I know this already because I could smell it on the earth. Jonah has been trying so hard today, like he’s approaching me from every different angle, searching for an entryway. When all I do is think about what he says instead of saying something in return, he tries another path, another topic. My soul, it is a labyrinth, and Jonah, he will find a way in. I have to admire this kind of fortitude, so I throw the poor guy a bone.
“You know,” I tell him, “in Botswana, the word for rain is the same as the word for currency: pula. It rains so rarely that the value of it is immense.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And everybody knows about rain dances, but some cultures did other things to bring on rain for their crops, too. They knew which tribesmen were born during rainstorms, and during droughts they would send those men to wander in the wilderness. Like human good luck charms, searching for rain.”
“You know a lot about rain.”
“I know everything about rain.”
“Because you grew up in Seattle?” Jonah guesses, but I frown. “I can’t imagine the rain all the time.”
“Seattle isn’t even in the top ten rainiest cities. And—I’m telling you—the sunny days, they’re unrivaled. And even when it is gray, it’s still beautiful and it’s still home, and I love it.” I look over at him. “I would think you would understand that.”
He meets my eyes, and I hope he gets what I mean. “Yeah, Viv. I do.”
I know I’m being horrible—snippy and unyielding. Sometimes I can identify facts in my mind, but I can’t feel them. What I mean is, I know that I am not malnourished and I don’t have aggressive cancer. I sleep in a safe, warm bed at night, and I can eat ice-cream cones whenever I want. Even right this minute, I smell the salty ocean and wet sand in the breeze, which ruffles my hair. Cognitively, I recognize my good fortune. But I don’t feel lucky. I want to start my whole life again—like I want to float my soul back up to the cosmos and come down as a different girl, in a different life. Certainly with a different father.
“People have been asking about you,” he says. “Two months in, and you’ve got a whole town wrapped around your finger.”
I snort, thinking of my morning visitor. And the curiosity breaks my usual policy about meeting people’s ghosts for myself. Because Officer Hayashi wears a wedding band, but heartache rises off his skin like heat. “What’s Hayashi’s deal? He’s married, right?”
“Uh. Was. His wife and daughter died in a car accident when I was . . . seven? Eight? His daughter was in college at the time.”
My hand moves to cover my face, and I can barely whisper out the words. “Oh, good God. He lost his family?”
“His son is fine. He’s grown. Has kids, I think. He lives in Portland.”
Maybe I should be thinking that Hayashi had all the right in the world to tell me to deal with what I’ve got. But all I can think is that the world seems so pointlessly sad sometimes—so harrowingly, impossibly, uselessly sad.
I stare down at the ocean, which pools farther offshore but weaves in closer, between the craggy cliffs. To land squarely in the water, you’d need a huge running start and the wind direction working in your favor. A standing hop would plunge you straight into the rocks, but I can think of worse ways to go. It would feel like flying, like soaring, the wind barely resisting you, and you’d die on impact, or so they say. Still, God, the landing. I shudder to think.
“If you were going to kill yourself, how would you do it?”
Jonah is silent for a few moments, and I don’t turn to see his expression because I don’t care—if he’s shocked, if he’s judging me, if he’s offended, I don’t care. “Jesus, Viv. I have no idea. I’ve never thought about it.”
Ugh, of course he hasn’t, noble Jonah and his duty to his family.
“I’m just being hypothetical, Jonah.” Honestly, the sensitivity. Get over it, you know? I don’t appreciate how often people hide their scars and doubts. Really, it’s not fair to people who are struggling, to go on believing that everyone else just has it totally together and never has one bad thought in their lives. Like, I know you people sometimes lie awake at night torturing yourselves over the atrocities in this world and mortality and meaning. I know you’re not just daydreaming about riding a pink pony to your job as a cupcake taster. “Do you believe in heaven?”
I always think I don’t believe in God because I don’t go to church and I don’t care what people do as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. But if that’s true, then why do I mumble to a higher being sometimes? Please help me, I ask sometimes. Or I get angry at some unknowable form in the sky for my lot in life. This isn’t fair, I complain. You are not being fair to me at all. Sometimes I believe in reincarnation and sometimes I believe in the heaven that they tell little kids about, like golden streets and choirs in the clouds and being happy forever. Sometimes I believe in nothing at all because life can be such a wormhole of despair that I have to think we’re on our own.
“I want to,” Jonah says after a while.
“That’s not the same thing.”