The Loose Ends List(59)

Silence.

Why aren’t they talking? Was I too bitchy? Is there a virginity stain on my shorts?

They look at Enzo.

“Am I missing something?” I say.

“I’ve decided to join you on the ship awhile longer,” Enzo says. “I wanted to surprise you, but I had to make sure Astrid was okay with it.”

“Are you joking?”

“Nope. Not joking. Want to come help me pack?”

We don’t wait for the creepy tomb tour. We fly through the city, hand in hand, high on sex and anticipation. Not far from the banks of the Tiber River, we stop at a carousel, the old kind that has probably inspired thousands of love stories. The breeze. The boy. The smell of popcorn. The sound of a carousel song. We circle and circle.





EIGHTEEN


WE’RE TWO HOURS away from Taipei, Taiwan. Right before we boarded the chartered jet, I texted Paige: Never have I ever lost my virginity to Enzo Ivanhoe in a park in Rome (and liked it very much). She texted back immediately: OH MY JELLY BEANS!!!!!!!

Gram loves that Enzo is with us. She thinks he’ll add a healthy dash of young man testosterone to the mix. I tell her to keep her knobby hands off him. I don’t know exactly how Dad feels about the boyfriend travel companion. He can’t mind all that much, since he spent the first three hours of the trip comparing Egyptian and Roman burial techniques with Enzo while I played UNO with Wes and Aunt Rose.

“Do you believe in life after death?” I ask.

Enzo and I are snuggled under a blanket on cushy reclining seats.

“Life after death? Yes.”

“So sure?”

“Yes. I don’t know about the heaven-hell religious stuff. That could be true.” He shrugs. “I just know the stuff that’s happened to me since Dad died.”

“What stuff?”

“I’ll only tell you if you can be open-minded. If you think it’s rubbish, it’ll piss me off.”

“Okay, okay. I promise.” I wrap my pinkie around his.

“So remember how I told you I used to watch TV with Dad and give him his tea? One day, it was springtime and kind of cold, but we opened all the windows to get Dad some fresh air. We both dozed off and woke to thousands of ladybirds in the house.”

“That’s terrifying. How did you know they were lady birds?” I’m picturing some freakish female bird mating ritual.

“The spots. How do you not know a ladybird?”

“Oh. You mean ladybugs. Okay. I get it.”

“Yes. We say ladybirds. So I saw the swarm of bugs and screamed and jumped around. Dad laughed for a long time. I had to usher all the little beasts out of the house, but it was quite funny. Anyway, I was devastated after we lost Dad. I was ten years old, and I had lost my idol. Everything in the house reminded me of him, so I would sit on the front step every day. One day I was on the step and a ladybird landed on my knee. It kept me company for the best part of an hour. I knew it was a sign from Dad.”

“How?”

“I can’t explain it, but I just knew. They started showing up in the strangest places. One landed on the end of my toothbrush. One landed on the cheek of a girl I was kissing.” He sees my face change. “I mean, it was a long time ago. One even flew onto my exam paper last year. I’m telling you, Maddie, the dead like to mess with you.”

I don’t want to know he kissed a girl. I snap myself back into the moment.

“In some weird way, this is comforting to me,” I say. “Like Gram and I joked that she would come to me in the form of a chipmunk.”

“Chipmunk, huh? I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a chipmunk.”

“They look a little like the moles in Whac-A-Mole, only spotted. Like ladybirds.”

He laughs and takes a sip of tea. “There’s other stuff,” he says.

“Like what?”

“Like the dreams. The Wishwell used to trigger awful dreams, awful memories. I needed to get distance from that ship for a while.” He exhales deeply. “But now when I have the dreams, they’re visions of our holidays in Tuscany, and Granddad with his pet canary, and Dad grinning.”

“Maybe heaven is another dimension, and our dreams are a portal.” I sound like Rachel’s friends.

“Sometimes it sort of feels that way,” Enzo says, running his finger over the sapphire. I’ve decided to wear it for safekeeping. “Anyway, that was a long answer to your question. How about you? Do you believe in life after death?”

I shift in my seat and pause for a few seconds, distracted by the loud poker game behind us.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that one.”

“Fair enough.”



Taipei, Taiwan, in the summer is hot, crowded, and as far from Connecticut as we could possibly get.

This leg of the trip has been the most mysterious of all. We know we’re not here for long, because we’re meeting the Wishwell tomorrow. But only Gram knows why we’re here.

Gram asks the bus driver to show us some sites. The bus meanders through streets packed with cars and mopeds. Everywhere we go, we see the same building, about a thousand stories higher than all the other buildings, sticking up like a steel temple. I’m just grateful I don’t have to find my way around, since I can’t read one single street sign.