And then he was gone.
“Have you ever been to San Francisco?” Rosalie asked. If she’d caught me watching her son leave the room, she didn’t let on.
“I’ve never been anywhere but Osha. Amir and I sometimes talk about hitchhiking to San Francisco, but we always worry about what would happen if we were caught.”
“If you were caught? By the police?”
“Well, I don’t know... someone who was worried about our safety. If someone decided that my brother wasn’t taking good enough care of us, we might be forced to leave Horseshoe Cliff. Amir and I might be separated.”
Rosalie studied me. I could not tell what she was thinking.
“You’re sixteen,” she said at last. “I think you’d have a say about what happened to you.”
“It’s never felt worth the risk to us.”
We both fell quiet then, listening to the music. I was almost asleep, and thinking of San Francisco, when I murmured, “What’s it like?” I opened my eyes and looked at Rosalie.
“Hmm?”
“San Francisco,” I said. “What’s it like?”
She smiled. “Oh, I don’t think I should describe it to you, Merrow. You’ll see it yourself someday—someday soon, I hope—and when you do, I don’t want my words to be the onesthat come to your mind. You should have the experience of seeing it through your own eyes first.”
I was disappointed. At that moment, it felt as though I might never live anywhere but Horseshoe Cliff. Rosalie was so sure I would go to San Francisco, but what if I didn’t? If there was a life for me beyond Osha, I had trouble seeing it. Rosalie Langford didn’t know anything about me. Homesickness overtook me again—I’d never faced a night away from Horseshoe Cliff.
“Maybe there are times when it’sbetterto see something through the eyes of someone else first,” I said. “For example, if you went to my home, you’d probably only be able to see a little shack groaning in the wind. You’d see a saggy front porch with peeling paint and a broken step. You’d smell an outhouse and wonder how someone could live with the stench. And when you walked far enough to stop smelling the outhouse, you’d start smelling the chickens. You’d pass a dry patch of garden and scrub grasses stretching to the horizon, where the edges of cliffs crumble straight into the ocean. That view, on the edge of the cliff, might impress you. But that’s about it.”
Rosalie watched me as I spoke. I closed my eyes and thought of home.
“But if you letmedescribe Horseshoe Cliff to you, then you’d know about the eucalyptus grove, which smells like heaven and is full of hiding spots and fog so thick you can open your mouth and drink it. You wouldn’t know until I told you that we used to have horses, and that their hooves beat the path that leads down to the beach. You wouldn’t know that when you sing in harmony with someone else in one of the caves thatare carved into the cliff, the sound is more beautiful than any other sound in the world. You wouldn’t know that if you really want to be unreachable and you’re very brave, you can sit in the back of the deepest cave, the one that curves up to a ledge, and watch the tide roar toward you until it sweeps over your toes and then your ankles and then, just as you’re getting really worried, it slouches away as though all it ever wanted of you was a taste. And the sunsets—it’s just not possible that there is anywhere on earth that has more spectacular sunsets than the ones we see from our back porch. And the fog! It’s like the whole world has been shrunk down to the size of the whitecap on a wave, and you’re just hugged within it, the wash of white and gray, the bit of sun that filters through...”
I trailed off. I opened my eyes.
Rosalie’s head was cocked, her lips set in a curious smile. “How beautiful,” she said. “If I were half as eloquent as you, I’d attempt to describe San Francisco now, but I’m not. And frankly I’m more convinced than ever that you need to see it through your own eyes. Perhaps when you do, you’ll tell me what you see. I’d love to hear what you make of it.”
I smiled, basking in the glow of her compliment.Eloquent.
“Do you keep a journal?” Rosalie asked. “Do you write these sorts of descriptions down?”
I nodded.
“Maybe you’ll study writing in college. Or art history. Your teacher seems to have given you quite a head start.”
“I don’t think I’ll go to college.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “But you have to go to college! You’reclearly very smart, Merrow. I bet you could take the GED tomorrow and pass.”
“Oh, I already passed the GED.”
Rosalie leaned toward me. “Have you applied to any colleges? I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I hope you realize that there are many organizations that could help fund your education.”
Rei often spoke to me about college, too. I listened as Rosalie listed a few of the scholarships that she thought I might be eligible for. She didn’t know, as Rei did, that I would never leave Amir behind at Horseshoe Cliff. Like an echo of my heart, my leg throbbed.
“I think I might need another one of those pills Doctor Clark gave me,” I said, interrupting her.
Rosalie looked surprised. “I’m sorry. I hope I haven’t upset you...”
“No, no. It’s just that my leg is starting to hurt again.”
