They say rubies restore youth and vitality.
I say they lie.
Lila passes away two weeks later.
sapphire
At the funeral, our family comes forward one by one to say a few words.
Dad stands next to the closed casket and reads a letter Lila wrote him when he was eighteen and
living in the States.
“It’s a very short letter,” he says, smiling at the yellowed note in his hand. “She sent it via airmail.”
He swallows a few times. “It says I miss you.”
He holds up the paper. “That’s it, just those three words.”
He turns to the casket and touches it. His silent cry racks his body and his voice comes out warbled.
“I miss you too. I love you.”
Annie sniffs next to me and I squeeze her hand tighter. Jace is on her other side and Annie is
holding his hand too.
But Annie pulls away from us and helps steer Dad to the pew. Jace grabs him into a hug, but his
eyes find mine over Dad’s shoulder.
Annie clears her voice and speaks into the microphone. “For a long while, Lila and I didn’t get
along,” she says. “I pushed her away and refused to acknowledge she was important to my dad.” She
looks over at us, lingering on Dad. “I am sorry for that, and I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate her every day
she was around. She was a clever, funny, intelligent woman, and I wish I had known her longer. None of
us can know what the future will bring. Lila has taught me to love every day, and to love fiercely.”
Jace goes up next but his words aren’t said, they are sung and played on the grand piano set on the
other side of the casket.
It’s U2, because it was her favorite.
The church gives a collective sigh when he finishes. When he doesn’t move from the piano stool, I
wipe my tears and move over to him. I don’t coax him off his stool; I sit next to him and pass him the
stone I brought with me. Sapphire. “It’s her favorite,” I whisper in his ear. He clutches it.
Sitting in front of a sea of black dresses and suits, I pull out my speech and angle the microphone
Jace used.
He’s warm next to me as I flick through my cue cards. I squint but I can’t read what I wrote. I stare
at the mourners and focus on Dad and Annie.
Jace is leaning forward, resting his arms against his thighs, staring at the stone. His tears glisten as
they fall onto the piano keys.
“She wasn’t my mother.” The words leap into the air and burst through the speakers to the far back
of the church, where stained glass windows glow bright red and yellow.
I close my eyes and pray. Today I believe in God. Today I believe Lila can hear me. “You weren’t
my mum,” I say again, “but you were mine too.”
Jace stirs. When I open my eyes, he’s looking right at me. His eyes are bright and he’s trembling.
“It’s true,” he whispers. Though his words are for me, the microphone gifts them to the church.
“What is?” I ask, pushing the microphone away from us.
“This.” He fingers the piano keys and starts playing. The chords choke a cry out of me. The song is
so tender it hurts. It’s as though Jace is holding my soul with his hands and kissing it.
He doesn’t sing this time, just plays, but the words are there anyway.
It’s too much. Everything.
And I—can’t.
Can’t process it.
Abruptly, I leave the piano stool and hurry back to our pew. I want to run out of here. I want to yell
and shake him, but . . . Lila.
For Lila I stay strong.
I stare at my shoes. Stare at her polished casket. Stare into the air as if my next breath will give me
the answers.
I feel Jace watching me but I do not acknowledge the complicated web of feelings. Not in the
church. Not at the cemetery. Not at the wake.
When night falls and the house breathes its first sign of peace, I grab a jacket and head out the back
door. A strong breeze stings my eyes and freeze-dries the tears at my temples and jaw.
I’m no fool. I know Jace is following me. The rustle of foliage and the crunch of his step tells me
he isn’t in a hurry to catch me.
I need to find a rock.
I stop outside our cave, at the edge of the creek. I sit on a flat boulder that rocks like a seesaw. I
filter river stones through my fingers and look for the perfect one.
They’re too big, too small, too chipped, too broken. None are right. None are what I need.
From the corner of my eye, I catch Jace approaching from the path to my side. He sits on the other
side of my boulder, lifting up my side until we balance.
I adjust to the position and continue sifting stones through my fingers.
“It’s true,” he says quietly. The vibrations of his song play inside me, beating out its rhythm on my
heart, in my gut, in my groin.
More stones slip through my fingers.
Jace takes the back of my hand and slowly threads his fingers through mine. Jace dips our hands
into the cool stones until my hand is again full of brown and grey stones. But this time, they don’t slide
through my fingers because Jace’s fingers are there to catch them.
The warmth of his hand under mine sends shivers to my fingertips and toes.
Jace gently brings my hand to his lap. One by one, he picks up the stones and drops them until only
one is left.
Jace traces around the stone, tickling my palm. He stops circling and closes my hand around the
stone. “This,” he says, his voice cracking. “This is it.”
My heart beats harder and I raise my head to look at him. His eyes are swollen from tears and grief
but there’s something else too. Something that glitters. Something that pulls more shivers out of me—
“I love you, Cooper,” he says. “I am in love with you, and I have been since I was fifteen and we
watched the glowworms together.”
I look over his shoulder to the mouth of the cave.
His words draw me back. “The first moment I saw you, I knew my life would never be the same,
though I didn’t know how much until later.”
He shifts enough to bring us closer, and the rock gently rolls. His tender gaze strokes my face.
“You are my rock.” He squeezes my hand the way I squeezed his on the soccer field at Newtown
High. “I wish I’d been brave enough to tell Mum that.” His other hand cups the side of my face. I lean
into it. “But you can bet I’m going to be brave enough from now on.” He leans in and inhales deeply but
stops on the cusp of a kiss. “Do I . . . do we . . . is there a chance for an us?”
“Our story never sank,” I murmur. “The breezes carried it for us.”
“Sorry?”
I turn my head and kiss his palm. “Yes.”
“Yes?” He leaps up from the boulder and pulls me with him. “Yes?”
His sudden, deep laughter echoes in the stone still clasped in my hand. I’m laughing too. I grasp his
wrist and tug him close. His breath catches and the laughter stops but the smile remains in the way he
rakes over my face and lingers at my lips.
“Come,” he says, the words fanning over the side of my face and landing on the sensitive spot at
my ear. “We have something we need to do.”
* * *
Jace unearths the brown envelope from his desk drawer and takes it out to our shared balcony. He
rests it on the railing between us.
The tiny flap at the top of the envelope, where Jace and I tried opening it, winks in the moonlight.
“There’s too much weight between us.” He pulls out a lighter and flicks it on. The flame burns
brightly, dancing orange and blue, twisting to the song of the wind. “But maybe we can make some of it
go away?”
The flame bows and leaps. “You want to burn the truth?”
“No,” he says. “I want to finally live it. I had to travel the world to piece it all together, but the truth
isn’t in this envelope.”