Love, Life, and the List

“Are you looking for things you can already cross off?” Mom asked.

“No.” But I wrote it anyway and put a tidy check next to it with a smile.

My mom let out a breathy laugh. “How about, see life come into the world.”

“Uh . . . you’re getting weird now. You want me to case hospitals? And by the way, gross.”

“That sentence can be interpreted in many ways, and I definitely didn’t mean follow pregnant women.”

“Okay, I’ll write it, but I don’t know how that can be interpreted in more ways than the obvious one.”

“How about,” my grandpa said, with a dramatic pause, “see a life go out of the world.”

“And that is the end of my list. When you people start talking about death, I’m done.”

“It changes you, child.”

“I don’t want to see that. Even if it does make me a deeper person.”

“Understandable.”

Besides, I felt like I could already put a check mark next to that one too. I hadn’t exactly seen my grandma die, but I felt like I saw the heartache it had caused often enough. I wrote it down, but didn’t add the checkmark. Maybe there was another way to interpret that one as well. I hoped this worked. Because if it didn’t, maybe I really wasn’t an artist. And if I wasn’t an artist, what was I?

SEVEN

I read, then reread, the list I’d made the day before. I hoped that the best traits of the people in my life cobbled together into this list would turn me into a Frankenstein’s-monster version of the lot of them. The nonfreakish version. There were eleven things on the list. Well, technically ten if I didn’t count the one I’d already checked off. How to become deep in ten steps . . . or less? I hoped it would be less.

Maybe this was why the art institute winter program asked for sales history, because they knew how hard it was to make it past the gatekeepers of galleries. That could narrow down their list of applicants dramatically.

I fished a pushpin out of the container on my desk and found a spare bit of wall space between a quote about love and a picture of a dandelion, all its seeds but one floating away on the wind. I’d pinned all sorts of inspiration on my wall—art, quotes, poems, scenery—over the years. Muses for my painting. It was all things I’d seen while flipping through magazines or scrolling through my phone—some I added to my scrapbook, some to my walls. I laughed a little as I turned a circle, taking in everything now. They were all things that had made me feel something, I realized. It’s why I’d pinned them there. Oh, the irony that my paintings weren’t doing the same thing for someone else.

I snapped a picture of the list with my phone and out of habit was about to send a group text to Rachel, Justin, and Cooper, when I remembered Rachel wouldn’t get it and Justin was in the middle of being philanthropic. He didn’t need to see my attempt at depth right now. Instead, I emailed the picture to myself, then sat down at my laptop to compose a letter to my dad.

Hey pops,

Attached you will find a list of activities that will make me so full of heart you might not recognize me when you get home. And since you’re always gone so long that I forget who you are, we’ll be in the same boat this time. You’re welcome. Also, I figured out what I want you to bring me home this time. I want a small rock shaped like a heart. You should scour the desert to find it. It’s the only way I will know you truly love me and think about me every day. Plus it will represent my heart growing three sizes. Is that how many sizes the Grinch’s grew? I forget. Remember when we used to watch that every Christmas and you said that you almost named me Cindy Lou Who? I’m still eternally grateful you didn’t (even though I now know that’s not a true story). Love, your appropriately named daughter.

I picked up the little vial of sand I kept on my desk that Dad had brought me home after I requested it during his last tour. He always brought me home something. Sometimes it was something I asked for, sometimes it was something he said reminded him of me, like painted beads or glass art.

I turned the bottle sideways, letting the sand move along the vial as I tipped it back and forth.

There was a knock on my door, followed by Cooper’s voice: “Are you presentable?”

I set the small bottle down, hit Send on my email, and shut the laptop. “Presentable? Do you mean decent?”

“Same thing.”

“Well, one of those things I am and one I’m not, so I don’t think they are the same thing.”

He let out his overly dramatic sigh, which I could hear even through the closed door. “Do you have clothes on, Abby?”

“Yes.”

He opened the door and flung himself into my room, landing on his stomach on my bed, then rolling onto his side. “Hi.”

His eyes narrowed in on the list I’d pinned to my wall. “What’s that?”

“My ten-step guide to a deeper life.”

“It only takes ten steps? Maybe I should do it then.”

“You totally should. These can be our summer activities.”

He scooted off the bed and came to stand next to me, looking over the list. He smelled good. Like vanilla and oranges. That was his usual scent. But sometimes he smelled like sweat and fabric softener and sometimes he smelled like toothpaste and face wash or cherry ChapStick and sunblock. Or chocolate. Or . . . stop, I told myself. Not helpful at all.

“I’m not going to watch a baby being born,” he said.

Right, the list. I turned my attention back to it. “That’s what I said. But my mom said there were other ways to interpret life coming into the world or something like that.”

“I can only think of one way to watch life come into the world.”

“Same. But whatever. We don’t have to do all of them. I sense depth will occur after five.”

He laughed. “Good, because I also don’t want to have to kill anyone.”

I smiled. “I don’t think that’s what Grandpa was suggesting with that one.”

“I have your number six.”

“You do?” I glanced at the list to remember what number six was. Face a fear. Of course he’d pick that one.

“Why is my name next it?” he asked.

“Because certain ones were inspired by certain people.” I pointed at his. “You, my fearless friend, inspired that one. And you don’t get to pick my fear. I’m picking my own for that.”

“Come on. You’ll give yourself an easy one.”

“And you’ll give me an impossible one.”

“Everything is possible.”

I stared at him expectantly.

“What?” he asked.

“Are you going to finish that thought? Everything is possible . . .”

“That’s all I was going to say. Is there supposed to be more?”

“There’s always more with that start. Everything is possible through hard work or through perseverance or through never giving up or through God.”

“Huh. Okay . . . everything is possible when you’re with me.”

I rolled my eyes. “I liked my options better.”

“Well, right now, my option fits, because you’re going to face your fear—with me.”

“What have I gotten myself into?”

He laughed evilly as we left the room.

He held out a red helmet for me.

“No. Absolutely not. I told you I was just going to watch. This is your thing.” Over his shoulder I could see the other quads and dune buggies zooming through the dunes. The sun beat down on the sand and made everything in the distance appear wavy, adding to the nausea I already felt at the thought of being out there with them.