The Survival Kit (27 page)

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Authors: Donna Freitas

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #Death & Dying, #Love & Romance

BOOK: The Survival Kit

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EPILOGUE

June 4 The Kite

ALL WILL BE WELL

“You made these for Rose?”

Jim’s voice was incredulous, hushed. He watched Will and me tie the last knots, tugging at them to make sure they were tight. Will looked up after we finished. “It was Rose’s idea. I just helped with the construction.”

Jim nodded. If he felt at all like I did, his throat was too tight to speak.

The day was gorgeous, the breeze was warm but steady, the sun a big round yellow ball in the sky, and the waves of the ocean crashed softly in a gentle, uneven rhythm. An occasional cloud puffed by, like a cotton ball torn in two so that it became wispy at one end. Again I pulled hard on each strand of twine. Will knelt down next to me on the blanket, patient, watching as I scooted back and forth checking and rechecking. He placed a hand on my arm. “They’re ready. I promise, Rose.”

I stopped and looked over at him, stared into his deep blue eyes. “Okay,” I said. Then, “Dad,” I called out, my voice carrying on the wind down the beach to where he waited by one of
the lifeguard chairs where Mom set up her blanket and umbrella when we came to this beach as a family during our summers together. Mom loved the beach. She used to say it was practically a prerequisite of being a teacher and the big perk of having summers off. Dad, Jim, and I hadn’t come here once last summer.

But today, for the one-year anniversary, we’d decided to make the trip.

Dad ambled back toward the blanket, his limp almost gone now, his eyes squinting in the bright sun. I handed him his sunglasses. “Thanks,” he said, his voice hoarse, putting them on.

Jim and Dad, Will and I, surveyed the three diamond-shaped kites that lay flat, side by side on the blanket—three splashes of color stretched across thin, flexible spines. Will and I had spent entire afternoons sitting in the back garden, cutting out circles, squiggly lines, hearts, and stars, and sewing them onto the kites’ sails. Then we gave each one a long, flowing tail, tying ribbons that would fly out behind them in the wind.

“They’re beautiful, Rosey,” Jim said, walking from one end of our setup to the other. “Mom would have loved them.”

“I know, right?” I looked up at my brother, shading my eyes from the brightness of the light.

“So which one is mine?” he asked.

“Let Rose pick first,” Dad said. “She made them. She planned this day.”

My eyes shifted from one kite to the next.

“Take your time,” Will said, and I reached my hand out, feeling his fingers weave through mine.

But I’d known from the beginning which kite I’d fly today—the one with the bright green sail, on which I’d carefully sewn a silver star, a red heart, a single musical note, a pink flower, and a yellow crayon. Gathering my courage, I reached for my kite, its willowy tail trailing different shades of blue already taken up by the breeze.

“It’s your turn,” Dad said to Jim, and he immediately went for the bright purple one, leaving the pale blue kite for Dad.

The three of us stood still a moment, the tails of our kites like rainbows reaching toward the ocean. Then we spread out down the beach, moving far enough apart that the three lines of twine wouldn’t tangle.

Will handed me the letter I’d given him to keep for this day.

I threaded the paper with string and tied it to the spine, this letter to Mom, the one I couldn’t bear to write last year at the memorial, the one I was going to send up to her now. When it was attached, I turned to Will. “I’m ready.”

“I know,” he said, and leaned in to kiss me. Then he stepped away.

I watched as my dad moved down the beach, his kite low at first, then higher and higher as he let out more string. Then Jim, moving faster than Dad, sent his kite jumping quickly toward the sky. And now, my turn. I began to walk forward, stumbling in the soft sand, but as I gained a better footing I felt the kite tug
and pull at me in the breeze like a living thing and my steps quickened, and then I let it go.

While it flew up, caught by the wind, I started to run down the beach.

My legs stretched across the sand, my feet leaving prints behind me, carving small hills in the grains. I couldn’t help but imagine that the colorful kite was my mother, dancing and twirling and looping high in the sky, letting the wind take her up and down and hopping across the horizon. I called out to her as I leaped down the beach, my words swallowed by the sounds of the ocean.

Dad and Jim stopped by Mom’s lifeguard chair, pulling on their spools, letting out the line and then yanking it back to make their kites jump, their eyes on the colorful triangles spinning toward heaven. I watched as my kite popped past the sun, and glanced now and again at my dad and my brother, knowing that Will was here, too, keeping me in his sights, his presence helping me maintain the courage I needed for this day, steadying me.

Then I let my imagination go again. I let myself believe that somehow my mother and I were connected by this string in my hands. That she would know the words I’d written and let go into the sky, that she could hear me call out to her. That she was with me today on this beach where we used to fly kites together. That she was here in the joyous playfulness of this day with my family, a playfulness that we inherited from her, that she gave to us and to so many others during her life.

This is what I imagined as I watched my kite, my beautiful kite, with its heart, its star and crayon, its note and flower glowing from the light of the sun behind it. I felt love and grief and joy and all the emotions in between, letting my weathered broken heart knit itself back together again as I said goodbye to my mother.

Our imaginations are such gifts, she used to say.

So I thanked her for mine.

ROSE MADISON’S PLAYLIST

1.
“Can’t Go Back Now” by the Weepies

2.
“About a Girl” by The Academy Is …

3.
“My Best Friend” by Weezer

4.
“How to Save a Life” by the Fray

5.
“Precious Things” by Tori Amos

6.
“All at Sea” by Jamie Cullum

7.
“Nice Guy” by the Animators

8.
“How It Ends” by Mike Errico

9.
“Over You” by Echo & the Bunnymen

10.
“Fan of Your Eyes” by Tim Blane

11.
“Can You Tell” by Ra Ra Riot

12.
“Between the Lines” by Sara Bareilles

13.
“One of Those Days” by Joshua Radin

14.
“Hockey Week” by the Zambonis

15.
“My Baby Just Cares for Me” by Nina Simone

16.
“Energy” by The Apples in Stereo

17.
“Take It Home” by the White Tie Affair

18.
“I Stand Corrected” by Vampire Weekend

19.
“Bottle It Up” by Sara Bareilles

20.
“Private Conversation” by Lyle Lovett

21.
“Blue Christmas” by Elvis Presley

22.
“Are We Friends or Lovers” by the Zutons

23.
“Family Tree” by Julian Velard

24.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey

25.
“The Heart of Life” by John Mayer

26.
“Hard to Explain” by the Strokes

27.
“Colorful” by Rocco De Luca & the Burden

28.
“Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet

29.
“My Heart” by Lizz Wright

30.
“Last Nite” by the Strokes

31.
“Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

32.
“Been a Long Day” by Rosi Golan

33.
“Not Your Year” by the Weepies

34.
“Better” by Toby Lightman

35.
“Everybody” by Madonna

36.
“Kind and Generous” by Natalie Merchant

37.
“Stars” by the Weepies

38.
“Midnight Blue” by Lou Gramm

39.
“Dreams” by Van Halen

40.
“All Will Be Well” by the Gabe Dixon Band

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, wonderful friends who are also wonderful writers and readers have been indispensable to the existence of this book, most especially Marie Rutkoski, Daphne Grab, Eliot Schrefer, Betsy Bird, Rebecca Stead, and Jill Santopolo. Thank you to Beth Adams and Nicci Hubert for being the eternal cheerleaders for my writing projects; to everyone at FSG and Macmillan, especially Frances Foster, Simon Boughton, and Susan Dobinick; to my amazing agent, Miriam Altshuler; and to my husband, Josh Dodes—I am grateful to you all.

And, Dad, thank you for weathering the difficult and the sad and finding your way to a third act, and, Mom, of course, thank you for having a wild imagination—I wish you could have read this.

ALSO BY DONNA FREITAS

The Possibilities of Sainthood

This Gorgeous Game

macteenbooks.com

eISBN 9781466800045

First eBook Edition : August 2011

First edition, 2011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Freitas, Donna.

The Survival Kit / Donna Freitas.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: After her mother dies, sixteen-year-old Rose works through her grief by finding meaning in a survival kit that her mother left behind.