own home and to his own story. He did me a favor and took his family with him.
A part of my heart wanted to reach out to him, but the truth was that I hadn’t had a heart to give him before. And now that I did, Jonah already claimed ownership. If it hadn’t been Jonah, if I’d never survived the first storm and returned home, I couldn’t tell you what would’ve happened between Boone and me. All I know, his name will always be Boone for me, and a part of me will always wish that I could’ve loved him as he deserved to be.
That just meant that someone else was meant for him. He’ll fit with her how Jonah fits with me. How Jake and Julia seem to fit. Aiden and Bubba. Kate and Robbie—yes, finally! And how Mae confessed that she fit with Jeffries.
That’s one of my last revelations.
Mae always knew he was my father. He loved my mom, but he folded under pressure and married his wife. He had the dolphin emblazoned on his wedding ring because he truly wanted to make his marriage work.
He tried and faile
d. My mom was around the corner. Mae was the one who explained it, but she didn’t need to. I was aware that life’s never simple, especially in adult years.
His story is meant for another time, but it ended sadly and bitterly because when he’d left his wife—my mom had undergone her last round of chemotherapy. He arrived to her hospital room to see her fingers fall lifeless as they were curled with mine.
I’d been sleeping, but I woke up.
I never noticed the big man in our doorway. I just noticed how my mom wasn’t there anymore.
Mae told him that the secret was out—that the daughters he’d loved from a distance now knew.
Later, Jeffries would tell me that he kept quiet because he didn’t want to do any more damage to another human being. And his daughters were the very last ones he would want to ruin.
I was learning that that’s my dad for you, but again—another time and another story.
I always liked to remember that my first words to him as I shuffled into Mae’s new bar and took the perch beside him were, “You’ve been here the whole time.”
Apprehension, love, nervousness, caution, all those emotions were rolled together as he stared at me, but all I saw was the love. A father’s love and I’m slowly realizing that it’s a special entity on its own. I have my right to anger, the right to call him a coward, but I’d just been given a rebirth at life. I wasn’t holding grudges.
I didn’t have time for that anymore.
And Erica…
It still took me a while to visit her. The cemetery remained intact, and the headstones stood upright strongly.
I thought about that, too, and envisioned that mass of water that crushed everything else. It hadn’t touched what lay buried underneath. The tombstones stayed in place and watched everything become uprooted above them.
I sat with my back resting on her tombstone, and I read the letter she left for me. She knew that I was coming back. Somehow, it felt right that she had been the one to know. A bird nearly crashed into me, but after I folded up her letter, I just looked up and grinned.
I love you, too.
I turned and left. Jonah was waiting for me, along with our daughter.
We named her Erica Daniella.
THE END
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