Epilogue
19 years old
THE TAXONOMY OF US
“SNEAK-ATTACK SELFIE!” Hope kisses me on the cheek and snaps a picture with her phone at the same time. I am 87 percent sure my eyes were closed.
Hope checks the picture. “Perfect!” She sends it to Paul.
“I am not so sure he appreciates those.”
“Please. He lives for my Spencer-Hope selfies. And soon we’ll be out of the country, and I won’t be able to send him any. How will he cope?”
The suited-up guy behind us narrows his eyes at Hope’s perkiness and goes back to shouting into his phone about idiots and supply chain issues. The lady beside me runs over my foot with her suitcase for the second time. The line is moving in slow motion or backward or not at all. Hope squeezes my hand, and the line doesn’t matter. (Side note: When you find someone who makes even the TSA line tolerable, you keep them.)
We make our way through the line in centimeters and millimeters and nanometers. I trace my thumb over her hand, pausing at the black streak by her finger. She got it this morning putting the last big permanent X on our Countdown to Caribbean calendar.
When we finally get to the front, she loads her photography equipment onto the conveyor belt like it’s a newborn baby. She bounces on the balls of her feet while we wait to go through the scanner thingy that probably shrinks your balls and makes your nose hairs radioactive. The equipment comes out the other side post-x-ray. Hope checks it obsessively.
“It’s okay.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “Your camera has not been replaced by a changeling.”
She shoots me a pretend glare.
Three escalators, a tunnel, and a fifteen-minute train ride later, and we have successfully navigated the belly of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. We are at our gate, scanning our boarding passes, stowing our carry-on bags in the overhead compartment, and sitting with our seatbacks and tray tables in an upright position.
I tic-sniff a couple times and wipe my nose. “Are you starving? Because I am starving. I wonder what they’re gonna feed us. I hope they’ve made great strides in airplane food since the last time I flew.”
Hope stares at the seat in front of her. I don’t think she’s heard a word I’ve said. I put my hand on her knee.
“Are you okay?”
“She died on a plane,” she whispers.
“I know.” Hope puts her hand on top of mine, and I flip it over so she can lace our fingers together. “Are you scared?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I’m sad, mostly. But it also feels like I can’t catch my breath.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
I bend over and pull my iPad out of my bag. Her dad told me this might happen. I grab my earbuds and hand one to her and keep the other.
“What are you doing?” Her voice has un-cried tears in it.
“We’re not on a plane,” I whisper. “We’re in a magic portal movie theater that transports people from Atlanta to Belize City without ever leaving the ground.”
Hope sniffs and gives me a skeptical look. “What’s playing at this magic portal movie theater?”
I smile. “A musical.”
Her skepticism grows. “Which one?”
“It has to be a surprise or the magic goes faulty.”
She frowns. “This magic portal movie theater sounds very temperamental.”
“Oh, it is.”
We slip in our earbuds, and I hit play. The Columbia lady appears onscreen.
“What happens when the movie’s over?” she asks.
I pat my iPad. “I’ve loaded this baby with enough musicals to get us all the way to Belize. And back.”
She snuggles into my shoulder. The music begins. People start singing about five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes, and tears stream down Hope’s cheeks.
Her eyes flick over to me, and she mouths, I love you.
I mouth back, I love you, too.
Jul 26
Dear Janie,
It’s been kind of a while now, huh? Sorry about that. Maybe you weren’t worried though. Did you know all along that I’d write you again?
Things are a lot better now. Well, I’m a lot better. Mom and Dad could still really use some help. Can you work on that?
I graduated from high school last month. Every time I hit a milestone without you there, it feels so weird. Like there are two parallel worlds in my head: the reality one and the one where you’re still here, pinning my cap so it doesn’t mess up my hair, teasing Dad when he cries through almost the whole ceremony, composing an elaborate toast for me at dinner.
I’m organizing an art show for the end of August. You would like it. It’s to benefit sustainable energy in developing countries. And I know you’re probably laughing right now and thinking who in their right mind is going to pay to see my stick-figure masterpieces, but it’s not my art. It’s yours. Remember when I threw a fit and ripped down all your drawings and the maps, too? Spencer saved them. (More on him later.) He actually dug through our trash and flattened them out and pieced them back together and kept them in his attic until I was ready for them. Which, okay, that created a HUGE misunderstanding, but we worked it out (more on that later, too).
So, I had all these beautiful, soul-opening drawings of yours, and I was trying to figure out what to do with them, and I thought about hanging them up in my room again, but I didn’t want them to be just for me anymore. I wanted everyone to see how special you are. To look at the faces you drew and feel like they’d been poured inside another person. Mimi’s the one who thought to do an art show. She’s still pretty enraptured with the idea. “We’re going to bring this town some culture!” she said. She arranged to pair the show with a wine tasting at a local farm. Miss Pam helped me plan the menu while Spencer was away being a counselor at his camp, and then when he got back, they both helped me make installations with all the pieces. Mom and Dad had some more of your drawings stashed away, and Nolan sent me some, too. He’s coming in August, for the show. I think it’ll be a good thing for him. For all of us.
And maybe, maybe, maybe if I take some photos I’m really proud of before then (because FYI, I do photography now! It’s a thing!), I might think of adding a few of them to the show.
And speaking of Spencer . . .
Okay, fine, I wasn’t speaking of Spencer, I was speaking of Nolan, and then I was speaking of photography, but you know you’re desperate to hear about me and Spencer.
. . .
. . .
. . .
We’re together now.
You’re probably smiling smugly and thinking finally, and maybe if you were in my shoes, you would have figured all this stuff out sooner, but I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like things have to happen at just the right time.
Anyway, we planned the best-ever backpacking trip through the Caribbean, starting with Belize, and I’m on an airplane RIGHT NOW writing you this letter on my tray table, and Spencer is sitting next to me holding my hand, and the guy in front of us is snoring like a chain saw, and everything is so perfect and amazing and magical, I feel like I could burst.
I still miss you. I’ll always miss you. But I know you’re out there, sprinkled throughout the world like the pieces of some great puzzle. Lives you changed, things you did, adventures you had, in Samoa, Haiti, South Africa, Belize.
You’re everywhere, Janie. So, that’s where I’m going.
Everywhere.