I collapse into child’s pose, and I cry for my mom like a little girl. I dig my forehead into the rubber, and I see the emails, hear them almost, and I see Mom hold a spoon of soup up to Dad’s lips for him to taste and I see Rebecca Chen at the funeral, see her puffy red eyes, and I see the wave, cresting over the beach—

“I don’t know what to do,” I tell her, even though she’s gone.

Do I tell Mae? Do I keep the secret forever? Can I hold this knowledge in me for the rest of my life?

It’s almost like a dream, the way I shove the laptop under my bed and reach for the pills and swallow one of the few I’ve got left with the warm can of Diet Coke on my bedside table. I lie down and wait for the floating and the forgetting and the not-me-ness of the Vicodin. I wait for the wave to wash over me.

In a few minutes, it won’t matter that my dad was a lying, cheating bastard.

In a few minutes, nothing will matter.

I like mail with no surprises, and it seems romantic, in these last few days here, to check our little postbox one last time.

It’s pale green, with orange California poppies painted on it. Mom did that. It sits right at the end of our walkway, peeking over the fence onto the sidewalk like some nosy old broad. Our house is your typical Venice cottage, with a rickety wooden fence and a wild garden and wind chimes and gnomes, so the postbox fits right in. Kind of magical.

As I put my hand on it, I have a sudden urge to just rip the thing out of the ground and take our little friend with me. Carry it on the plane or check it as oversized luggage. This metal box that has always been filled with Yoga Journal and Scientific American and birthday cards from Gram and Papa with embarrassingly big checks inside.

I half expect it to be empty, but it’s not. There’s one thing sitting in the dark. I slip my hand in and pull it out.

I hear a wave.

The postcard is a bit banged up. The picture on the front slightly faded, like it’d been sitting out in the sun too long.

My knees buckle and then my ass is on the cold curb and now the wave is a roar.

Can you hear it? Can you hear the cars and people and houses it sweeps up with it?

My hands shake so hard that I have to put the card on my lap just to look at it properly. I stare at the beautiful cove tucked against low green hills, white sand on the beach. Crystal-clear water.

LANGKAWI: ISLAND OF LEGENDS.