There’s a happy buzz through the restaurant that I haven’t felt in months. We open the windows, and the cool breeze kicks up the smells of all the food. Ellie drew fancy letters on the sandwich board out front:
NEW MENU—OPEN HOUSE: 6–9. COME ON IN.
I’m in my kitchen gear, and I’ve actually kept my white shirt clean so far. I keep finding excuses to peer out the kitchen window. Normally I only want to be behind the scenes, in the kitchen. But tonight? Tonight I need to watch it all play out.
Some people are seated, but many are milling around. Our waitstaff is carrying the last of the passed appetizers, and soon we’ll start in on the entrées. Most of the crowd is made up of townies—the very ones who helped make the restaurant changes possible. Everyone looks so relaxed. I was worried about that. Like, hey, come to my dead dad’s restaurant, but try to have fun. They are having fun, though. Ethan, Naomi’s friend and fellow environmental engineer, is making Leah laugh about something. Silas is chatting with Carol Finney, who graduated from the same college he’s leaving for this month. Betty is standing next to her wife and regaling a group of people with some story that makes her light up.
“Go on,” Felix says, flicking the end of a dish towel at me. “Take a lap. We’re good here.”
It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed. As I walk through the restaurant, I’m bombarded. It’s a lot for me to handle. I’m not good at it, the small talk. I try to smile. I nod politely. I take the hearty slaps on the back. The praise makes me happy, but I don’t know how to react. I’d rather people scribble down their nice comments on a piece of scrap paper. I could read them later without anyone waiting for my awkward response.
I keep thinking I see my mom out of the corner of my eye, but I know she’s not coming. And that’s okay. I’ve shown her printouts of the new menus and everything. It’s the most excited I’ve seen her in months. But being in the restaurant with everyone—it would be too much to handle right now. She’s not there yet.
I’m not even disappointed. Because we talked about it. She told me that she couldn’t come and why. She told me that she spoke to her support group about it, and they encouraged her to go with her instincts. I didn’t have to assume she wasn’t coming because she was tucked into her room. She told me, like I’m an adult who she trusts with the truth. She knows I can take it.
On my way back to the kitchen, I sneak one of my favorite appetizers off a tray—grilled-cheese bites. I made them with Ellie’s homemade rosemary bread, melted gruyère, and fig compote.
“Mmmph.” I grunt this to myself in the helpless way you do when something is just so damn delicious. Yeah, I made it, but . . . what can I say? I’m good.
“Sneaking some of the product?” Ellie asks, nudging my arm. She’s in her waitress attire, hair in a ponytail. “I’m surprised they let you out of the kitchen.”
“Eh, I made a break for it. We’re all set for the entrée, and I’ve got a few minutes before dessert prep.”
“I’m glad. I wanted to borrow you guys for a second.”
She tugs me by the arm as she rounds up the rest of my brothers and sisters. They’re all here—Silas brought Isaac and Bekah early to help and Naomi brought Leah a little later, so she wouldn’t be bored. I’m hesitant to be with all five of them at once, here at the restaurant. It makes the absence obvious. It wrings my stomach, the missing him.
“What’re we doing?” Leah asks.
“Just ducking outside for one minute,” Ellie says.
Leah turns to me. “Jonah, I love the pizza! It’s my favorite thing!”
“Me too!” Isaac says.
Pizza? Isaac notices my confusion. “Ya know . . . the one with the cheese. It has, like, apple slices on it?”
“The flatbread?”
Isaac and Leah shrug.
Huh. It’s a brie flatbread with apple slices and onion jam. And here I thought Leah would hate every new item except the desserts. I was prepared for four choruses of “This tastes like barf.”
We’re standing outside the restaurant, and Ellie motions for us to get together. I make eye contact with Naomi, wondering if she knows what this is about. She shakes her head.
“I just want a few pictures, okay?” Ellie calls. “My dad made me swear.”
Naomi, Silas, and I all look at one another. We’re already here. We might as well.
We cram together, the six of us. Silas picks Leah up, and Isaac leans against Naomi. At first I think I’ll have to force a smile, like I normally do with pictures. But then Bekah, who has one arm around my waist, gives me a little squeeze. I know we’ll be back to business as usual tomorrow, all of us talking over one another and breaking up fights among ourselves. But tonight is a good night.
“Smile!” Ellie says as she holds her phone up to us. She takes a few before we break apart. Silas sets Leah on the ground, and Bekah releases herself from my waist. I catch Naomi’s eye again. My sister and brother and I don’t hug. That’s just not how we are. But Naomi puts her arms around me and Silas, and we stand there in this weird three-person huddle that doesn’t actually feel weird at all. The littles join in, too, Leah hugging her arms around my leg.
I know Ellie’s camera isn’t pointed at us. It’s too private. And something a picture couldn’t really capture anyway.
We pull apart quickly because the moment starts to feel too solemn.
“Are you crying?” I ask Naomi, whose eyes look a little watery.
“No!” She swats my arm, smiling. “Shut up.”
We go back inside like it never happened.
Since January, I’ve been trying to believe that we’ll survive. And here, tonight, is the first time it occurs to me: I think we’ll more than survive. I think we’ll be good. Maybe even great.
I know the restaurant is not my dad. I know that his legacy is more than the bricks and mortar. I know that making oatmeal for my family isn’t going to single-handedly save them from heart disease. And I know that making Vivi pie isn’t going to fix what she’s going through.
But the point is that trying to make things better sometimes makes us better, too. The point is I’m trying to create good things in the midst of the bad. Grief or no grief.
And in my case, it’s still somewhere in between.
After the last guest has left, I wipe down the patio tables. The white candles have melted to stubs, flickering out.
This whole night, I’ve felt close to my dad. It aches—and somehow eases the pain, too.
But someone really is behind me now. The presence comes over me like a whiff of ocean water and something else. Wisteria. I sense Vivi right before I hear her voice.
“Hey.”
She’s standing in the alleyway, wearing a dress and flat shoes. It’s a tame outfit by Vivi standards, and her lips are very pink instead of red. The arm sling eclipses half her upper body. Her left leg is half-covered in large square bandages. She’s freeze-in-place beautiful—it’s like my eyes forgot these past few days. Like I’m seeing her for the first time and like I’ve known her my entire life. Like the first day and the last. “Hey.”
I put the rag down and turn all the way toward her, but she doesn’t move any closer. She’s keeping distance between us, hesitant of me.
“I’m sorry I missed the party.” She runs her hand over the wall of the hardware store that faces the patio. It’s something to do so she won’t have to meet my gaze. “I couldn’t be around everyone so soon, and—”
“Viv. I know. It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry about that day in the hospital, too. I didn’t mean to lash out . . . I just . . .” She sighs. “I’ve always loved the Wizard of Oz, you know? Every girl wants to be Dorothy Gale or maybe Glinda. I never wanted to be the tornado.”
I open my mouth to say that it’s okay, that I’m just so glad to see her. That if she’s the tornado, it’s not because she’s cut terror through a tiny town. It’s because she’s swept us all up into a place where there’s color everywhere. But she starts up again.
“You did a beautiful thing here, Jonah.” She finally makes eye contact, locking in.
“Thanks. I still have some food left. Do you want cheesecake or something?”
“No, thanks. I’m coming from breakfast with Officer Hayashi.” She smiles a little at my confusion. “Breakfast for dinner.”
I take a step closer to her because that’s my impulse—to be near her. I’m not sure why she’s hanging back. “Are you feeling okay? Are you in a lot of pain?”
“I’m okay. The pain meds help.” She gestures toward the wall nearest her. “You should do something with this blank wall. I bet Mr. Thomas would let you.”
“He suggested it himself, actually. Just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Yeah. You’ve had a lot going on.” She raises her chin to eye level again. “Do you want to take a walk with me? Can you leave?”
The cleanup detail can wait till tomorrow. Everything can wait when it comes to Vivi. “Of course.”
I open the gate so that I’m standing in the alleyway with her. Normally, I’d take her hand. But this is not normally. I’m not sure if I should act the same way. I’m not sure if she’ll still like me the way she did before. I’m not sure of anything. We fall into step down Main Street, and she stays quiet.
“So . . .” I try to begin. I’ve got nothing. The awkwardness trips me, and my brain takes a painful spill onto the cobblestone streets. “What’s . . . new . . . ?”
She stops dead. I wish I could contort my body to kick myself in the face. What’s new? What the hell kind of question is that?
But then Vivi starts to laugh. It’s that wind chime sound at first, and then she’s doubled over on the sidewalk, ha-ha-ha-ing. It makes me laugh, too. Hesitantly, at first. And then more and more. We stand across from each other, unable to stop. Vivi looks up, covering her mouth. Our eyes stay on each other as we shake with laughter.
Once we calm down, Vivi wraps her arm around my waist, still giggling to herself. Just like that, we’re us again. A different us because I know more now. But that’s good.
There are no cars out so we walk in the center of the street. The streetlights guide our path.
“Oh, Jonah. What a week.” I want to put my arm around her shoulder, but I can’t because of her cast and sling. I repress a cringe, thinking of the bone sticking out after her crash. “Was the party tonight everything you wanted it to be?”
“Yeah. It was. It felt like the right thing. If that makes sense.”
“It does.”
“So, um. How are you really?” I glance down at her, and she looks up in return.
Her eyes crinkle a bit at the sides when she smiles. “Pretty good, actually. I mostly just watched TV and slept and let nurses change my bandages. But I also went to some therapy appointments—even a family session with my mom. It felt . . . I don’t know. Like a relief.”
We’re talking about really serious stuff. But—I can’t explain it—the pulse of our conversation is steady. This almost feels casual. Or, at least, like us.
“Counseling with your mom—was that good?” I ask. “Just curious because, uh, my mom went to a grief support group twice this week. Officer Hayashi told her about it, actually. I guess he goes.”
“Yeah.” She smiles, clearly already aware of this. “Family therapy was really good. My mom and I are usually pretty good about talking, but it helped to talk in a different setting, I think.”
“My mom’s already trying to talk the rest of us into going. I’m glad she can go, but . . .” I glance over. “I don’t know.”
There’s a pause, and I start searching for something else to say. Vivi bails me out. “My dad’s wife sent me a letter. My mom gave it to me today.”
Holy shit. “Oh yeah? Wow. That’s big.”
“Yeah. I haven’t opened it yet.” She reads my expression and smiles. “I know—it surprises me, too. I mean, if I had been around when Pandora got her hands on that box, I would have been on the sidelines, like, just open it, already, girl. But this letter is . . . a lot for me.”
“Do you think you’ll open it eventually?”
“Oh yeah. I have a lot of things to work through, and I want to give myself some time. With all of it. But I just keep thinking I didn’t lose anything, with him. And I still have my mom, always have. And someday, maybe I’ll even get to meet my half siblings.”
We’re out past the edge of town. I’ve known where we were headed this whole little walk. It’s the edge of the coastline that Vivi likes the most. She keeps her arm around my waist as we step through the high grass. I can hear the water sloshing below as we dodge the stalks of yellow flowers.
The moon glows overhead, the way it did the night we ran into the ocean. It feels like a lifetime ago. A lifetime but not enough. She stops about five yards away from the drop-off.
“Let’s sit down,” she says. “This is the perfect spot.”