The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

56





WHEN I WALK BACK INTO THE HOUSE, JESSE AND Lynette are setting out steaming plates of tortillas, eggs and beans. Jesse looks at me and smiles.

“You okay, kiddo?” She tucks her hair behind her ear and blows me a kiss. Lynette looks at me with the same face full of love and concern.

I nod. I must look awful. But they don’t know. They don’t know that everything’s going to be okay. I try to give them my most reassuring smile.

Isabel comes barreling into the room. “You’re back! Did they tell you?” She’s brandishing her cell phone.

I look at their faces, now beaming with excitement. “What?”

Isabel grins. “Kendra’s on her way.”

“Really?”

Isabel presses the phone into my hands. I look at the text.




Tell Sam everything’s going to be okay. Tell her I love her.





Tell her thank you.





Jesse moves to snatch the phone from me. “I want to read—”

Isabel grabs it first and catches my eye. She shakes her head almost imperceptibly then flashes a smile at Jesse. When I fail to follow suit, she looks at me with questioning eyes. Lynette and Jesse eye us both suspiciously.

It hits me finally. Isabel and Kendra do know something. In the vision Ahari showed me, I kept my eyes shut, but they both opened theirs and spoke to Mina. I’m suddenly inundated with questions for them, but it’ll have to wait. I settle for flashing Lynette and Jesse a megawatt grin.



The rest of the day passes in cozy anticipation. Jesse ropes me into a game of rummy. Arshan corners me with a pitch about the selling points of GW’s graduate physics program. Lynette braids my hair the way she did when I was little, and tells me funny stories about her students. She delivers a perfunctory rant about how irrational it is for Kendra to come now. But everyone can tell she’s thrilled. Cornell, too. He swept out our rooms and picked some of Ahari’s flowers to fill the vase on our nightstand.

The whole day, anytime Isabel or I walk past, one of the parents reaches out and pats us or hugs us or smiles. Today is a celebration of life, a reminder of how fragile and fleeting and precious it is. But I wish I could tell them. I wish I could tell them about the secrets we uncovered, about how we are more powerful than we know. Maybe one day. One day, I will tell everyone.