know in my heart of hearts that you already know them all.
Thank you for loving me. Thank you for giving me a daughter who is so much like you, and not just in the way she looks. I know you worry about her, but she’s strong like her mother. And if she has you in her corner believing in her, there’s nothing she won’t be able to accomplish or overcome.
I hope that one day you can forgive me for not fighting harder. Believe me, it was the hardest decision I ever had to make, and I’d be lying if I said there weren’t days that I regretted it. I never wanted to leave you. You are my everything.
And so, my dear, here is one last stolen line from my heart to yours.
“Don’t cry because it’s over,
smile because it happened.”
—Dr. Seuss
xx, Tommy
I read the letter through two times and then a third. My fingers fumble as I reach into my pocket and pull out the piece of heavenly sky I’ve been carrying with me since I took it from the puzzle weeks ago. I rub the piece between my fingers, and suddenly, without a doubt, I know what I have to do.
CeCe was right. It’s what Tommy would have done.
Chapter Sixty
CeCe
I still haven’t read the last note my dad left me. There’s just something about knowing there won’t be another one that makes me want to save it. Once I read it, there won’t be anything else from him for me to read. Ever.
Instead, I’ve been rereading all the notes he ever wrote me, all the ones he left in my lunch box or my backpack. There must be more than a thousand. A lot of them just say little things like “Have a great day!” or “I love you!” but others have silly advice like “Remember—never look a tiger in the eyes” or “Always say please and thank you when a monkey gives you a banana.”
My favorites are the longer ones he wrote every year on my birthday, talking about the things I said or did throughout the year and what he was looking forward to in the year ahead. Thanks to those letters, I know I said my first curse word at three years old, that I rode my bicycle without training wheels at six and baked my first cake at eight.
There’s something special about seeing my life through his eyes. I miss him so much it physically hurts.
I’m rereading the letter he wrote on my tenth birthday when my laptop starts ringing with a Skype call.
I set the letter down and click to accept the call.
“Hey,” Beau says.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he says again and I laugh. He’s the only one who can make me smile these days.
Mom’s been back at work since the day after we got back. I had to break the silent treatment to convince her I’m old enough to stay in the house on my own without a stupid babysitter, but I’m only talking to her on a very limited, need-to basis.
“So how’s it being back?” Beau asks. “Because it sucks here without you.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
“Seriously, how is it?”
“Fine.” I shrug. “I haven’t been doing much. Watching a lot of TV. Cooking. Lou has been emailing me about new recipe ideas and stuff.”
“That’s cool.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“I bet your friends are happy to have you back.”
I shrug again. If I felt like a pariah when everyone found out Dad was sick, I don’t even know how to describe how weird it is now. I’m like a leper. “I haven’t really seen them. The big show for theater camp is next week, so everyone’s busy with rehearsals.”
“Are you going to the show?”
“Why would I?” I ask. “To support my former best friend? She hasn’t reached out to say she’s sorry that my dad died. Probably because she knows that I know she stabbed me in the back by dating the guy that I like. The guy I liked.” I correct myself a little too late.
“The guy you like?”
“The guy I liked,” I repeat. We haven’t talked about whether or not we’re going to try to do the whole long-distance thing yet. But he doesn’t have anything to be worried about. “It’s not even about him. It’s about Sofia. She was my best friend.”
“I thought I was your best friend?”
“Stop, you know you’re different.”
“You look pretty,” he says. I blush, even though I know he’s just trying to change the subject.