Like where your mama and papa used to be?She knew her grandparents had passed. She understood her mother came from somewhere far away.
Her mother gave a half shake, half nod.Sort of.
Lili frowned, scrambling to her feet, reaching for her mum.I don’t understand.
Home isn’t where your parents are, always, she replied, accepting Lili into her arms.It’s where you feel safe.
I’m home now!Lili had declared, grinning as she nestled against her mother’s warm shoulder, her long black hair. She had been a small child, fit easily into the embrace of her mother, her father constantly throwing her onto his shoulders.Watan, she repeated.
You are,she agreed, pressing her lips against Lili’s forehead.As long as I’m breathing.
Now, Lili settles her cheek against her knees. Warm air, the South of France. She toys with the stem of jasmine. Her nails slightly dent its green skin, leaving imprints.
Later, she gently dislodges a bunch of flowers, the protesting squeak of their stems as she snaps them free, when Amina calls her name from the house, food ready. Upstairs, she puts a few tendrils on her nightstand. She throws out the wine in her glass, fills it with water from the bathroom, tucks in a handful of jasmine, and leaves it in her friends’ bedroom, too, beside Jamie’s nautical maps of the area and Amina’s hand salve. The bouquet looks small, and insignificant, as she closes the door behind her. They will start to dry out by morning—the heat, minimal water—but still carry a heavy, heady scent.
They have dinner in Marseille later that week, a long drive. When they get back to the house, night has fallen. Their car headlights stretch down the white gravel drive, towards the house. Getting out of the car, Amina hums happily. A slight stumble in her step, too much rosé.
Upstairs, Lili checks her laptop, swiping through the news while she brushes her teeth. In her inbox, along with the messages from Eileen she’signoring, there’s an email from Kerr: wishing her a wonderful summer, hoping she’s found time for a holiday, checking in on how her final revision is going, planning for their first meeting of the academic year—let’s get something on the books for the start of September, end of next week—
Lili’s toothbrush stills in her mouth.
September, end of next week.
They’ve been in France for over three weeks—will head home in a few days, a new school year. The final months of her program, and then—what?
She knew this, but it’s still striking: how life really will move on; how this is proven again, and again. Past the car crash, past the self-inflicted cataclysm; on and on it goes, until injuries become bruises, wounds become scars. Things you carry, things you live with.
Could there be something beautiful in that? Eventually? Remaining marks of something once known, now gone?
Because it only feels indifferent, and it only feels cruel, and it only feels ugly, now.
She doesn’t try to sleep much after reading the email. She lies in bed, thinking wordlessly.
Early in the morning, she pulls on a sweater and climbs onto the roof. She smokes, looking over the slope of hills down to the sea. Nature’s nocturnal sounds, calming.
After graduation, she could go anywhere; nothing really ties her to New York, not truly. Her degree is almost done; her future at the farm now floats in the air, another casualty of her actions. Her friendships should last over distance, bonds that should theoretically stretch over continents, time zones, years. She could go anywhere, disassembling her life. It doesn’t feel like there’s much left to it, anyway. It’s a gray, drifting potential.
Dawn breaks, as she smokes and thinks.
She tries to consider it—the roads stretched out from here—but that familiar pull of possibilities, the excitement of all that potential outside of New York—drunk conversations in undergrad, wild dreaming, far-flung locations: Berlin, Mexico City, Melbourne, Stockholm, Hong Kong, all these places people disperse to in their twenties—it isn’t there.
There’s only one place she wants to go.
Lili plays with the lighter.
Flick, and flare, a rasp of metal, a click of flame. Hiss of gas, snap of light.
This ceaseless restlessness, a scratching at the world around her:Let me in, let me out of myself.It feels like it will yield nothing.
It is barely past six. The sun is already rising behind the hills, and a breeze comes off the sea. The scent of coffee spreads through the house; someone else is awake, too. Lili pulls her sweater closer around her shoulders.
Are there places to explore still?
Things she could want?
As sunrise grows stronger: the sound of her own breath.
Just her breath.
