Page 77 of Arrivals and Departures

Lee took the artwork.

Against a background of four city maps—Savannah, Los Angeles, New York, and Athens—Regan had layered fragments of images: Isabelle fixing Flora’s hair for her prom. Flora in her room, laughing during one of her evening video chats with Lee.Charlotte holding a pistachio ice cream cone toward Regan. Cord taking a pause on a hike midway to the Acropolis for Giovanni to apply sunscreen to his nose. Paros in an apron, roasting lamb; Charlotte next to him, chopping vegetables. Lee herself, not cut from a magazine but a photo from someone’s phone—hair messy, no makeup, feeding Yassus. And an old picture of Lee, Cord, and Regan at a long-ago Easter egg hunt, all of them dressed up for church. Charlotte didn’t like frivolity on Easter, so Lee remembered the day vividly: the taste of jelly beans, the feel of cool grass on her bare legs. Lee touched the image of her younger siblings, cross-legged on a lawn, watching Lee intently as she evenly doled her own plastic, candy-filled eggs into their baskets.

“Do you get it?” asked Regan.

Lee nodded. She did get it.

“I’m trying to say…I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“I wanted to be seen, I guess. But I forgot…” Regan gestured to her intricate collage, the photos arranged to tell a story. The most important story, thought Lee, and easy to lose sight of: It was small acts of love that kept you in the world.

The End