He lifted her hair and kissed the nape of her neck. “You smell good,” he said. “I want to eat you up.”

Mom blushed. “Oh you, be good,” she said, but you could tell she didn’t really mean it. She finished with the veggies and pushed the dish away, then rotated and put her arms around Pop’s neck, smiling. “Although I kind of like it when you’re bad.”

Pop’s eyebrows lifted. “Do you, now?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Afton and I exchanged glances. I could tell Afton wanted to say something sarcastic, like Hello, excuse me! You’re traumatizing your daughters, but she also didn’t want to interrupt. We knew they were talking about sex. But it felt like that’s what they should be talking about on their anniversary. They still liked each other. Afton and I both knew that this was something of a miracle—married people, liking each other.

It felt healthy. It felt like a role-model situation. What they had: that’s what we wanted to have, eventually. That intimacy.

We didn’t take it for granted.

But that was a long time ago, I guess.

Chapter 28

28

I wake up from a nap with the urge to make art. It shames me that I didn’t think of it before. What’s the one thing I came to Hawaii to do, besides forget Leo, and besides paddleboarding?

I came to paint.

The sketchbook is lying next to my head on the pillow, flipped to a sketch I did of Abby a few months ago. Puppy-Dog Eyes, I called it, that look she assembles on her face whenever she wants something and is determined to get it by pure cuteness alone.

I grab the sketchbook. Then I go over to my bag and take out the brand-new travel set of watercolors. Then I put together a makeshift art station outside on the balcony with the sketchbook and some loose-leaf heavier paper I brought for just this purpose, some paper towels, and a few of the clear plastic cups I found next to the ice bucket.

I sit on one of the deck chairs, rearrange my supplies one final time, and lift my arms over my head to stretch.

It feels strange, that I haven’t done this for an entire week, not since I drew the Not Ready sketch of Leo Friday night.

I avoid looking at that one, or any of my other sketches. I want to start blank. Fresh. New. Not weighed down by any past attempts.

I begin with the landscape before me, the sky and sea first, in the background, what I will later layer in shades of blue and aqua and pale clouds.

Then the shapes of the palm trees, always at an angle, blowing.

Then the foreground. The statue of Buddha, the round circles of his body and head.