A Strange Girl in the Strange Land Where You Come From
Nishihama Beach,
Ryukyu Islands,
Japan


Dear Tyler,

It’s me again.

I’m still crashing at Yoshiro’s house. I know what you’re thinking. My girlfriend the free-loader. She’s vacationing her way through a graceful mourning period. She's shopping for the freshest Asian fashions, sunbathing with the rich Japanese tourists, drinking Sake like the well’s running dry. I think you’d be proud of me, too, if that‘s how it really was. You’d say ‘that’s my girl’ because you always loved me, even when I was shallow.

It’s been three weeks since the day I got here. That was a serious scene. My shoulders were drooping under the weight of my 4-piece luggage set, and I had a pair of sandals under one arm and the other one crooked around your urn. You should’ve seen Yoshiro’s face. Anyway, I started dropping bags left and right, and he practically threw himself at me, trying to snatch the urn away. I guess he thought I was gonna drop that, too. I made some crack about hanging onto my two favorite things -- shoes and you -- and he’s been looking at me like I’m an alien ever since.

I hope wherever you were, you stopped to appreciate that moment.

I bet he wonders how you got serious about a dumb, blonde, American girl like me. Then again, maybe he’s not wondering at all. He probably assumes it was the sex, and maybe sex was part of it but not everything. Don’t worry, Ty, I’ll win him over. It’ll be a posthumous gift from me to you: The approval of your surrogate dad. I’m good with men. But do you know I can’t get through his tea without making a face? That might have something to do with his hesitation to love me.

I’ve been sleeping where you did when you were little. It makes me wonder what was it like for you to grow up here. I never asked how that went down, and he’s not up for story time. I mean, you were just a scrawny white kid with shaggy hair, big eyes, and a doofy grin. Your chest seemed bony in your karate robe (what the hell's that thing called?) and you didn’t look much like a warrior against the forces of evil (trust me, that’s not speculation, I saw the photo album... by the way, puberty treated you right). But he must’ve seen something special in you. Maybe how you never quit, even when it was dumb or suicidal to keep going. That’s got to count for something. I guess it’s bravery or honor, like a kamikaze pilot.

You know what kills? The day I spread your ashes, that’s what I couldn’t get out of my head. That picture of you being a little boy, not kamikaze pilots. I kept thinking up all these questions I didn’t bother asking when you were alive, about how you got to be the Tyler I loved. For some reason, I was too caught up in ‘now’ and too caught up in me, and I guess too caught up in you only in terms of how you related to me. So there’s this gigantic chunk of your life that’ll always be a mystery. I don’t really want to ask about it now. It’s too little too late. Plus it might make me fall in love with you more, and that’s not a fabulous idea considering where you are.

It was windy that day. I had on a skirt you liked and I was in my bare feet, and I walked to the surf like they told me to, and I opened the lid and tried to spill you out the way they told me to, but the wind changed direction. It was like you didn’t want to go. Suddenly there was all this sea spray and sand and ash hitting my legs, and it stung, and do you know I cried? Not a little bit, either. I was sobbing and wailing like some woman on a bad movie. You were floating around my ankles in the water, just a layer of brownish gray at the surface, and you were blowing back over the dunes toward the house, and I thought to myself how I wasn’t ready for you to go yet, either.

I swear to the gods I can hear your voice here. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to leave.

I have to go, though. Vivian keeps dialing my cell phone and she’s calling me ‘Star, baby’ and saying how I have to let go and come home, and I think she’s just caught up in the drama of being my mother at the moment but she’s right, even if it’s an accident.

I can’t stay here or else it’ll kill whatever light I‘ve got left in me. I think about your smile and it feels like I might die inside because I miss it so much. But I need you to know, Ty, I really loved you and I want to stay. You got me and you got to me and I was more Star around you that I ever was with anybody else. I could’ve kept you around forever, just to keep living in full color.

One time we had an argument and I said you weren’t good enough for me. You said it was bullshit. I’m really glad you called me out on it.

Your girl,

-STAR