“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to save you, to pull you from the car, or at least be there when you died. I’m sorry I didn’t hug you as hard as I should have at the airport. I should have crushed you. I should have meant it.

“I should have known when you died, and I didn’t, and I’m so, so sorry.”

I’m crying, and I don’t stop when the ground shakes beneath my legs and erupts, ginormous blue whales tearing from the earth, their huge bodies rising around me like fast-growing trees. Dorsal fins and barnacles and rubbery skin covered in tiny hairs brush against me, scraping my elbows and upsweeping my hair as I dissolve into fractured sobs that drown out all the locusts and lake storms in the world.

I pour out my every regret, my every good and sparkling memory mixed with every bitter memory of her death. I let them seep into the ground as whales twist themselves from the soil and take to the sky, floating on a clever wind that has come howling in from the far reaches of Michigan to greet them.

“I’m sorry about the photography. I don’t even know why I love it. I just do. It’s part of me and I’ve been carrying it around like this insidious, awful thing, but Jenna, I think it’s the best part of me and … and …

“I can’t be you,” I say. “I have to choose and I don’t choose your plan and I hope you understand.” I’m crying anew, and my tears taste like the ocean as I am purged by water rather than flame. I force my head to look at her headstone, to trace the lines of her name with my fingertips.

“How am I going to tell your parents, Jenna? I don’t want to hurt them. What am I going to do? Tell me what I should do.” My voice cracks.

I’m still drowning on land when a hand rests on the back of my head. I nearly jump out of my skin, my eyes not quite taking in the long, pale legs before me.

“Mrs. Williams?”

The noise stops—even the crickets—as Trisha Williams strokes the hair back from my damp face, her perfectly manicured nails combing my scalp.

“I can go if you want,” she says. “I stop by sometimes after a long workday, but I can always come back tomorrow if you want some time alone.”

“No.” I wipe my face with my sleeve, hurrying to stand. “No, stay.”

My ears are ringing in the absence of the whale rumpus and tears. All I can hear is the wind, twisting and winding between us and the grave below.

Tell her, Amelia. Jenna’s voice is soft, triumphant. Tell her.