Page 58 of A Perfect Disaster

“So not everything’s okay,” she says, drawing a small smile from me. “Because you only miss my hugs when the world feels too big for you to carry on your own.”

I don’t answer because I don’t want to cry. Although I end up doing it anyway. The first tear falls without asking permission, then another, and then comes that choppy, absurd breathing that I hate because it turns me back into little Maika, who used to run to hide her face in her lap.

“It’s just… the day has been absolute madness. In Rome, a passenger in my group fainted, and I had no way to contact the port until quite a while later. Then I had to drag twenty-four people to the station and make it to the pier with the last-call alarms blaring…”

“Oh my goodness,” she exclaims, and I can almost see her clutching her chest.

“Yeah. ‘My goodness’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” I admit with a sad smile.

“And did you make it to the ship on time?”

“Yes… We barely escaped a hefty fine.”

“Then you did well, my girl. Very well.”

That phrase, so simple and so necessary, envelops me in warmth. It’s so different from everything I’ve heard from Helen that I need to cover my eyes with one hand to hold back the flood of emotions washing over me.

“That’s exactly what I needed to hear,” I confess.

“Well, I’ll say it again: you did well, my dear. I’m proud of you.” She hears me crying and I hear her sigh. “Breathe with me, like when you were little and you’d get upset because you couldn’t tie your shoes on the first try.”

“Now I know how to tie them perfectly,” I joke through my tears.

“Yes, but you’re still just as stubborn.”

“I got that from you.”

“And I’m proud of it,” she replies with a little laugh.

I burst out laughing through my tears. I need her so much that it physically hurts not to have her with me right now.

“Grandma, I’m tired,” I finally admit.

“I know.”

“Not just because of today. I’m tired of everything. Of constantly having to prove that I’m good enough for the job, that I can handle any crisis, that I’m not just the funny one on the entertainment team. Sometimes I wish someone would look me in the eye and say, ‘That’s it, you can let it all go, I’ve got this.’”

“And does that person have a name?” she asks with that sharp intuition of hers.

The wind slips between us, whistling against the ship’s structures.

“Helen,” I murmur, almost snatching the word from the air.

“Ah,” she says simply.

“Don’t say ‘ah’ like that, Grandma.”

“How do you want me to say it, then?”

Now, I can’t help but burst out laughing.

“She’s an unbearable woman, but I love her…”

I rest my hip against the railing and gaze toward the dark horizon, where the sea and the sky merge into a single line that isn’t quite black.

“The truth is, we’re really drawn to each other…” I add, almost smiling. “We understand each other perfectly when we work together in an emergency, but we also hurt each other. It’s like dancing with someone who’s constantly stepping on your toes, but just when you decide to let go, you realize that no one else keeps the same rhythm as you.”

“That’s really beautiful, you know?” she remarks.