Sunshiner

The funeral was…nice, oddly enough, even though the sky was overcast and grey. There were daylilies and white roses everywhere. I don’t think Candace would have liked it, however. It was too sad for her. She would have wanted balloons and streamers and cake, as if it was a going away party and she would be back in a few days.

It was closed casket, which I was eternally grateful for. It had been hard enough seeing her sick, and seeing her dead would be…too much. I was surprised, actually, that she hadn’t wanted to be cremated, because then her ashes could have been scattered all across the world – she would have had the opportunity to travel with me, after all. But I think that in the end she wanted to be buried at home. She knew that her adventure was over.

When everyone walked by to place a rose on her casket, I placed something different: her plane ticket to Venice. I still had mine, but she would keep hers forever.

The rest of that day passed in a tear-veiled blur. Everyone went up to Bear and Mrs. Harlow and told them that “we are so sorry for your loss.” The typical lie. No one went up to me, however, because I don’t think anyone knew what Candace actually meant to me. I was just that boy who hung around with her a lot. I didn’t care. I would rather be ignored than told how sorry everyone was. I guess I was similar to Candace in the way that neither of us wanted to be pitied.

I went straight to the airport after the funeral was over and got on the plane to go back to Dayton. As soon as I was home I went to bed and didn’t get out of it for two days. My mom shoved platefuls of steaming food through my door several times throughout the day, but I hardly touched it. I just lay in bed, not speaking to anyone, not looking at anything besides my ceiling, and not feeling anything. I didn’t cry or scream or do anything at all. I died a little bit too, I guess.

It rained for three days after that. The dirt roads of Dayton turned into such disgusting mud holes that most people doubted that they would ever dry up. The wet season has come early this year, they’d say to one another. One by one, they packed their bags and left for home-home. They escaped this town and these memories and went back to the place where they could forget, which was something that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do.

Eventually the last person remaining that I knew was Johnny Boy. He came to my house to say goodbye to me, I think, though I hardly remembered it because I was busy staring out my window and not responding to anything around me. All I could recall was Johnny Boy shuffling his feet awkwardly and saying, “Well, this is it then,” and then I replied, “Uh huh.” And then he was gone and Dayton was empty.

One morning after I woke up, a ray of sunshine pierced through the thunderclouds and poured into my room, illuminating my bed in a golden glow. The ray warmed my face and I was briefly reminded of Candace’s kisses. Then the sun was gone as quickly as it had come, like Candace had done; similar to all of the other good things in life, she was enjoyable yet fleeting. But the sunshine, as brief as it had been, stirred something in me.

I remembered that I had things to do. I had a life to live. Candace would be furious with me if she knew that I was allowing myself to waste away like this. Make yourself shine even brighter, she would have told me.

I took a deep breath. She was always right, after all, even though the Candace that was speaking to me now was just a figment of my imagination, a shattered piece of a memory. Her words were on repeat like a broken record, and although my mind made her voice sound crystal clear, it was not authentic. But it was enough to get me going. It was all I had left of her.

I exhaled. I climbed out of bed and stood on my feet. I got dressed. Then I went over to the top drawer of my dresser and grabbed the plane ticket that was scheduled for September 1st at 7:45 a.m. to land at the Marco Polo International Airport in Venice, Italy. I walked out the door and was on my way.



The phone on the other end of the line rang four times before the machine picked up: “You’ve reached the phone of Richard Ray. I’m not here right now, but if you leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“Hi Dad,” I said into the phone, eternally grateful that I was speaking to an answering machine. Talking to my father in person would have meant that the conversation would be much, much shorter. He tended to be concise with his words and was always quick to hang up, especially when I was the one speaking to him.

“I’m calling again about the money I asked you for a few weeks back,” I said. “It turns out I’m going to be taking the plane to Italy after all. So if you could wire a few hundred dollars to my back account, that’d be great.” Most kids felt awkward or rude when they asked their parents for so much money, but with my dad, money was the only thing we ever discussed. It was the only thing I ever asked him for as a father and the only thing I was thankful for as a son. And if it was done electronically, with no words involved, then it was easier and much less awkward.

“I just want you to know that this is the last time I’ll be asking you for money,” I continued. “I’m old enough to be spending my own money now, I think. I’ll start paying for whatever’s left for my Mustang, even though I’m sure we still have a few years left for the payments. If I don’t have enough money then I’ll just sell it. I’m sorry to waste a gift that you gave me, but then again I’m not sure if you would really care anyway.” I paused and took a breath, trying to erase the edge on my voice. I had to remain calm; yelling at a machine about how stupid my dad was would be kind of embarrassing. “It has too many memories in it, anyway. I think a new car would be nice. To start things fresh. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be a new car…I would have to buy old, but it’s still the same concept, right?”

I had no idea why I continued to talk – I was rambling at this point – but now I couldn’t stop. All of this had been building up inside for too long. “I guess I’m sort of calling to tell you that you were sort of a shitty father. I hope you have fun with your new wife and your new son and I hope that you never hurt them like you hurt mom and me. Even though you are an asshole and you don’t deserve to have a beautiful wife and a beautiful son and a beautiful house, I hope that you treat your family well anyway because no one deserves to be abandoned.

“I also have to thank you, though, Dad,” I went on. “You might not know this, but you taught me how to live on my own. After you left, mom was a wreck, so I spent most of my middle school and high school years learning how to take care of myself. Now I’m finally going to put those skills to good use. I’m leaving the country for a while and so I guess you won’t have to worry about me anymore, which must be a huge relief for you. I don’t think I’ll ever talk to you again, unless you happen to contact me, which sounds sort of unlikely. So that’s it, I think. I’m going now. If I ever happen to run into you on the street someday I hope you recognize me and say hello. Bye, Dad.”

With a satisfying click, I flipped the phone shut.



“You need to call me every day and let me know where you are,” my mom said as she helped me pack my suitcase. “I don’t care if calling all the way to America is ridiculously expensive. You’re going to do it anyway.”

“Yeah, I know, Mom,” I sighed and stuffed a few jeans in my bag, and then my mother pulled them right out and folded them properly before repacking them. “It’s going to be the same exact trip that Candace and I had planned out before. Only I’m just going to be alone now.”

“Oh, honey,” she crooned and placed a hand on my cheek, but I gently pushed it off. “I’m so worried about you.”

“I’ll be fine.” That was probably the eight-hundredth time I had told her that. “What the hell is this?” I abruptly asked and pulled out a strange yellow cloth out of my bag. “Why did you pack this thing?”

“It’s a ShamWow, Kase,” my mom said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s lighter and smaller than a towel and it absorbs so much more water. I thought it would be nicer to pack because it’s lighter.”

“I would rather air dry,” I said briskly and tried to throw the Sham-shit across my room, but of course my mother just put it right back in my bag. As her son, I knew when to pick my battles, so I knew that arguing with her about that would be pointless because she would win anyway. Besides, she was letting me go on this trip, alone, so I had that to be thankful for. For the first time she was truly going to be in complete and utter solitude without her son to keep her company. I knew how unstable she got when she was alone and I think I should have been the one who was worrying about her. I suspected, however, that she had changed almost as much as I had and was becoming increasingly independent; she was growing up, too, even though she was forty-five years old. But I guess at forty-five people still have a lot of learning to do.

“What if you get lost?” she asked with worry etched into her premature wrinkles. “What if you run out of money? What if you get attacked by a hobo?”

“I won’t get lost because I have a fantastic GPS that Dad gave me last Christmas. I won’t run out of money because I packed enough, and I made sure to keep it in different places to that it won’t all get stolen at once. I have enough cash and I even have two different credit cards. And as for the hobos, I will fight them.”

“Kasey, don’t be ridiculous,” Mom scoffed and placed a folded shirt neatly into my suitcase. “How would you fight them?”

“With the ShamWow, obviously.”

“Kasey,” she snapped in her ‘warning voice,’ but I could see the smile she was trying to hide. The grin quickly disappeared, however, and yet another sorrowful expression adorned her face. “I’m going to miss you so much,” she sighed as she zipped up my now fully packed suitcase.

I took the bag from her. “I know, Mom. I know.”

She pulled me into a tight hug, which I returned with one arm. She kissed my cheek before pulling away and saying, “Make sure you change your underwear every day. And don’t knock up any Amsterdam hookers.”

“Jesus Christ, Mom, are you always this awkward?”

“Have fun on your trip, honey.”



Before I left, I drove around Dayton one last time, ingraining every sight in my mind and trying to remember all of the memories this place held from my childhood. I remembered the day when the Prank War started, with nothing more than a worm-and-dirt sandwich. I remembered the first time I had ever gotten drunk out on Devil’s Island; it was the summer when I was fifteen and Ben had been the one to give me the beer. I remembered the games Candace and I used to play when we were publicly enemies and secretly friends. I remembered the first time I kissed her as a revenge prank for putting glue in my hair. There was so much that had happened in Dayton that I was afraid that my mind couldn’t hold all of it and that I would forget a few things. Forgetting would be the worst thing imaginable; it terrified me.

I then tried to remember all of the events of this summer. I remembered the first day I saw her and when her team had shot me with paint-filled water guns. I remembered the first time we had gone out to Devil’s together and then when we were alone at Lucky Point, and I remembered how idiotic I was for not being able to figure out that she actually liked me. And then I remembered the Weeping Willow and the trip when we disappeared together and even the creepy old guy at the hotel. I remembered our first time in the back seat of my car. I smiled at the memories. I decided that out of all of the years that I had spent at Dayton, this season had been by far the best – and the worst. But I tried not to think of the bad things.

As much as I used to love Dayton, I now felt tired of it. I needed to leave and, although I would keep these memories forever, I needed to push them to the back of my mind and make more memories. It was time to grow up now.

I parked my car near the marsh areas and trekked through the woods to the Weeping Willow. It looked even deader and lonelier than I had ever seen it. I looked at the heart that had FW + SL engraved in the middle of the tree trunk. That, at least, seemed to be as lively and as vibrant as ever. Taking out a pocket knife I had brought along with me, underneath the heart I made my own heart with KR + CH.

That right there was legacy. That right there was what Candace had wished for as she was dying.

As I was leaving, I took out the GPS that my dad had given me and threw it into the woods, where it met its death in the spring water. I wasn’t getting rid of it because I still hated my dad. No, I was over that now, I think. I had promised my mom that I would use the GPS to prevent getting lost, but in reality I wanted to get lost. Because sometimes, as I had learned from my road trip with Candace, in order to find yourself you must first get lost.

When I was finished, I went back into my car and continued driving. I kept moving, wasting gas, without any real destination besides here. I drove in giant circles and I was okay with that because right now, in this moment, I didn’t feel the need to keep moving forward. I wanted to enjoy the feeling of not doing anything and being able to enjoy it; the feeling of summer. It would be one of the last times I would be able to feel this way. Soon enough, though, I knew that I would need to keep moving forward and to live out my future.

Upon reaching the outskirts of town, where the old haunted house loomed in the shadows and the train tracks lay broken on the ground, I decided that now was the time to move on. I turned my car around and without a single glance in the rearview mirror I began to drive in the direction of the airport.



Getting on the plane was as uneventful and as boring as any other plane ride would be. A miserable-looking woman in uniform asked me for my ticket while an equally miserable-looking man ran me through security. Then I waited four hours for my flight to begin boarding, because there was a delay due to the “unexpected inclement weather that occurred over the Atlantic,” as the woman’s voice over the speaker had informed me.

We finally boarded the plane and thankfully I was seated next to a window. A fairly attractive girl sat down next to me, and although she gave me a smile that was only a little bit too friendly, I hardly glanced twice at her. I was suddenly very engrossed in a journal that I had bought at a store at the airport while I was waiting.

The journal had nothing in it except for 200 pages of blank paper. Its cover was blank and boring as well, but that didn’t matter, because what mattered was what I was planning to put inside of it.

Many people had asked me why I was traveling the world by myself without a companion. Wouldn’t it be lonely? they questioned. Aren’t you afraid to travel so far away from home by yourself? I never answered them, because I knew that whatever came out of my mouth would be deemed as crazy. They would shake their heads and mutter something about what a lost, confused teenage boy I was.

The true answer to their questions, the answers that I kept to myself, were both no. No, I would not become lonely – I was lonely enough right now, and there was no way it was going to become any worse. It could only get better from here. And no, I was not afraid. I needed this, and even though I may become awfully terrified as soon as I step off the plane in Venice, I knew I could not – would not turn back.

I spent most of the plane ride staring at the blank journal and then sleeping. I was awoken by the cheery voice of the captain announcing that we were due to land in twenty minutes and if we could please put on our seatbelts that would be great, thank you. I looked out the window and below me were houses and peoples and cars and birds; life. Across the flame-tinted ocean, the sun was rising. I opened the journal and flipped open to the first empty page.

Candace was a dreamer. She was the only person I knew who truly, seriously wanted to live forever. She had spontaneous and dangerous ideas, and no matter how ridiculous they were she would never falter off of her path. Now it was my turn to do the same. I would learn how to live, and I would live for her. And that is how she would live forever.

She wanted her story told and so I would tell it for her. Glancing once more at the rising sun, I picked up my pen and began writing.

The first day of summer, 1999. That was the day it all began.