Until the Day I Die(94)

Ben laughs. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Perry built it for me, but we never actually got around to having a fire in it. It’s a good fire pit. We owed it better.”

“Agreed. It’s a very solid fire pit.” Ben clasps his hands and gazes into it. “I could build a fire, if you want.”

“I can build a fire, too, believe it or not. Among other things.”

“Let’s do it together,” he says.

Ben gathers an armful of pinecones that have escaped the rain, and I pull out a few sticks of starter wood from the stack near the back door. The wood and pinecones catch and blaze up, and we throw a couple of logs on that. We sit there for hours, talking about nothing and everything and watching as the clouds flee the sky, revealing the web of stars above us.





60

SHORIE

After we finish cleaning up the Thanksgiving dishes, Rhys suggests he and I and Dele and Lowell all go for ice cream.

After a mere two days at home on Thanksgiving break, I’m pretty sure Rhys can tell that Gigi is driving me nuts. Since everything happened, she’s traded her conservative Stepford Wife image for this wild new look with au naturel silver buzz-cut hair, giant cuffs, and hemp caftans. She keeps saying, “Girl power!” and trying to high-five me and Mom all the time. I’m happy for her and all, but it’s wearing on my last nerve.

I run up to my room and shoo Foxy Cat, who is, as usual, hunkered down on top of all my important papers. I grab Dad’s Caldwell Creamery punch card, and we all go. Using the last punch, Rhys gets Brownie Chunk. In honor of Dad, I get my free cone. Pralines and Cream.

It’s still misting rain, so most everybody is crammed inside the shop. But we’re outside on one of the soggy picnic tables, licking our cones in the semidark. Dele and Lowell skipped the cones and went straight out to the edge of the parking lot, where now I can see them making out hard-core behind her car.

“So,” Rhys says, wiping his mouth with one of the tiny napkins. He’s watching me closely. “How are you feeling?”

“Brave,” I say. “Determined, happy . . .”

He grins.

“. . . meditative, grateful, open minded.”

“Good. Those are a lot of good words.”

“How are you?” I ask.

“Good. Busy. Dismantling the business hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. I told my mom everything, by the way. She wanted to kill me, but she was glad I told her.” He hesitates. “You want to read it now? Or wait till later?”

“Now, I think.”

I take a few deep, cleansing breaths—in and out, in and out—and open the folded papers I’ve twisted into a baton. It turns out Dad had finished his letter to me after all. Or at least the first draft of one. He’d composed it on his computer and saved it in a random file that Mom hadn’t noticed until just a few days ago. A file labeled SMS—Shorie, my sweet.

And I’m ready for this, I think. Ready as I’ll ever be.

Rhys flicks the flashlight on his phone, aims it at the first page, and I begin to read.





61

PERRY

. . . I’m proud of the father I have been to you, Shor. I think overall, I have been a pretty good one, and I hope you feel the same. One of the things I’ve tried hard to teach you is resilience. Get back up when you fall off the bike. Take another shot in lacrosse. Go all the way back to the very first error message . . . as many times as it takes.

I’m sorry to tell you this, but failure is the best way—sometimes the only way—we learn.

But here’s what I’ve learned from my failures: it’s not about the product, it’s about the build. Jax is a great tool, but it’s just a thing. And a thing will never be the true reward. My reward, what I gained from the past three years, is so much bigger than a little yellow square. My reward was the days and nights, hanging out at the office with you and Mom and Ben and Sabine, playing Ping-Pong and eating cupcakes. Creating something with the people I loved. Teaching you and seeing your eyes light up when you finally got it. It was all about the build.

And now, even after having built the product and accomplished the goal I set out to achieve, I feel sad—because the building days are over. Just like our building days are over, my girl. I’ll miss those days, Shorie, but now the job is done, you’re grown and smart and ready, and it’s time for you to move on.

Do me a favor, will you? Take note of everything. The smell of the classroom, the professor with the heinous tie, the girl sitting next to you with nails painted like a van Gogh. The kid sitting in the back who’s afraid to speak. Write these things down, all of them. You’ll be glad you did.

I’ll keep writing, too, about Jax and Mom and all my boring chores and how much I miss you. And I’ll send you all my crazy Oulipo poems, okay? Maybe I’ll write an epic poem without the letter s, in honor of your absence. At any rate, enjoy college. Learn everything. Make friends. Let yourself fall in love, if that chance comes along. But above all, believe in yourself.

Because sometimes, most times, you will be the only person who can fix the error.

Rest assured, I’ll always be here if you need someone to talk to. My love for you is, in the words of old Will Shakespeare, an ever-fixed mark. It will never alter or bend.

Shorie, my sweet, I will love you until the day I die and all the time that comes after that.