“Daddy, too?”
I have no idea what Nick wished for. I never asked, and I’ll never get to.
I swallow around the stone of regret wedged in my throat. “Yep. Daddy, too.”
“Okay,” she says. “You blow the seeds, too, Auntie.”
We scatter dandelion fluff like gusts of wind, setting countless seeds to the breeze. We make a lot of wishes.
After, we head to the bakery for drinks and cookies. Janie gives me a conspiratorial look as we walk through the glass doors, and I wink.
Van Dough’s sits in the center of town, surrounded by galleries and boutiques and touristy T-shirt shops. Cypress Beach is one of those off-the-beaten-path vacation spots frequented by Californians seeking a break from the bustle of big-city life. Though I’d never been here prior to the move, I’d formed a vague impression of its lifestyle: a charming town where the privileged flock to piss away enormous disposable incomes. It’d never occurred to me that there were actual residents in Cypress Beach, people who live in the delightful cottages and work in the restaurants and specialty shops. People with average incomes, who stroll the sidewalks year-round, like Audrey and Janie, and now, Mom and me.
Aud and I order iced teas and almond madeleines, and Janie picks a huge shortbread cookie with pink icing and sugar sprinkles. We sit on high stools at the counter that runs the length of the storefront widow, Janie in the middle, attacking her cookie.
“Unpacked yet?” Audrey asks me, breaking her madeleine in two.
“Mostly. My mom got sick of the boxes in my room and took pity on me.” In fact, she unpacked everything but my vintage camera collection, which I lovingly arranged on the shelves built into the nooks on either side of my window.
“Please tell me you repainted your walls.” Aud shudders. “Obsidian. Only you, Elise.”
“What? I am a sunny person.”
“Maybe, but you’re also into expression, and you make snap decisions, and you like to prove your point in really passive-aggressive ways.”
“I do not!” But I do, sometimes. I’m sour about the move, but I’d never complain to my mom or my sister-in-law, so I chose black paintto demonstrate my spite. Joke’s on me, though, because I’m the one who’s stuck suffering. “I picked Obsidian because I thought it’d make my bedroom seem like a darkroom.”
“But you process all your stuff digitally.” She sips her tea, raising a graceful pinky. She’s blond and blue-eyed, like Janie, and she’s got this cool, effortlessly boho style: flowy floral dresses or bell-bottomed jeans and tunics, always with silver jewelry. She never wears makeup becausebare is best—she actually said that to me once, while watching me coat my lashes in mascara. “You should’ve picked yellow or aqua,” she says, like she’s studying to be an interior designer instead of a teacher.
“Or pink,” Janie says through a mouthful of cookie.
Audrey nods. “Pink would’ve been perfect. Janie and I can help you repaint, if you want.”
“No thanks. The black suits me fine. In fact, I think it offsets my sunniness.”
Aud rolls her eyes.
I’m not ready to admit I was wrong about Obsidian, though I wouldn’t mind spending the time repainting with them. Audrey and Janie have lived in Cypress Beach for the last year and a half, after a move that caught my mom and me completely by surprise. Aud grew up in the city like my brother and me; she and Nick met their freshman year of high school and were instant sweethearts. Even back then, when I was nine-ten-eleven, I recognized how in love they were. How they complemented each other.
As soon as they graduated, they announced their engagement. Audrey’s always-apathetic parents shrugged the pending nuptials off, but my mom threw a fit. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Aud—she just wanted more for Nick. Degree, career, savings account, andthenmarriage. He wasn’t having it, though. They argued even after the City Hall wedding, disagreements that escalated quickly and seemed infinite. Nick was eighteen, jobless and skill-less, and Aud was waiting tables at a dingy cafe in Nob Hill. They were living in his bedroom. My momcried the day he enlisted in the army, her long-dormant fears regarding Islamic extremists reawakening.
After basic and skills training, Nick was assigned to a civil affairs brigade at Fort Bragg, and he and Audrey moved to North Carolina. They were nineteen, and she was pregnant almost immediately. A few months later, Nick deployed to Afghanistan. Aud was a mess, isolated and emotional and hormonal, and thanks in part to my alarmist mother, she was alsoterrified.
It was like she knew—like she sensed she’d never see him again.
Just before Nick’s remains were interred at Sacramento Valley National Cemetery, Audrey and baby Janie returned to San Francisco. They stayed with Mom and me, in my brother’s bedroom. But it was too hard, Aud explained when she broke the news that she and Janie were leaving the city—leavingus. She wanted a fresh start. She wanted to live in a place that wasn’t saturated with memories of Nick, where every park, every street corner, every landmark wasn’t a kick to the gut.
“Cypress Beach,” she said. She and Nick had visited for a weekend after they were married, a sort of mini-honeymoon. “It’s special, but it’s not San Francisco. I think Janie and I could be happy there.”
They’ve made a life for themselves and I’m glad, but at the same time, I wish my brother could be a part of it. It doesn’t seem fair that Audrey and Janie—and now Mom and me—get to live in this lovely seaside community when he can’t. Our world, no matter how beautiful, no matter how fulfilling, will forever feel off-kilter because Nicky was taken from it.
“How’s your mom settling in?” Audrey asks now.
“Good, I think. She says the ocean air’s doing wonders for her creativity.”
“We’re so glad you guys came. I know the timing’s not ideal for you with school and everything, but having you here… It’s like having a piece of Nick back.”
I shrug. “I got a dog out of the deal, so there’s that.”
