Field Notes on Love(72)

How’s SF? she types out, then immediately erases it.

She tries again: I miss you.

But she deletes that too. It doesn’t seem like enough.

What she really wants to say is: You have no idea how much.

And what she really wants to know is: Do you miss me too?

There’s a knock on her bedroom door, and Mae sits up, expecting to see one of her dads, but instead it’s Priyanka who pokes her head in. Mae stares at her for a second, then immediately bursts into tears.

“Whoa, you okay?” Priyanka says, hurrying over to sit on the edge of the bed.

Mae launches herself at her friend, folding Priyanka into the world’s tightest hug. “What are you doing here?” she asks, sitting back again and wiping away the tears with her sleeve. “You’re supposed to be at school.”

    “Nah,” she says. “Pretty sure I’m supposed to be here.”

She kicks off her shoes and crawls into bed, too, and they lay on their sides facing each other, the way they used to do during sleepovers when they were little. Mae thought she was done crying, but a rogue tear slides down her nose. “Can you believe she’s gone?”

“I can’t,” Priyanka says solemnly. “It hasn’t fully sunk in yet.”

“Not for me either.”

“There was nobody like her.”

Mae’s throat goes tight and she swallows hard, suddenly anxious to talk about anything else. “It feels like magic that you’re here. How are you? How’s school? How’s Alex?” But before Priyanka has a chance to answer, Mae lets out a strangled laugh. “Alex!”

“What?” Priyanka asks, giving her a funny look.

“It’s just…I’m only now realizing how brave you guys are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, you’re in love with each other, which is crazy enough,” says Mae, a little wild eyed. “But on top of that, you’re taking this huge leap by staying together in spite of all the time and distance between you. It’s totally bonkers when you think about it. But also really, really brave.”

“What happened to you on that train?” Priyanka says, laughing. “I sent you off insisting that love was like a pizza.”

“That’s the thing,” Mae says with a grin. “It turns out it is.”

Priyanka shakes her head in wonder. “What a difference a week makes.”

    Afterward—once they’ve caught up more about Hugo and Alex and school and the train, once they’ve told a few stories about Nana that made them both cry, and made plans to catch up more tomorrow night—Priyanka heads home to get ready for the funeral.

Alone again, Mae walks over to her closet, riffling through until she finds a simple black dress, the only one she owns. When she pulls it out, she sees that there’s a piece of blue paper pinned to the tag, and even before she reaches for it, she knows somehow that it’s a note from her grandmother.

For a moment, she just stands there, hugging the dress. There are dust motes floating in the light from the window, and the house is quiet all around her, and she closes her eyes. Then she sits down on her bed to read the note.


Dear Mae,


I’m sorry we didn’t get to say goodbye. I know you’re probably angry with me. But you know how when you’re sick or scared, people always tell you to think of something happy? Well, I was thinking of you. Out there on your big adventure.

I hope you loved it. I hope you saw a lot. And I hope you fell for the cute boy on the train. You have one of the brightest hearts I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. Now go out there and let it shine.

Be good. Be brave. Be yourself.

I love you,

Nana



     P.S. Don’t let your pop eat too much bacon. And make sure your dad gets those silly tweed jackets taken out a little. He can’t button them, and we all know he’s never going to lose those last few pounds. And make sure they both come visit you in California. They could use an adventure too. (Who couldn’t?) P.P.S. Wouldn’t it be just like me to write this note and then not die after all? If I forget about it and you find this when you’re home for Thanksgiving and it turns out I’m still kicking, please disregard all of the above and redeem this note for a hug instead.



Mae is still crying when she walks over to the desk to get her camera. And when she turns it on and sets it carefully on a stack of books. She’s still crying when she sits down on the edge of the bed, the black dress—which she’ll need to wear to the funeral in a few short hours—scrunched in her lap like a blanket. It’s only when she begins to speak that the tears finally stop. Her eyes are probably red and her voice is a little shaky, but she doesn’t care. It’s not about how she looks. It’s about the words.

“Once upon a time,” she says, looking straight into the camera, “my grandmother fell in love on a train.” She hesitates, taking a sharp breath. “Fifty years later, so did I.”





Hugo is sitting at the bar of a Mexican restaurant, polishing off a basket of tortilla chips, when he gets the email.

He sent the letter off the night before. It had taken him all day to write, which should probably be embarrassing. But it isn’t. In fact, he’s never been prouder of anything. He left it all on the table, and that was the only thing he could do.