The four of us are seated around the dining room table, nibbling at the ends of our pizza crusts and listening to Connor talk about his day at school. Every night, we talk about our days at work and school, and every night Connor has the most to say. Tonight, he’s telling us all about this girl named Abby in his class, who slipped a handwritten valentine into his cubby.
He is obsessing over this card. The significance of it.
“And then, when we lined up for early dismissal, I tried to stand next to her,” Connor says. “I even told Joey, my best friend, to stand with someone else, because I wanted to talk to Abby. But she pretended not to see me waiting! And Sophie P. and Ellie started laughing.” He stares at his plate, deep in concentration. “I don’t get it.”
Jack is seated in the chair beside me, directly across from Connor. He’s in a short-sleeved black T-shirt, faded gray jeans. His dark hair is slightly ruffled, the grown-up version of his son’s mischievous look. His hands are folded on the tabletop, his fingers absently twisting his wedding band. “Is it just me, or does this sound like an unfortunate case of unrequited love?”
Mom snorts. Covers her mouth a second too late to stop the nasally sound.
Connor blinks. Then he crosses his arms over his chest, annoyed. “What? No. It’s not—that.”
Jack grins. “Oh, good. So you think the girl likes you back?”
Connor’s ears turn bright red. “I don’t like her. I just wanted to know why she put the note in my cubby, instead of my mailbox.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Jack leans toward me and adds in a mock whisper: “Also, what’s the difference between a cubby and a mailbox?”
“We made our boxes specifically for valentines,” Connor says, in a tone that implies this should be extremely obvious. “We decorated them and set them out on our desks, and everyone went around the room to put stuff in them, including Abby. She even gave me candy! Here, I’ll show you.”
Connor leaps from the chair and dashes down the hall toward his room. Mom tells him to walk, not run, through the house, and he responds by hurrying across the floorboards on his tiptoes.
Jack wraps an arm around me, hugging me to his side. “How are you? You’ve been quiet tonight.”
“I’m good. Tired.”
Jack nods and rests his chin on the top of my head. I can feel his heartbeat against my shoulder, slow and steady and strong.
“I’m excited for this trip back home,” he murmurs. “I think it’ll be good for all of us.”
“Agreed,” Mom says. “I think we could all use a little heart medicine.”
I can’t help but frown. I wonder if Mom and Jack really do feel that way. If the Olympic Peninsula truly is heart medicine for them, considering what happened in their childhoods.
Connor comes tiptoe-running back into the room. His shoebox-turned-mailbox is cradled in his arms. Its surface is lined with hot-pink construction paper, covered in blue and purple heart stickers. His name is written across the top in glitter-glued letters. Beneath the drop slot, there are two more stickers—a soccer ball, and a soccer net—along with the word GOAL! in gel pen.
Jack nods his approval. “Great box, bud.”
“Thanks,” Connor says distractedly. He sets it on the tabletop and rips the lid off, revealing a mess of fun-sized chocolates and heart-shaped lollipops and red-and-pink wrappers. He grabs a small carton of Conversation Hearts and holds it up for our inspection. Like this is a crucial piece of evidence in some wild conspiracy theory.
“See?” he cries, pointing at the penciled inscription. “To me, from Abby. She gave these to everyone in class, but she only wrote a note for me, and she put it in my cubby. What does it mean?”
“Well, son. I think you’ve started something that can’t be stopped.”
“What? But I didn’t do anything.” He fidgets, wide-eyed. “Unless—wait, do you think I should’ve written a letter for her? Was I not supposed to wait for her in line today? Was that wrong?”
Jack straightens, removing his arm from my shoulders as he gradually rises from his chair. “Oh, I’m not talking about Abby. I’m talking about the mistake you made just now. You’ve unleashed a series of events that must run their course.” He lifts his right hand, his index finger curling into the shape of a hook. “Arr.”
All at once, Mom bursts out laughing, Connor shrieks, and Jack pretends to swipe for the box filled with candy.
“Ye’ve revealed yer treasure to a mad-hungry pirate!” Jack shouts in his pirate drawl. “Finders be keepers, ye bloody landlubber!”
Connor scoops the box against his chest, bending his torso in a protective stance. In his haste, he’s forgotten the lid, and stray pieces go flying. I hear the crack of impact as candies skitter across the hardwood floor. Tiny folded cards flit to the floor like flightless butterflies.
“Arr,” Jack says. “Ye loot is mine.”
Connor drops, scrambling to retrieve the fallen candies before Jack can reach him. Jack makes an exaggerated show of trying to hobble around the table on his “peg leg.”
Mom is laughing so hard, she starts to clutch at a stitch in her side. I laugh a little bit, too. But even as the laughter comes out, even as I’m sitting here with my family, with the people I love so much, I feel weird. Disconnected from myself. Like I’m not fully here with them, right now.
I don’t know where that feeling is coming from. But it won’t go away.
13
Little Crossing-Over Place
February 16
We board the Seattle–Bainbridge Island ferry the next morning.
The alarm clocks went off in our house at 7:00 a.m., and after we all silently made a pact not to wake quite yet, the alarms beeped again at 7:05 a.m. Then Jack lurched down the hall, banging on our doors and shouting, “Get up, we’re late. Need to go now.” And the morning took off in a frenzy, with Mom and Jack brewing coffee and reading traffic updates and the overnight breaking news reports, Connor yawning theatrically, me double-checking my packed bags and my text messages, rain pummeling the roof and windows.
Today is rumbling and wet. On our way here, cars splashed through puddled dips in the road, trees bent to the whims of the wind. We drove through the crowded avenues downtown, where pedestrians walked with bowed postures, their umbrellas angled like shields against the gusts. Sleek carbon skyscrapers seemed to pierce the soft bellies of the clouds.
After we park our car on the ferry, we climb a narrow staircase. It’s cold and loud on the way up, the sounds of the loading cars and the crashing sea spray echoing up the walkway. I clutch my red winter jacket tighter around my body.
Inside, the floors are lined with gleaming tiles. Vinyl booths border the boat’s windowed perimeter. There is a cafeteria toward the back of the ship. Beneath the salty marine air, I can smell something like bacon grease and fried eggs, the smells of breakfast.
The four of us find a creaky booth and settle in to gaze out the window. The glass is sea splattered. The waves are storm colored, vast and gray and edged in whitecaps. The ferry rocks and sways in a gentle motion. I can hear the thrash and gasp of the Puget Sound, overlapping with the hum of the other passengers, the relentless power of the rain. Of the sea in winter.