Page 136 of Poison Wood

“Well, it’s a start,” Willa says.

“What do you think my diagnosis was at that school?” I say.

“Rita, let that go.” She sips her drink.

Let go. They are the words that ring in my ears at night.

My cell rings, and Willa looks over her sunglasses at me. “Grant?”

I glance at the screen. “My dad.” I swipe it open. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, kid. How are you?”

“Well, Dad,” I say. “I’m not fine.” He laughs. “But I am on a beach with Willa,” I say. She waves. “She says hi.”

“Bring her here so I can meet her,” he says.

“I will.”

“All right, I just wanted to check in,” my dad says.

“I’m safe,” I say.

“I am too,” he says.

“Love you,” I say.

“Love you, too, kid,” he says, and I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Okay, gotta go,” I say before he can say anything else. The last few months I’ve cried more than I have in the last few years. Now it seems those tears are poised and ready at any given moment.

“You okay?” Willa says, glancing at me.

“I’m good.”

“So tell me about the Golden Retriever,” she says.

“Nope. That’s going to take a real piña colada.”

Grant and I have talked some and texted. We are trying to figure out what it is we are, and unlike the way we started, we are taking it slow.

“You know,” Willa says, looking at me. “You and I could make a good team on my new podcast. You could start helping the living.”

“Maybe,” I say.

“Maybe’s better than no.”

She looks out at the ocean, and I follow her gaze. The sun is sinking fast. I want to tell her yes, I’ll do it. I’ll work with her, but death has been a part of my life for so long, I’m not sure how to live without it.

“So now what?” Willa says. “I got you on vacation, but what are you going back to?”

“I’m not sure.”

Like a good friend, she doesn’t push or grill me about my answer. She just lets me sip my shitty alcohol-free drink and watch the sun sink into the ocean.

“How was your last interview with Summer?” she says, her eyes forward.

“Bittersweet.”

“You’re going to miss that, aren’t you?”

I nod. I will miss reporting, but I’ve missed things because of it too. When I go back home, I want to have time with my father. I want to sit and have a meal with him, talk to him. I don’t want to feel the urge to grab my phone and check it for a tip or a call from my boss. My feeling that I’m missing out has shifted from the stories I could report on to the moments I have with my only family. I’m starting to understand thathours, days, months of my life are gone to a job that kept me running for those stories. It’s time to slow down and work on my own story.

And even though the thought of that terrifies me, another part of the story of Pandora’s box comes to mind.

The sun slowly dips below the horizon in an orange-and-pink fury, and the beachgoers around us clap. Without a second thought, I clap along with them.

There was one thing left in that box after Pandora opened it. That’s the thing I’m going to focus on.

Hope.