The Summer We Came to Life (21 page)

“SWIM, SAMANTHA,” I HEAR MINA SAY.

But my body is a mangled bicycle, thudding against the ocean floor. I can't swim.

“Swim, Sammy. The world is waiting for you.”

I try but I can't. The water is too strong. It's too deep. My heart's going to pop like a water balloon.

“Swim, Samantha. Ahari's coming for you.”

 

I open my eyes and punch the sea in the face.

Then five dark fingers wrap around my wrist and my arm snaps out of view, yanked along under Ahari's shadow as if I'm grasping the tail of a black stallion. My eyes clamp shut again against the sting, but make no mistake—my body is sailing upward, slicing through the sea.

Up. Up. Up to a waiting world.

“IS SHE ALIVE?”

Lynette's scream pierces my ears. Everything hurts. The sudden sensation of being alive slams into me. Saltwater scorches my throat. My eyelids grind together like mismatched gears. As my body is transferred from one set of arms into another, my feet plant in the slushy sand and water falls from me in sheets.

“Samantha?” Lynette cradles me in her grip. She kisses my forehead and pets my face with abrasive hands. My eyes blink open and the light is blinding. But this light has limits, and it turns to sky, a sky that holds Lynette's anguished face and Ahari's searing gaze. When my eyes catch his, his dark eyes narrow, but then he nods and leaves. I wish he would come back.

“Oh my God, oh my God. Hi baby. Hi sugar.” Lynette crushes me against her chest. “Oh my God, Sammy, I thought—”

“Lynette, honey, let's get her out of here.” That was
Cornell. Cornell lifts me by my armpits and half drags, half carries me out of the ocean. My senses aren't working right. Everything swirls and echoes. Blue sky. The house in the distance. My feet stumbling over the sand.

But other images flash before me, too. The dock, Kendra's bloody foot, Isabel sinking in the dark water—slivers of visions slip through my fingers as if I'm scaling a mountain turned to sand. I can't get a grip on what's happening.

Isabel! Isabel's laid out on the ground, crying, with Arshan and Jesse huddled above her.

I did it. I'm here. Isabel is here. But—

The ocean roars in defeat at my back. I am crying, too, I realize. Deep, racking cries.

Time turned back. A second chance. For Isabel. For Kendra. For me.

But something went wrong.

THEY LIE ME ON THE SAND NEXT TO ISABEL, who immediately envelops me in her skinny arms. I feel the gritty warmth of her skin press against mine, the rapid beating of her heart and the frantic grip of her fingers. For a second, I let myself disappear in her overpowering gratitude to be alive. Just for a second.

“Where's Mina?” My voice doesn't sound like me. It is strangled and scratched, wind forced through a broken reed.

Isabel pulls back and cradles my cheek, her brow knotted in worry.

I sit up too fast. The world around me reels, tips off keel. I teeter to my feet anyway.
“Where is she?”

Brimming with fury, I lurch back toward the ocean. My burning eyes make it painful to look at the bleached sand. An empty beach. Beyond the huddle around Isabel, I am alone on an empty beach before a mocking sea. What went wrong? What did I do wrong, Mina? I make it to the edge of the waves and my sobs pull me to the ground. I am flooded
with failure, with emptiness, and remorse. Yes, I am alive. Miraculously, I am alive in a beautiful world. But it's a world without my best friend.

 

Featherlight fingertips touch my shoulder.

“Sam?”

I turn reluctantly to face Isabel. The others wait a few feet behind her, every face etched with worry. I'm scaring the hell out of them. Again. Isabel squeezes my shoulder to get my attention.

“She's gone. Mina's gone. But Sammy—we're alive!” Isabel looks over her shoulder at the others.

When she turns back, I get the sense she wants to say more, but she catches herself.

Lynette raises a hand to her lips and chokes back tears. Cornell pulls her to him. Jesse's mouth is open, in shock, watching me, unsure what to do. Arshan's frown says he's scared, too. I look at them and then back at Isabel. I need time to think. I need to be alone. I reach up and pat Isabel's hand. I stand up slowly and breathe in the salty air. With every body staring expectantly, I turn to Lynette and Jesse.

“I'm starving!”

Everyone lets out a collective sigh of relief. Arshan grins. Lynette giggles, grateful, and Cornell hugs her tighter.

Jesse sidles over and slings her arms around my and Isabel's shoulders. “You heard the woman. Let's get these survivors somethin' to eat!”

KENDRA'S HEAD SPRINGS UP FROM HER BED LIKE a punching clown. Her breath stabs the stuffy air in her bedroom, thundering over Michael's lazy snores. She's panting, gripping the sheets in fists on either side of her bent knees. Life courses through her body—pumping, sweating, rushing life—and she braces herself to take it all in.

Was it a dream?
But she saw it. She could still see it, taste it, hear it—Isabel sinking through the midnight blue water. Sheets soaked in blood. The vision of the dock, Mina's hair whipping in the wind. Kendra remembers the expanse of endless light. And Mina's voice, like a song in a snowstorm: Take care of each other, she said.
I'll be watching.

Kendra pounces out of bed and skitters barefoot to the living room. She has her cell phone in one hand and Mina's clover leaf in the other when she stops short.

She's listening to Michael's measured breathing. She looks at the date on her phone. Saturday. The Saturday morn
ing Isabel and I drowned. Two days before her scheduled appointment.

How could—

The phone and clover leaf clatter to the floor.

Kendra puts both hands on her belly and sinks to her knees.

JESSE WON'T LET ISABEL OUT OF HER SIGHT. SHE steers her daughter into the kitchen to help with the cooking, finding every excuse to touch her, as if she's convincing herself her daughter's real. I watch them from the back of the room, while Lynette makes me lemonade and brings it to me with a look of concern and comfort. I take the glass and excuse myself to the palm grove.

“Let her go,” Cornell says when he sees Isabel and Lynette about to protest.

 

I drag my hands along the rough bark of one trunk after another, feeling them scratch and tear the skin of my palm. My head is so full of conflicting thoughts and emotions, I can hardly pin any one down. I feel like life is speeding forward, carrying me along without my consent, the way a mother tugs at a toddler. I just want a second of clarity. I can't help but feel angry that life is moving forward without Mina so easily.

It's not their fault. For everyone else, Mina died six months ago. They know nothing of the dock. And it's not as if I'm not grateful to be alive. I am. The beauty of the world isn't escaping me. It surrounds and caresses me. The warmth, the swishing of the palms, the powdery sand between my toes—all so beautiful beyond words. But everything is tinged with failure. Because for me, Mina didn't die six months ago. She died just now, and this time it's worse. This time it's my fault.

What went wrong? Did I believe her somehow less alive than myself? Did I envision this world without her? I look at the light streaming through the palm fronds.
Well, I hate it, Mina, this world without you. Tell me how to go back and make it right.

“Hey—Samantha!”

I must have jumped about ten feet at the sound of Arshan's voice. He's rushing through the palm trees toward me, brandishing something shiny in his hands. When he reaches me, I see what it is. Mina's journal. My heart starts to pound.

Arshan's out of breath. Now when he catches my eye, he looks embarrassed. “It's the strangest thing. I just found this in my bathroom. I—” He looks away. “I read some of it.”

Mina wants him to read it
. Is she watching? I glance around. “It's okay. We—I want you to read it.” A thought comes to me. “I have some questions to ask you about physics.”

“A lot of this stuff—” Arshan looks abashed again. “It's a little out of my realm.”

I can't help but smile. “I think it's out of everybody's realm.”

“But what I meant—well, when I lost my wife, I so desperately wanted to hold on to her. There were moments when I swore I could hear her—” He listens for a moment to the wind in the palms and then looks past me at the sea.

I think about the story of Mina's mother and brother. I would like to hear it again. And the others should hear it, too. “Maybe you can tell us the story of Maliheh one day.”

Arshan startles at the sound of her name. He looks at me searchingly then down at the journal. He presses it to his chest with both hands and gives me a nod. His eyes fix on the house, but he is looking at the window of Jesse's room. When he turns to face me again, his eyes are smiling. “Yes, I think I could do that now. It's a very sad story. But it was such a long time ago.” He squeezes the journal tighter. “I wish I had told Mina.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. I don't know what to say.
What would he believe? What would make him happy?

Arshan nods again and turns to leave. I watch him as he makes his way back to the house before resuming my walk to the beach.
What is Mina trying to tell me? Where is she? Why can't I hear her?

I reach the gate and nearly trip over Ahari. He's obviously been watching me the whole time. He's smiling, which irritates me. But then I realize I haven't thanked him for swimming in to save me.

It's funny—the way the morning sun shines behind him, he looks like an angel in a chapel oil painting, like the light is pouring forth from
him
. He motions for me to follow him. I don't want to. My head is still reeling, combing the universe for answers about Mina, but I feel myself step into the warm sunlight and follow him along the fence until we reach a small garden. He kneels down beside a patch of citrus-colored flowers. He studies me as I kneel beside him. His skin is smooth and shiny. He looks much younger than I originally thought. A smile lights his face as if he heard me. He places a thumb on my forehead between my eyes and traces it down along the bridge of my nose. It occurs to me that I should find this strange, but it feels completely nonthreatening. It
feels like the touch of a feather, like a blessing. I instinctively close my eyes. I feel him take my hand and place something light and ticklish in my palm. When I look, I see a tiny yellow blossom. I marvel at its perfection as if I've never seen a flower before. Like looking at it through a microscope, I suddenly see all its properties in perfect balance, an expression of fate and harmony and oneness. As I study it, the tiny flower turns from yellow to pink and then to orange, each change in hue the progression of a sunset. I gasp and Ahari's laugh echoes off the clouds.

“Ahari,” he says.

I look up and his eyes are unblinking, clear.
Ahari.

Suddenly I understand. “Your name means angel. Guarding angel.”
A guardian angel.

I look at the flower in my hand. I will it to change color. Purple. Purple. Purple. Purple, dammit.

Ahari laughs again and the flower turns as red as a rose on Valentine's Day. An angel with a mean sense of humor. Ahari lifts my chin with his fingers. He brings my eyes to his and I feel as if I am filling up with light. The sensation scares me, but, no, wait, it isn't light. It's thought. Or instructions. Or questions? He knows what I did somehow. He is
curious
, for lack of a better word. He seems to be screening me, listening.

Finally, he smiles with amusement and affection. It's so hauntingly familiar, it reminds me of—

He takes his hand away and the sensation of connection passes.

Suddenly I'm freezing cold in the absence of that feeling. My thoughts turn back to Mina and tears spring to my eyes helplessly. The beauty of the flower shrivels in my heart.

Ahari's face turns serious, as if he's listening to my thoughts again. Then his face fills with pity. He encircles my
wrists with hands that are warm and smooth, as he rotates my palms to face the sky. Then he brushes a hand over my eyes to close them. A moment later, I sense his palms hovering just above mine. The buzz I feel is a vibration, the fuzzy hum of a generator.

When his palms make contact with mine, a jolt of lightning courses through me and I feel like I'm shooting into the sky faster than a rocket. I'm speeding through space with wind whipping along my face, my shoulders, down the length of my body. I want to open my eyes, but somehow I know not to. As I careen forward facefirst, I feel Ahari's palms pressed solidly into mine.

And then it stops. All motion stops and—

I open my eyes. We're back in the light. I look into Ahari's eyes and he looks back reassuringly, then nods over my shoulder.

When I turn around I see four girls holding hands in a circle. It's Isabel in a white dress, Kendra with a crown of braids, and me, all three of us with our eyes squeezed shut.

And Mina. Mina is standing in her sunflower dress smiling at me. But now a different look washes over Mina's face. A fleeting sadness, mixed with determination. She closes her eyes.

As I watch the four girls, the light around them shimmers and the strangest thing occurs. Suddenly we are little girls again, around the age we met. And as we hover in the light with our eyes shut, each one of us flashes through a million different incarnations in the span of an instant, too fast for me to make it out as more than a wild blur of jittery change.

But then I understand. Every moment of our lives is washing over us. Wounds appear and heal, leaving scars on knees, elbows and cheeks. Our bodies shed a childish roundness as we grow taller and slimmer and then grow curves in puberty. I watch in awe as my childhood self morphs ever closer to
adulthood. As I watch the years of teenage awkwardness fall away to the heydays of our twenties, I marvel and smile.

Then something happens. Mina stumbles. Or rather, she appears to freeze. She opens her eyes and stands perfectly still in her sunflower sundress.

But the rest of us are still changing. Kendra's belly swells and deflates. Isabel's hair is shorn and grows long again.

Mina watches as we flip from ball gowns to business suits and empire-waist dresses. I gasp when I see Kendra's belly swell again, this time in sync with mine. Not long after, Isabel's the one wearing a blur of maternity dresses. Then suddenly we're looking older. Kendra fills out around the hips and I look like I could use a little gym time myself.

As Mina watches in her pristine sundress, we speed away from her in time—our hair showing the first wisps of gray, our bodies flattening and rounding—until I see three old wrinkled women holding hands with beautiful, young Mina.

Kendra opens her eyes first, and Mina's ready for her. She lets go of Kendra's hand and puts a hand to her cheek. She whispers some words I can't hear and Kendra's eyes fill with tears. Mina continues to speak and caress Kendra's withered cheek. Finally, Kendra nods with the faintest trace of a smile. Then she fades away.

Mina steps into the gap Kendra leaves behind and stands watching Isabel intently. Isabel's shoulders stoop, her hair thins and then her still-piercing turquoise eyes open to meet Mina's. Mina repeats her actions with Kendra, consoling Isabel and saying her goodbyes. Isabel bites her lip. Mina wraps her arms around her until she is holding only empty light.

Now it is just Mina holding the hand of an old woman wearing a ridiculous green hat over dyed red hair. It's me, my eyes still squeezed shut. Mina chuckles and reaches out like she will touch my face. But she stops herself. She's
apprehensive and proud, as if she's watching a toddler take her first steps. Finally, Mina takes up both my hands and kisses them with the softness of a flower blossom.

“Thank you, Sammy. For saving us all,” she whispers as my timeworn self shimmers and fades into nothing.

Now Mina cries. Alone in the light, she wraps her arms around her bare shoulders and weeps the way one only weeps when there's no one to hear. I ache for her to see me. I shout her name, ready to give up anything to go back and stay with her on the dock.

But she doesn't hear me. She straightens up and drops her arms to her sides, smoothes down her sundress. She's no longer crying and she lifts her chin as if to prove it. She is waiting.

Then there is a shimmer of light and a woman walks toward Mina. For a moment, I mistake her for a child, and not just because of her small stature. Her every movement speaks of joy, just like a youngster. I recognize her now from Arshan's story, from the photo on top of his piano. She is every bit as stunning as he remembers.

The woman puts a finger under Mina's chin so that their eyes meet. Then she wraps her arms around her daughter and rocks her back and forth in the light.

 

I'm falling down an elevator shaft. I squeeze shut my eyes as the light dims to gray and I sink feetfirst as if to the bottom of the ocean. Then I realize that I am sitting in the sand next to a flower garden.

“Thank you,” I say even before I open my eyes.

But Ahari is gone. In each of my upturned palms is a purple flower. I look around. The ocean is all I hear. I can feel the sun from the beach and nothing else.

“Goodbye, Mina,” I say, and gently lay the purple flowers on the sand.

December 25
Mina

This is it, Sam. I'm sorry it has to come so soon.

I have just one last thing to say, but I don't want you to take it the wrong way. I understand everything we've said. I get that there is no hope if we don't believe in our promises, in our pact. I believe in you like no one else on earth. I know if there is a way, you will find it.

But I wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't tell you the truth. And the truth is the world will be fine without me.

I'm not saying to give up without one hell of a fight. But if ever there is a point where pain overshadows the joy in your life, you leave me be, Sammy. You hear me? You close your eyes and remember all our good times. But when you open them, you see the beauty around you, and all the good times to come.

 

You are going to have a long and happy life, Samantha Wheland. I will make sure of that, if it's the last thing I do.