The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James

by Ashley Herring Blake

  We stay like that until I see Lena, her long hair flapping like a flag in the wind, heading toward us from the parking lot.

  She brought her surfboard, just like I asked her to. My heart flips and flops in my chest. I’m scared, but maybe that just means that I love… something about being with Lena. Something about knowing this part of myself. And I’m not just scared either. I’m nervous. And super-mad, but it’s all okay. I know my heart can take it.

  I squeeze Kate’s hand and stand up.

  “I’ll be right here, okay?” she says, and I nod. Then I grab my surfboard—which Kate and I barely managed to stuff into her car earlier—and meet Lena in the sand. She smiles at me, but she looks super-nervous too. She opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, but I’m not ready for that, so I just turn and start walking toward the water.

  She follows me. We splash into the surf and paddle out together. The sun is getting higher and higher, pushing out all the orange and red and filling the sky with blue. I paddle and paddle until we’re deep enough that the waves are calm and we just bob on our boards and look at the sea.

  “I’m really mad at you,” I finally say.

  “I know,” she says back. “I’m so sorry, Sunshine. I know I haven’t done much to earn your trust, so I can’t even beg you to believe me, but I do want you to know that I was going to tell you about Janesh and Samaira. They’re your family too. But I had to take things slow. For me. And for you and Samaira. And, yeah, I was really scared. I didn’t want you to feel like—”

  “Like you replaced me and didn’t want me?”

  Her shoulders droop and her sad eyes get even sadder. “Yeah.”

  “Well, I felt like that anyway.”

  Her bottom lip wobbles a little, but she keeps looking me right in the eye, amber to amber. “I know, baby. But that’s not what happened.”

  “How do I know that? You left me and got a whole new family.”

  She swallows over and over. “I know that’s how it looks, but I never wanted her instead of you. I wanted you both.”

  My chest gets all tight, but my heart pushes me forward. “Then… why? Why can you be a mom to Samaira and not me?”

  She sighs and rubs her forehead; then she looks out at the water, the sky. “I want to be. I want to be a mom to both of you. That’s why I came here, honey. That’s why Janesh agreed to move here too. To be a family. When I got pregnant with Samaira, I’d been sober for over two and half years. And as soon as I found out, I thought of you. You were my first thought.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I wanted you back so badly. I had for a long time, but I had to make sure I wouldn’t ruin your life again. I had to make sure I was who you need me to be. And when I got here and you agreed to see me, part of me… well, part of me just wanted you to myself, honestly. It was selfish, but I’d missed everything, you know? Eight whole years, and I just wanted some time where it was just you and me getting to know each other. So I kept putting off telling you. Janesh said I shouldn’t and I know he was right, but I was enjoying my time with you so much. I was scared to lose it.”

  I don’t say anything for a few seconds, because my heart is all balled up in my throat. I swirl my legs in the water and feel the whole big sea underneath me and think about all that stuff I read in Lena’s journal. Stuff she wrote months and months ago. She’s a good writer—maybe that’s where I get all these words packed into my head that just have to get on paper—and I can feel all of what she’s saying in what she wrote. I could feel that she wanted to be with me. I could feel that she was scared. I could feel how much she loved S. And even though S wasn’t me, Lena did write about me. She wrote about me all the time and I could feel that she loved me. That she was sorry. Journals don’t lie. There’s no reason to lie in something no one’s supposed to see.

  “I took your journal,” I say, real, real quiet.

  She doesn’t say anything for a second and I can’t look at her. Finally, I hear her exhale super-loud. “I wondered where that went.”

  “I’m sorry. I found it in your car and I… I just… I wanted to know who you were, I guess.”

  She sighs. “I get it. And I wasn’t telling you the whole truth, so I can’t really blame you for that.”

  I peek at her. She’s watching me with soft, soft eyes. “I’ll give it back.”

  “I’d appreciate that, thank you.”

  For some reason, it makes me sad, thinking about not having her journal to read.

  “I used to pretend you were a mermaid,” I say.

  She tilts her head at me. “I remember that’s what you called me that day in your hospital room. Your mermaid.”

  I nod. “I’d think about you and how, if you were a mermaid, I understood why I wasn’t in your life. You were way far away and I kind of liked that, you know? That it was impossible for us to be together. I thought I didn’t care that I couldn’t talk to you or see you.”

  She sighs. “I’m sorry, baby girl. I don’t think you can ever know how much. But I promise you that I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere. Janesh has a job teaching world history at Port Hope High School. I’m teaching music. I’m looking into preschools for Samaira when the time comes. I understand if you need time. I get it. But I want you to know that I love you more than anything and I am not going away this time. I won’t. So you can be in my life, anytime you want. Or not. Whatever you want.”

  I think about all my poems sitting on my desk at home, about my poem in the frame up on my wall like a painting. My story. All the broken pieces, old heart and new. I know that’s what I want. I want my family, as weird as it is.

  “When’s Samaira’s birthday?” I ask.

  Her eyes go a little wide for a second, and then she smiles. “January third. She turned six months yesterday.”

  “What’s her name mean?”

  Her smile gets bigger. “It’s a Hindu name. Janesh’s grandmother was named Samaira.”

  “It’s pretty. She’s pretty.”

  “She looks like you.”

  I try to fight a smile, but I think I fail. “A little.”

  “A lot. Janesh said he couldn’t believe how much.”

  “Really?”

  She nods.

  “Is your last name different now?”

  Her smile is soft. “No. I kept St. James when Janesh and I got married.”

  I can’t keep the smile off my face when she says that. I was worried that her new family was totally separate from me, that I was the only mermaid in the whole sea. But really, we’re all mixed up together, past and present and future.

  “So, did you and Janesh have an epic first kiss?” I ask.

  She throws her head back and laughs, then looks at me, her eyes crinkling. “It was actually very quiet and lovely. We’d been dating about a month and we were at a playground after dinner. He was pushing me on the swings and then he kissed me. Just like that.”

  “You’d been dating a whole month before you kissed?”

  “I’m a slow mover.”

  “Not as slow as Kate.”

  She cracks up at that. “Poor Dave.”

  “Well, not so poor anymore.”

  She lifts her eyebrows and grins. “Really?”

  “It’s so happening.”

  She laughs and I laugh and this feels right. It doesn’t feel easy. But it feels right, like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be right now. I’m still mad at her, I think. But she’s still Lena. She’s still a lady who I think is cool and brave and who makes me want to try awesome and amazing things. She’s a lady who makes me really feel all that stuff I wrote in the poem I put in the bottle for my donor.

  She makes me feel like I’m Sunny St. James. And part of being me is having Lena as my bio mom and Kate as my found mom. I’m a mess of Kates and Lenas. A good mess. A beautiful mess.

  I smile at the water, thinking that’d be a really amazing poem.

  Open me up and this is what you’ll see:

&nbs
p; A tangle of old hearts and new.

  A mess of moms and daughters

  and blood and water,

  mermaid tails and flesh and bone.

  “So, speaking of kissing…” I say, and then bite my lip, my chest aching. The water bobs me up and down, like it’s trying to soothe me, but when it comes to Quinn, I’m a mess. And not the beautiful one from that poem either.

  “Ah, the Kissing Quest,” Lena says, paddling forward a little to fight the tide. “Please tell me you and Quinn finally kissed.”

  I nearly swallow my tongue. “What… why… wait, huh?”

  She laughs long and loud. “Oh, honey. It’s so obvious you like her so much.”

  I blink at her for a long time, trying to breathe normally. I’ve wanted to tell Lena that I like Quinn, and I’ve already told Kate, but now Lena’s saying she already knew. I feel exposed, like my chest got cracked open all over again. She must notice that I’m freaking out a little because she reaches out and tucks a strand of wet hair behind my ear.

  “Sunny, it’s okay.”

  Her touch is soft and sweet and I feel myself relax. She smiles at me and tells me again that it’s okay.

  My heart slows down, calm and steady. “You could tell that I like her?”

  Lena nods. “And that she likes you.”

  My eyes just about bust out of my face. “She doesn’t, trust me.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “No,” I say. “But, wait, how did you know I like her?”

  She shrugs, but her eyes get all shiny-looking. “I guess it was a feeling. The way you’d talk about her. The way you’d always blush a little and get all quiet after saying her name.”

  “I did not.”

  “You did. The same way she was always biting her lip and smiling this little smile whenever you talked to her that day we dyed your hair. She couldn’t keep her eyes off you, you know.”

  “But… but I tried to… well, I tried to kiss her and she wouldn’t.”

  Lena nods. “Well, I can’t guarantee that I’m right, but there are a lot of reasons why she might’ve gotten scared. Two girls feeling like you do. The world isn’t always kind, is it?”

  My eyes sting and I look down at my board, swirling my hand in the water.

  “But the world is wrong, Sunny,” she says. “It’s okay to like Quinn. To like anyone you want to. You know that, right?”

  A few tears blur my vision. That night at Margot’s slumber party fills my brain all over again. But after hearing Kate call me brave and listening to Lena say it’s okay, after feeling for a while that maybe I was a little brave and that it was okay, that night doesn’t fill my heart anymore.

  Then I tell Lena everything I told Kate. I tell her about that slumber party and about the girls laughing at me. I tell her about me freaking out under the waterfall with Quinn. I tell her about the poems I wrote and how Quinn found them, almost every single one. And I tell her about that letter Quinn left me that I still haven’t read.

  By the time I finish, we’ve floated so far down the beach, I can barely see Kate in the distance, sitting on the beach reading a book.

  “I think you should read her letter,” Lena says. “Even if it hurts. Even if she says she can’t like you like that. She’s still your best friend, right?”

  I nod and wipe at my face. “I just really, really like her.”

  “I know, honey. And if she doesn’t like you back, it’ll hurt for a while, but there will be other girls. Or boys. Or whoever. And if Quinn stays here on the island, I think she’d be a wonderful friend to go through all those crushes with, don’t you think?”

  “Better than Margot, that’s for sure.”

  Lena smiles a sad smile but doesn’t say anything. I take a big breath and look behind us to where the waves are gathering and breaking.

  “Can I meet Samaira later? I mean, officially?” I ask.

  Lena reaches out and takes my hand. “I want that more than anything.”

  We smile at each other for a few long seconds, our hands dangling over the deep blue sea.

  “But first,” I say, “let’s surf.”

  CHAPTER

  33

  On the way home, I stare at the pines and palms blurring out the window. I keep folding up my legs crisscross and then pulling my knees to my chest while I sigh a whole bunch. I’m tired from surfing, but I can’t stop fidgeting.

  “You okay?” Kate asks as she turns onto Juniper Island Road. The ocean blinks in and out of the trees, an aqua jewel in between all the green.

  “Yeah,” I say. And I am. Surfing was amazing. I rode two whole waves. I’m pretty sure Kate was freaking out the whole time, but she clapped her hands over her head, cheering my name as she watched me from the shore.

  And Lena—well, I’m still mad at her. I’m still kind of hurt. But I think you can be all those things and still love someone a whole lot.

  I let my feet flop back to the floor.

  “Can you stop by Margot’s?” I ask.

  Kate slows the car and side-eyes me. “You sure?”

  I bite my lip, really thinking through Kate’s question. I don’t really want to see Margot. I don’t want to be in her house or in her room and I sure don’t want to hear anything Margot might have to say to me.

  But.

  I’ve got some things to say to her and I think I’ve got the perfect way to say them.

  “I’m sure,” I say. Then I pop open Kate’s glove box, which is full of tiny packs of tissues in neat stacks and cleaning wipes made especially for car interiors. There’s also a little spiral-bound notebook, a pen hooked to its red cover.

  Kate turns into Seaside Cove, the tiny subdivision filled with pastel beach houses where Margot lives. The street is so familiar, all palmettos and tabby driveways. I take a deep breath and open up the notebook. I slip the pen free, flip past some grocery lists Kate forgot to rip out, and start writing.

  I don’t remember a me without you.

  I learned to swim

  holding your hand,

  the ocean wild and wide and scary.

  We slept under the sky

  and hid our wishes in the stars.

  We built forts

  with blankets and pillows,

  a safe place for all our secrets.

  Then my heart broke

  and you couldn’t

  put it back together.

  You blew out the stars

  and tore down the fort

  and scattered my secrets

  into the sky.

  I don’t remember a me without you.

  But I have learned

  to swim on my own,

  the ocean wild and wide and scary.

  By the time I’m done, we’re parked outside Margot’s house. I look up, blinking into the bright sun, and Kate tucks a strand of blue hair behind my ear. I stare out the window for a second, taking in Margot’s pale green house, the same big hammock in the front yard where we used to spend summer afternoons, loaded down with books and snacks.

  In the front window, a curtain moves. I just about chicken out, but then I look down at my poem again. I reread it while Kate rubs my back. My words. My story.

  My truth.

  I rip my poem out of the notebook and unfasten my seat belt. Outside, a lawn mower hums across the street and the salty breeze rustles the palms. I jog up to Margot’s porch and slip my poem through the brass mail slot in her front door.

  I ring the doorbell.

  I make sure I hear the sound of Margot’s feet bounding down the stairs.

  Then I turn and walk away.

  CHAPTER

  34

  I cry the whole way home.

  But it’s an okay cry. The kind that means I’m finally good and empty of all that junk that made me feel so bad. The kind that means I’ve finally got room to make new memories, new friends.

  After lunch, Kate suggests I take a nap. I don’t fight her. I’m totally wrung out and I sleep most of the aftern
oon. When I wake up, though, I can’t stop looking at Quinn’s letter. I keep picking it up and turning it around in my hands. I take it in the bathroom with me when I take a shower, just to see if it’s still there when I get out, if it’s really real.

  It is.

  Right before dinner, Dave comes over. He hugs me for a long time and I let him, Quinn’s letter tucked into my palm. Then we sit down on the porch swing and rock back and forth while Kate gets ready for the Fourth of July bonfire. She and Dave are going as a date, which is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

  Kate said I could go too, but I’m not sure I’m up for it. I don’t have a best friend to go with, and sorry, but being Kate and Dave’s third wheel on their first real date after it’s taken them a bajillion years to get together? No thanks.

  Plus, I’m meeting Samaira tomorrow, officially, which makes me all nervous and excited at the same time. I kind of just want to stay home and write her a poem. I want to write a bunch of poems about a bunch of things.

  “Penny for your thoughts, kiddo,” Dave says, kicking his feet on the porch so we keep swinging.

  I shrug. Quinn’s letter feels like a heavy stone in my hand. Dave doesn’t push me to talk and I’m glad. I need all my brainpower to think. And what I keep thinking about is my New Life plan. How I’ve done lots of awesome amazing things since getting my new heart.

  I think about how I found and lost a best friend.

  I think about how my Kissing Quest has been one epic fail, but at least I tried.

  I think about how it felt when I read that book with the girls kissing for the first time all those months ago and how it was scary to read that, but amazing too. I think about all that Quinn and I have done in just a couple of weeks and I… I…

  I miss her.

  I still want to kiss her, I think, but I want to be her friend even more.

  “Will you sing me my favorite song?” I ask Dave.

  He laughs. “Now? I don’t even have my guitar.”

  “So? Your voice is nice enough to sing without it.”

  “Oh, well, thank you.”