Page 107 of Just Say (Hell) No
Josie was in tears, and Nyree was, too. Amelia, still in the window seat, sat silent, her eyes going from one of them to the other. Josie said, finally, “Your pain is my joy, and it… ithurts.I wouldn’t change it. I couldn’t. But I want you to know that I realize how much love and strength this has taken. Never forget that.”
Hugh said, “It might help, sweetheart, if you gave Ella your own gift.”
“Oh. Oh!” Josie laughed through the tears. “I shouldn’t have hormones. I’m not the one, I know, but I’m all over the shop all the same. Laughing and crying. Wait. Here.” She went over to the kitchen bench, picked up a small white box, and put it in front of Ella. “Mine to you. Great minds, eh.”
Ella opened the top, peeled back the cotton batting, took the thing out, and held it in her palm, cradling it as lightly and carefully as a butterfly.
It was a closed circle carved of a beautiful piece of flower jade, the blooming gold and near-pink a creamy contrast against the deep green. A square hole near the top, and the cord wrapped there. Simple. Perfect.
Josie sat opposite Ella, picked up the pendant, loosened the cord, and put it around the girl’s neck, then tightened the cord again until the pendant rested between Ella’s collarbones, in the hollow of her throat.
While the sun shines,Nyree had said,I shall tie it to the front of my throat.
“This is a porowhita,” Josie told her, her hands still on Ella’s shoulders. “The never-ending circle, reminding us that life has no beginning and no end, only the journey. The path points forward, and it stretches back. Everything you’ve given to the world lives on in it, just as everything the ancestors have given—their deeds, their words, their love—lives on in you, too. You’ll always be part of the boys, and they’ll always be part of you, and that’s all right. That’s the way it works.”
Ella’s eyes were shining bright as hope. Strong as love. She said, “My grandmother says this. ‘We are only visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love, and then we return home.’”
“Oh, my darling,” Josie said, “you’re so full of purpose. A whole life’s worth, and it’s all there for you. Go and be beautiful.”
“E whiti e,”Nyree murmured.
Josie’s smile, like a blessing.“E whiti e,”she agreed. “Shine.”
They went back to the bach in Piha. Marko had booked it for three more nights, all the way to Sunday morning. It had been doing the trick so far, he’d figured. And like Nyree had said—when you had something good going for you, you held onto it.
Speaking of which. He told her, when they were cooking an early dinner together, “Should be a good sunset, and some stars, too, as much as it’s cleared up. Time for us to take a walk, I reckon. It’s not Tekapo, but it’s pretty dark, and nothing out there all the way to Aussie.”
Nyree said, “You just don’t want to lose at Monopoly again. Admit it. You hate it. I have never known a more competitive man, and I’ve known a few.”
He laughed, gave her a swat on the bum, and said, “Aw. You love it. Sunset. Beach. You and me.”
Itwasa good sunset. Correction. It was a spectacular sunset. They stood on the packed sand with the tide on the turn and gazed out at the bulk of Lion Rock, and beyond it. The sky glowed a pale blue, the clouds at the horizon lit with gold and pink, and all of it reflected in the calm water near the shore while the golden ball of the sun sank low.
Space. Time. Peace.
He had Nyree leaning back against his chest, his arms wrapped around her, her hands holding his forearms like she needed that as much as he did. She’d be able to feel his heart beating, and he’d swear he could feel hers.
She said, “Do you know something?”
“I know many things,” he said. “I know I love you, for one. What in particular, though?”
She laughed. “Distracting, aren’t you. But I wanted to tell you this. A thing happened to me today.”
“What kind of thing?”
“When we came home. I looked in the mirror, and I saw something.”
“You’re not a vampire, then. Good. Never mind,” he went on hurriedly. “Tell me. What?”
“I saw what color I am.”
He went still. “And… what was it?”
It shouldn’t matter. He knewwhoshe was, and that was enough. What if she decided they didn’t match, though? Heknewthey didn’t match, in so many ways. He didn’t care. But she might.
“Orange,” she said. “I should’ve figured, I guess, except that I almost never see anybody orange. Noah is, though. Hunter is pale blue, calm and clear. He’s somebody who sees more than other people.”
“What does orange mean, then?” he asked.
