The Probability of Miracles (26 page)

Captain von Trapp refused to hang the swastika in the front hall. “How silly of me; I meant to
accuse
you,” he said to the creepy Nazi sympathizer. Another of Lily's favorite lines.

It was strange, but Lily felt so close. Closer than she had when she was still on the planet. Cam could practically feel her snuggled up next to her in this bed. And it made her feel safe . . . dare she say, hopeful? And less afraid.

Julie Andrews was teaching Kurt the Austrian folk dance when the Captain cut in.

Maybe if you thought about them, people never really disappeared. It sounded so corny, but there was a scientific explanation for it, too. If you believed that thoughts were energy and energy is matter (
E
=
mc
²
) and matter never disappears, then a person can never truly leave you unless you stop thinking about them. Everything you shared with a person is still there swirling around in the universe. Love, Cam had to admit, might be real. And love endures. Relationships endure. Because thoughts are energy, energy is matter, and matter never disappears.

Cam needed some fresh air.

She stepped out onto her balcony and looked through her telescope. It was almost 11 A.M., so she panned right until she could focus on the gray dock behind the lobster pound where the burly, amber-haired cook, Smitty, was about to take his daily swim. Every day he emerged from the back door of the restaurant in his navy blue swim trunks and held his big furry belly in his hands as he walked to the end of the dock. He dove in, swam to a buoy out in the bay, and swam back. When he hauled himself back out of the water, the belly was essentially gone. He didn't have washboard abs or anything, but he was changed somehow by the water.

She searched for the cemetery. She panned over to the hillside graveyard and scanned the dark gray gravestones that stuck out of the earth like petrified tongues.
Zenobia Drake McClellan 1895–1995
;
Allastair Dubois 1907–2007
;
Amanda Hawthorne 1887–1987
. Almost every one of the beloved sisters, brothers, mothers, and fathers in the Promise cemetery, with the notable exception of
Lisa and Thomas Whittier 1955–1994
, had lived exactly one hundred years.

Maybe this place was a little bizarre. She wouldn't go so far as to say “enchanted,” no. But it was definitely bizarre.

“Mail call!” Perry screamed. She had been given strict instructions to leave Cam alone, so instead of clambering up the stairs as usual, she threw a big package up through the hole of the spiral staircase. It landed with a thud on the top stair.

Cam stared at the plain manila bubble envelope. She didn't recognize the handwriting on the outside.
See
, she thought,
bizarre
. No one was supposed to know where to find her. No one had this address. She tore into the envelope.

A familiar white frame fell out onto the bed. It was the picture of Cam and Lily at St. Jude's. They had been sitting on Lily's bed playing Risk, conquering the world from their hospital room. Alicia asked to take their picture and they bent over the board to hug each other. Clear bags of menacing-looking fluids hung from the IV poles behind them, and their arms were bruised with “tracks” from being poked so many times. Still they smiled. Without their hair, they looked almost like sisters.

Lily had BeDazzled the entire frame with sparkly, silver hearts. She knew how much Cam hated sparkle of any kind, which is exactly why she had done it. Cam smiled. It was the kind of thing you do for someone you love.

Cam ran her finger over the lumpy hearts, stuck to the frame with a glue gun. She exhaled, and it felt like she'd been holding her breath for a very long time.

The next thing she opened was a comic book. Not just any comic book.
Chemosabe and Cueball Take Manhattan
, completely finished by a real comic book illustrator and produced with a glossy Marvel cover.

Cam shook the bubble envelope once more and a final slip of paper fell onto the bed. She immediately recognized the Hello Kitty skull-and-crossbones envelope. Lily's personal stationery. Just seeing Lily's handwriting, which was shakier than usual, on the outside of the envelope was almost too much to bear.

Cam could not open it. She would save that for another time. For now, she lay back on the bed, sinking deep into the comforter, surrounded by her miracle mail.

Cam brought her big yellow Homer bucket to the beach. It was an industrial-size tub that used to be filled with spackle, the kind of bucket some city kids used as drums. She flipped it over and sat on it, pressing the rim deep into the sand. She crossed her legs and stuck her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, pulling it tight around her to shield her from the stiff ocean breeze.

She was getting used to the sand and salt. She liked what it did for her hair, which seemed so thick and glossy now that she'd stopped buzzing it. It had grown quickly, incredibly quickly, reaching just past her chin. Her skin was clean and dry. Not clogged up with the gunk that stuck inside your pores when you lived in the murky humidity of a swamp. Living here meant living in a constant state of exfoliation.

Cam pulled the Flamingo List out of her hoodie pocket. After Lily's death, it seemed appropriate to take inventory of what she'd accomplished in her young, possibly very short, life.

She unfolded it and read her relaxed-at-summer-camp handwriting. The paper flapped lightly in the breeze.

Cam almost laughed out loud. Without even trying, just as Lily's book had said, she had accomplished every pathetic thing on the list.

She didn't know whether to be amused or ashamed. If she had known her list was going to work, maybe she would have aimed a little higher. What would have happened if she had written
Eliminate world hunger
or
Reverse climate change
? She had achieved her goal of becoming a normal, miserable teenager, key word being
miserable
. She was glad Lily had never seen her list.

“Hey.”

Cam jumped. “Oh, my God, someone should put a bell on your collar.”

“I'm sorry. What are you doing?” Asher was wearing rolled-up khakis and a navy blue plaid shirt over a white T-shirt.

“Just sitting here.”

“What's that?” he asked, pointing to the list.

“This is nothing. Just my life's work.” Cam stuffed the list back into her pocket. She could feel her face begin to burn with embarrassment. She hadn't yet had the chance to thank him for saving her life.

“About the other night—” he began.

“Yes. Thank you for that. Thank you so much,” Cam said, for once without sarcasm. A huge sailboat drifted across the bay in front of them. She stared at its white topsail stretched tight against the wind. She couldn't quite look at him yet.

“Don't mention it,” he said. “All in a day's work.”

“For who, a superhero? You're not officially one of those, are you? I mean, the daring rescues, the bat cave. I should have put it all together.” Cam looked down and started boring a channel into the sand with the heel of her foot.

“You scared me, Cam,” Asher said. A lobster boat had chugged across the bay, churning up a wake that reached the shore now. The taller waves fell and splashed loudly against the beach for a minute, and then it quieted down again.

“You didn't actually have to, like, do . . .” Cam started. She really didn't want to finish her sentence.

“Mouth-to-mouth?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Oh, thank God. That would have been gross.”

Asher smiled. He took a deep breath and asked, “You didn't do it because . . .”

“Because of what?”

“Because of what you saw in the parking lot?”

Cam guffawed. She wasn't sure if she'd ever actually guffawed before, but she did now. “No. I don't care what you do in your spare time, Batman. Don't flatter yourself.”

“Because that is just a weird situation. . . .”

“Really. I don't want to know. Nothing you could ever do would make me drive off a cliff.”

“I'm not cliffworthy?” he teased as he picked up a smooth rock, but there was a seriousness in his eyes. He got it to skip five times across the surface of the water. Not up to his usual seven.

“My best friend died of the same disease I have,” Cam said soberly, watching the stone disappear below the water's surface.

There was a pause as they both listened to the crashing waves. “I'm sorry, Cam,” he said, and she finally let herself look him in the eye.

“Still not cliffworthy,” she said.

“Nothing is,” Asher agreed.

“I'm so sorry you had to witness that,” she said, standing up and pulling her bucket seat out of the sand.

“Water under the bridge.”

“Speaking of water,” Cam said. “I need to bring some to Homer.”

She let him carry the bucket this time. He hiked up with the seawater, trying not to let too much of it slosh on to the grass. When they got to the tank, Homer tapped on the glass and clawed desperately upward, as if trying to escape.

“We should release him.”

“Yeah. We should,” Asher said distractedly. “He's lonely here.”

They brought Homer to the beach in his big yellow pail and walked him out to the end of the jetty. The sun was hot, but the breeze was gentle and cool. The waves slamming into the jetty gave off a salty mist that began to soak through their shirts. Cam's sneakers slipped on the wet rocks, but Asher reached out a hand to steady her.

When they made it to the end—the famous spot where James Madison had taken his unicornly plunge—they took Homer out of his pail and held him up in the air, letting him take in the view.

“We should tag him with your Freedom bracelet,” said Cam, her eyes landing on the plastic band at Asher's wrist, “so that fishermen will always set him free.”

“Good idea.” Asher double looped the plastic bracelet around Homer's joint. He held the lobster up so Cam could give him a little kiss before they threw him far out into the bay.

“Freedom!” they both screamed, and it reminded them of the movie
Braveheart
and Mel Gibson before he got so drunk and crazy. They watched Homer spiral through the air like a lobster Frisbee until he smacked onto the surface. Cam thought she saw him float there for a moment before he was swallowed up by the waves.