The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

“You want some water?” I call behind me as we round the corner into the living room.
“Yeah, sure.”
We head into the kitchen, and I swing open the fridge door, grabbing the water pitcher o the top
shelf, the cool air feeling nice after being outside.
“So,” she says, sliding onto the marble kitchen counter as I take two cups out of the cabinet and
start pouring out the Brita. “Why don’t you want to move?”
I’m so surprised, I nearly dump all the water onto the counter.
“Who said I don’t want to move?” I ask, quickly pulling myself together and handing her one of the
cups.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just the look of disgust you gave the for-sale sign five minutes ago,” she
says, pausing, the glass halfway to her mouth. “Or maybe it was the look you gave the pile of boxes in
the back of the truck.”
She raises her dark eyebrows at me and takes a long, slow, calculating sip.
“Jeez, Blake,” I say with a laugh. “You didn’t have to call me out like that.”
I’m surprised to find, though, that I like the honesty. It’s refreshing. It’s been three years and I still
find people tiptoeing around me, bullshitting.
It makes me want to be honest too. To not tiptoe around the things my dad wouldn’t want to hear.
“Because,” I say, taking a deep breath, “all of this just feels like I’m getting farther and farther away
from my mom. The move. Cleaning out her closet. All of it.”
Blake is quiet for a moment. oughtful. She pulls her hair slowly into a bun, and I try to focus on
the cup of water I’m drinking from instead of the way her face looks when her hair is pulled back. It’s
not fair for anyone to be that pretty.
Finally, once her hair is tucked away, she starts talking again. “Back in Hawaii, I used to go rock
climbing at my mom’s favorite spot. When my dad first showed it to me, he told me she liked it the
most because when you get to the very top, everything else looks small. e people down at the beach.
e cars. e trees, even.” She puts her cup down on the counter. “She used to say that when you’re
that high up, even your problems can look smaller.”
I nod. I like the idea of that. ough I’d probably need to be on the moon to make all my problems
look small.
“You know I never met my mom, but whenever I wanted to feel close to her, I would go rock
climbing at that spot because it made me feel like she wasn’t that far away,” she says, pausing for a
moment to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. “Anyway…” She shis her position, her eyes meeting mine,
like she can sense I’m wondering where she’s going with this beyond commiserating about our joint
membership in the Dead Moms Club. “What I’m trying to say here is that you should do something to
feel close to her. In a new way. New memories to substitute for that house-shaped void you’re feeling.”
She grins and points at my pocket, the outline of the folded list pressing through the fabric.
“Actually, you could even do that bucket list. I mean, what’ve you got to lose?”
I laugh at that, but her words stick with me. rough our conversation about our shared love of
Schitt’s Creek, through our dads coming back from Goodwill, through the Carters leaving to go walk
their golden retriever named Winston, through a quiet dinner of spaghetti and meatballs with my dad.
Not just something to feel close to her. Twelve somethings I never even knew she did before.