“Have you ever met a sixteen-year-old who isn’t?” asks Jill.
“I didn’t mean to break his heart.”
“Oh, Cricket. I know. He knew it, too, by the way. He was sad, but certainly not deterred.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was confident you’d find your way back to each other. You were his first love.”
“Oh, I don’t think I was. He was mine, but I wasn’t his.”
She bats my comment away. “Of course you were. You were the only one I ever heard about, anyway. And when I found this list in his cabin, it made me want to meet the person that Seth cared so much about. So here we are, and you’re everything I hoped you would be.”
I touch the ends of my unwashed hair and look down to see that I am wearing the cat-face shirt again. Damn it.
“I really admire that you are taking care of your father. It must be challenging,” she says, looking around at our house. “But this is love in action. You’re a good daughter.”
I feel the tears start to come. Jill is saying the kinds of things that I wish my own mother would say to me, or at the very least think about me. It’s so unexpected to receive this type of affirmation from anyone, let alone a stranger—though in some ways, she isn’t one.
We end up talking for over an hour. Jill tells me about the harrowing years immediately after Seth died, how she could barely function from grief, how she wasn’t sure she would be able to live without him.
“I had all this mom energy and nowhere to put it, and I felt completely stuck. I had had Seth when I was so young—just twenty-four—and hadn’t thought much about a career yet. I was an administrative assistant at a law firm for most of his life, and just assumed that’s whatI would do forever. But at one point, Seth began to say, ‘Mom, you work just as hard as those lawyers. You might as well become one.’ It was sort of our joke, but once he was gone, I started to really consider it. Eventually I did go to law school, and now I’m a real estate attorney.”
“Wow. I really admire that,” I say. “I can’t seem to find my own professional footing.”
“It takes time. For me, it took a tragedy to really light that fire. Not that I wouldn’t give it all up to have Seth back, but in a way, his death forced me to reinvent myself. I had no choice. When something dies, something else needs to be reborn. I had to use all the love I had for Seth and turn it toward myself. And I realized that even though I will always be devastated, I can be happy, too. I can be both.”
“Wow,” I say again. Despite the unthinkability of losing her only child, Jill has used these ten years to heal more effectively than I have. “I could use a rebirth.”
“Who’s to say you aren’t having one right now?”
Initially, I’m not sure if I should tell Jill about my father’s visits from Seth, but now that she has shared so much with me, I see no need to hold back. I tell her everything—my father’s visions, my recurring dream. As I speak, Jill nods slowly and patiently. When I finish, I can’t tell whether she is convinced or concerned.
“You don’t have to believe me,” I say. “I know it’s far-fetched.”
“Of course I believe you. He’s here. I can feel it.” She doesn’t strike me as the woo-woo type, and she says this matter-of-factly. “It’s the energy. I can’t explain it, but I’ve been across the pond all week, and even though his stuff was there, he wasn’t. And now I know why.” She looks around. “My boy is here.”
I am overcome by a feeling of tranquility and completeness—the opposite of FOMO. In this moment, it seems everything that matters is coalescing in this room, only some of it visible.
Neither of us try to restrain our tears, and we laugh as we see that my father has fallen fast asleep despite our blubbering. When Jill finally leaves, she pulls me in for a long hug.
“Thank you for helping me connect to Seth in this way,” she says. “This was such a gift.”
As I watch her truck pull away, I know that she has given me a gift, too: the feeling of being both mothered and understood. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed those things, and I never knew heartbreak and healing could be so intertwined.
Chapter 49
In mid-September, the loons leave their baby. It seems abrupt, but of course they have been preparing since the moment she hatched. There’s no stopping it: even the most conscientious of parents eventually take off for the unknown, leaving you to face the mystery of life on your own.
I first see her alone one morning when I am at the dock for an early swim. With Labor Day behind us, I am wringing what I can out of summer before everything starts to turn crisp. The loonlet glides past our dock, taking the familiar path that she has swum with her parents so many times. She looks purposeful, if not quite confident. After a moment, she stops and reverses direction. She begins to glide and flap her wings, first slowly and then with increasing intensity, until she is craning her neck and slapping the water with force. This goes on for yards and yards. I hold my breath, hoping for her to get airborne, but eventually she runs out of energy and flaps to a halt. After a moment, she tries again, with the same result.
“You can do it,” I whisper. I so desperately want her to survive and make a successful migration. More: I want her to thrive, wherever she ends up.
For the rest of the month, I remain occupied with my father’s care—following his new protocols, administering his new meds, keeping him fed and comfortable and clean, but I am equally fixated on the baby loon. I track her movements; I celebrate when she eats; I relax when I see her dive with skill; I cheer when she practices her takeoff; and I worry if I don’t spot her for a day or two.
And then one day, at the end of September, I don’t see her anymore. I suppose anything could have happened—it is the wilderness, after all. But I choose to believe she has finally launched and is charting her course south, following her instincts and catching all the right currents. I believe hers is a success story.
Chapter 50
