When You Were Here

presses her wet cheeks against my T-shirt, and I let her cry into my chest. “I would have saved you, Holland,” I say into her hair. She nods roughly against my chest.
    I touch her hair for a second, then pull away.
    “I know. I know, but I was scared. Besides, you were with Trina then. Even if you weren’t, what was the point? It wasn’t bringing her back. Then your mom got worse, Danny. That was when we all knew she wasn’t going to make it. How could I just add to that?”
    I remember that clearly too. The blunt conversations the doctors had with my mom. Telling her it was time to get her affairs in order.
    “How did my mom know about Sarah, though?”
    “My mom told your mom after Sarah died. You know how they are. They tell each other everything. And the picture—my mom had taken the photo just a couple hours after I had her, and then after Sarah died she said she wanted to give your mom a picture because it would bethe”—Holland stops, looks away for a moment to swallow, then manages the next part—“the only way your mom would ever see one of her grandkids.”
    All the things my mom will never see and never know flash before me. She will never know what I’ll study in college, who I’ll marry, how many kids I’ll have, what I’ll do for a living. She will never learn golf or qualify for a senior discount at the movies. She will never grow old.
    Holland keeps talking.
    “That’s why I hated college. I hated every single thing. I hated that she died. I hated that I hadn’t made a decision soon enough. I hated myself for being so weak, for not being able to tell you, for not being able to save Sarah. And then I came back for the summer, and I couldn’t stay away from you.”
    Despite myself, I manage the smallest of smiles.
    “I couldn’t. I mean, you know what happened! I kept coming over and bringing you food and trimming the flowers and inviting you to lunch. And just showing up. And every time I’d think, This will be the time I tell him . But you were just so broken, understandably, and I just didn’t want to pile on. It felt unfair then to tell you. Like I’d just be getting it off my chest and making a new problem for you. And I didn’t want to do that. It’s not that you couldn’t handle it, Danny. I didn’t want you to have to handle it.”
    “I could have handled it.”
    She places her soft hand on my arm. I tense but then give in to how good it feels to be touched by her. “I know,” she says.“And the reason I know that is because nothing has changed for me. I’m still totally in love with you. I’ve never stopped.”
    She’s doing it again. She’s saying things that make it impossible for me to be mad, impossible for me to resist. I want to wrap my arms around her, pull her next to me, and stroke her hair. I want to plant kisses on her forehead, her cheek, her glorious neck. I want to tell her I miss her so much too that the missing is like its own life force, like a living, breathing organ of fire inside me, and that I would do almost anything to take the pain away from her. But some other force, fueled by the memory of all the hurt she’s caused, is pulling me the other way.
    I am not ready to open myself to the fire again, to the burning of Holland.
    “I’m not ready,” I say to her.
    She nods, taking the punch. “I have more pictures of Sarah if you ever want to see them. They’re not scary or sad. They’re pictures of her all wrapped up and sweet-looking in a little baby blanket or sleeping in my arms when the doctors would let me hold her for five minutes at a time before she went back into her Isolette. Maybe that sounds too weird or depressing. But I’m trying to be open about it now and tell you all the things I never told you before.”
    Baby pictures. This is the real foreign language.
    I look at her next to me here in Tokyo. I’ve always wanted her here with me. But this isn’t exactly how I pictured it. Even so, I need to say the next words to her. “Holland, I don’t agree with you not telling me. But I do understandwhat you’re saying. I do understand why you thought you had to do it that way.”
    Then I move on and ask her where she’s staying.
    “You know my mom has that client in Tokyo?”
    I nod.
    “She’s going to let me stay with her.”
    “How long are you here?”
    She hesitates before she answers. “A week. I’m done with the camp job for now.”
    I want to invite her back to my place, but I just can’t stand the