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Christmas Day was a quiet day for us despite the sea and sky blazing a hot extravaganza of blue.

I tried not to wonder what Declan was doing. With his family, probably. Was he thinking of me? Did he have any regrets? I pushed all those thoughts away because I wanted to enjoy the here and now.

Mum, Dad, and I wanted to be together, the three of us. After a fish dinner with new potatoes and salad from the garden, we lounged on the sofas. Dad and I talked about the next mystery we were reading. It was time to say what I’d wanted to say for days. I sat beside him and took his hand.

“Dad, I want to say, I love you so much, and I’m sorry that it took you having a heart attack and almost dying for me to say it out loud like that.

” My eyes welled with tears. I’d learned not to hold them back.

“I want us to be closer. I know neither of us is that good at saying it—we’re alike in that—but I want to say what I love and admire about you.

I love how you have such good friends, and you’re so kind to them, and they’re so good to you.

That’s one thing I want to change about myself.

I want to be better to the friends I have.

I love talking books with you, but I also want to talk about real things.

I know that makes us both uncomfortable, but can we try? ”

Dad’s eyes pooled with tears as I spoke, and he sniffed. Mum squeezed my other hand.

“That’s beautiful, honey,” he said. “I know I’m not good at this. But I want to try too. I wasn’t brought up to be open, but I want to learn. My brain’s all fuzzy because of these meds. Can I text you some things when I think of them?”

“’Course you can, Dad.” This was a start. I was disappointed that he couldn’t tell me face-to-face like I had for him. But it was a big change.

I was taking the rubbish out later when I saw his text, even though he was in the next room.

Dad: Isla, you are the best daughter a father could have.

I want to get well so we can go pipi-ing like we used to when you were small.

And to the library and check out armfuls of books and talk about those books on the way home.

(Maybe we can even buy a sneaky bar of chocolate like we used to.) But also talk about things that are troubling us.

Things that made us happy that day. Well, that’s easy for me today.

Seeing you has made me happy. So, as you can see, I’m not that great with words.

I’m better at reading than I am at writing. LAL.

Me: Oh, Dad. You’re better at writing than you think.

*

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I wandered out to the courtyard, the half-moon hanging over the back bush.

I missed Declan so much it felt like the pain would never end.

I still wanted a chance with him, but he seemed firm in his decision when he left, even though he’d spoken about being unhappy and unfulfilled in his job before.

The aching was bone-deep, liquefied into my veins.

I was desperate for some respite, some hope.

I breathed in the lemonwood and listened for the rustle of tūīs.

I had to think about good things. How CeeCee had said that whatever happened, a weight had been lifted from her heart.

How lucky I was to have a second chance with all these people seeing me off at the airport tomorrow morning—Mum, Dad, Rosemary, Kui, Bevan, Rina, Fleur, and Mr.Saunders.

How I knew this town well enough that I could trace the lemons in tonight’s cake, which had been swapped for avocados, which had been traded for fresh fish, which was a thank-you for succulent cuttings.

How I could be hopeless at sports but great at surfing. And hiking, it seemed.

There were vast, mystical things—just as Snow molded seamlessly into the ocean, Kingi was absorbed into the forest like a vital layer of the canopy. How the sea and the mountains still seemed immense and unknowable but wonderful too.

Snow belonged in the sea; Kingi to the mountains.

Unlike Kingi and Snow, I didn’t belong to one place or another or even to one country.

But I no longer felt unmoored. I’d untangled the wild chaos of my heart and mind, which had led me to wrongness and complication.

Finally, I was free to feel the steady pulse of myself, free to live the messy wonder of the world without this desperation to rigidly judge and define it.

But, still, how would I ever get over Declan? I couldn’t imagine a time when I would.