When We Collided(55)

She means: come on, don’t be rude, Jonah drove to Cloverdale for you, he loves you, he isn’t the enemy just because everyone else in the world is the enemy. I don’t feel like putting makeup on, and I don’t care if Jonah sees me bare-branched. Normally, I care a lot, but I don’t have the energy to be his Vivi today, not by a long shot. So let him see that my eyelashes are golden brown and not thick black, that my cheeks are actually fair and not flushed rose. I pick my cotton-ball doggie up so she’s resting on my arm. She seems right at home.

When I appear in the doorway, I can tell Jonah’s taken aback by my nude face because he’s never seen it. He’s not repulsed, I don’t think—just surprised.

I open the door a little more so he can see Sylvia.

“This is Sylvia. Sylvia, meet Jonah.”

“Hey,” he says. His grin makes him look younger, like Isaac. He holds his finger out for Sylvia’s inspection, and she sniffs at him. “She’s so cute.”

“She’s my birthday present from my mom.”

His smile drops away. “How are you?”

This feels weirdly formal, the tables turned—Jonah showing up at my house unannounced instead of me showing up at his. Only Jonah seems to hesitate, like maybe my sadness is too much to surmount. I can’t be his wings, the person who lifts him up from the sad days. I’m hopelessly earthbound, and I’m in no position to save anyone else.

“C’mon,” he says. He holds his hand out to me, palm up. I like a lot of things about Jonah Daniels, and some of those things are very shallow pleasures—his hair, his strong arms, those molten brown eyes. But I really love his hands, which are easy to underappreciate as a feature. Plenty of people have stubby fingers or knobby knuckles or shredded cuticles. You don’t really notice a pair of hands until two really good ones are holding yours. Jonah’s hands are square and tanned and smooth—really great boy hands.

I don’t want to leave my house, but this is Jonah’s allure: he is so handsome and so good, good enough to show up even knowing I might knock him backward with my shrewishness. And I can’t help but put my hand in his.



We let Sylvia romp through the mossy grass on the bluff overhanging the ocean. Behind us, flowering trees shed petals like tears. It’s my favorite spot in all of Verona Cove—the usual scene of my pill disposal—and perhaps the quietest place in this quiet town. But the bluff is noisy if you listen because it’s filled with the sounds of the natural earth. The sky is clear blue, the wind cool as it shushes low through the grass.

“Are you sure she’s okay off a leash?” Jonah asks, ever the conscientious grown-up.

“I’m sure.”

We sit near the edge but not too near, and about a foot apart from each other because I don’t feel like being touched by anyone or anything except the clouds. Jonah tells me about what the littles have been up to; he tells me about the restaurant changes under way, new wall paint and recipes.

“It rained for a few hours earlier this week,” he says, when I haven’t responded to any of his other soliloquys. “The day you were in Berkeley.”

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.”