Page 153 of The Rom-Commers

My dad and I had spent a hell of a lot of time in various hospitals over the years. I could describe some of them down to the ceiling tiles. But we’d never seen anything like this before. Plants? In a hospital room? Free-roaming massage therapists in the hallways? Ice cream delivery on a three-wheeled scooter?

Insane.

But we sure as heck weren’t complaining.

Mrs. Otsuka stayed for hours every day, fussing over my dad, and reading to him from his new book on Norse mythology, while Kenji and I made origami animals to put on the shelves among the plants—frogs, foxes, whales, pigs. He had a whole zoo’s worth memorized, and he patiently walked me through the folds—his turning out like something you’d see in an instructional tutorial, and mine a bit more like wadded-up gum wrappers.

Even still, he kept saying, “You’re definitely getting it,” and I let myself feel encouraged—though I didn’t care too much about being terrible at origami. What I cared about was the companionable feeling that sitting together making things gave me. Comforting in the way that having a project with someone is comforting. Safe in the way that gathering with others always makes you feel safe. The way that being together was just, on some fundamental level, always better than being alone.

It was the most family-like vibe I’d felt in years.

Not to mention, there are conversations that happen sometimes when you’re waiting around that would never happen if you were just scurrying from errand to errand like we all do most of the time. There are conversations that can happen only after waiting has slowed things down.

One night, late, after a nurse had checked my dad’s surgical dressing and his vitals and then left the two of us alone, I had the bright idea to show my dad the video of us that Logan had sent to Charlie, way back when all this started. I thought at first that we’d find it funny, and we did—me and my dad doing our handstands, Sylvie’s little chipmunk voice, my mom scolding Logan—but by the time we’d finished laughing, all we were left with was tears.

“I’m sorry,” I said, as we both pawed at our cheeks. “Maybe that was better left unexcavated.”

“No, no,” my dad said, his chin still trembling a bit. “I’m glad I got to see it.”

I put my phone away.

Next, my dad reached up to touch the bandage on his head. “This wasn’t Sylvie’s fault, you know.”

He was looking for emphatic agreement. But… I mean, it kind ofwas.

When I didn’t answer, he turned to meet my eyes.

“It wasn’t her fault,” he said, leaning forward a bit for my full attention, “any more than the rockfall was yours.”

My eyes stung at that, and I looked down at my lap.

“Things happen, Emma,” my dad said, reaching for my hand. “Nobody can see the future.”

I kept my eyes down. “But—” I said. I felt a tightness rising in mythroat, and then, without, of course, needing to specify whoshewas, I spoke out loud the one little sentence that had been haunting me in whispers for ten years: “But she wanted to go to the beach.”

This was the thought that woke me in the night. If I hadn’t been selfish—if I’d just given my mom whatshewanted instead of being all about me—she’d have been on a striped beach towel with a book at the shore a thousand miles away on the day that rockfall happened. She’d have been nowhere even close. Our lives would’ve continued blithely on. Everything would’ve been different.

She wanted to go to the beach.

My dad squeezed my hand.

“I want to ask for your forgiveness,” I said to my dad then.

He looked at me. “You can’t have it.”

“What?”

“I won’t forgive you,” he said. “You only forgive people who’ve done something wrong.” He tugged my hand a little closer and shook his head at me. “Emma.You never did anything wrong.”

But I argued with him. “Sylvie said I killed her.” Was I trying to get her in trouble?

“When did she say that?”

“As I was racing to the airport.”

My dad studied me. “And you’re going to hold her to it, huh?”

He had a point. Was I going to clutch onto something mean she’d said in a moment of panic forever? What would be the point? It didn’t seem like a choice that would benefit anyone. And yet: She’d said it, and I’d heard it.

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