“Good.” He smiles, placing a hand on my shoulder as he looks up at me. “Anytime you want to come back, Boy, you come.”
“Yes, sir.”
He drops his hand, shoves it in his pocket. “Well… Baba said you don’t like goodbyes, so…” He hands me another envelope. “This one is from her.”
I’d driven the same route to the diner every day, sometimes three times a day, but there’s something different about now, something meaningful.
Miss Sandra greets me with her usual, “Your booth’s free, baby, go ahead,” and so I make my way over and sit. The book Lucy had lent me at the start of summer sits on the table, the corners of multiple pages folded and unfolded and folded again. The spine is worn with jagged lines of faded ink, entire paragraphs are highlighted, and on the margins are notes upon notes of everything I’ve felt while I was reading it. I didn’t limit myself to just three words because the story, itself, deserved more.
“Your food won’t be long, hon,” Miss Sandra says, pouring my morning coffee. She leaves to serve another customer and returns only minutes later with my order. “You finally finished reading the book?” she asks, jerking her head toward it.
I lean back in my seat. “Yeah, last night.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s, uh…” I huff out a breath. “It’s about family and loss and friendship and tragedy and love. Young love.”
“Sounds good,” she says, that genuine smile of hers reaching her eyes. “I’ll have to read it sometime. Who wrote it?”
Pride fills my voice, my heart. “My sister.”
I don’t wait to see Miss Sandra’s reaction to the envelope I leave on the table as a tip, because that’s not why I did it. I also don’t tell her that I’m leaving. Because I really, really suck at goodbyes.
I drive past the “Thank You for Visiting” sign and look in the rearview at the Welcome sign, which now reads: Population 199. I imagine first-time parents, immigrants, having a baby, and loving that child more than anything in the world. I picture the father standing behind his wife and his new baby, looking down at them both and thinking, “This. This is the American dream.” And then I pull over and put the truck in park. I take a breath, and then another, feeling Mia’s letter burning a hole in my pocket.
I’d pulled it out at the diner, but it didn’t feel right to open it there, where I was open and exposed and had to control my reaction. I felt it though, the thick paper with sharp corners. I suspected what it was, and when I tear into the envelope, I smile. It’s the photograph of the water tower from back home: our special place, our solace.
I flip it over.
It’s more than three words.
Three adjectives.
Three emotions.
Leo,
God gave you a voice for a reason.
Use it.
Because if you don’t stand for something, then you’ll fall for everything.
I love you,
Mia.
Part Three
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mia
It’s his eyes I notice first, and then everything else, all at once.
Ten minutes ago, the driver of the nationwide car service Dad uses pulled into the driveway of my home. Only it didn’t look like my home, at least not from the outside. Momentarily, I wondered when, or if, I’d ever stop considering this place home. Technically, I lived at the dorms at school, so really, not a home, and I was never at Dad’s apartment in the city, so that didn’t classify, either.
It took a moment for my eyes to capture all the changes. When I left last summer, the only major work that had been done was on the porch. Gone is the faded, worn siding, replaced with new ones the shade of gray I’d selected myself. Two shades darker are the gutters, and both contrasted well against the bright-colored plants surrounding the house.
Papa’s truck was parked in its usual spot between the house and the barn, and as I stepped onto the porch, I took note of how beautiful the new railings were. I didn’t spend too much time looking at them. I knew Papa would want to show me all the hard work Leo put into them.
Leo.
It’s a name, a boy, a memory I try not to think about because just like the notion of “home,” I don’t quite know where to place him in my mind.
And in my heart.
As soon as I stepped foot in the house, I was hit with