Tropical Depression

Elena stood in her father's kitchen, the papaya on the counter already overripe, its skin freckled with brown like the liver spots on his hands. Three weeks since the funeral, and she still couldn't bring herself to touch anything. The hospice nurse had said he'd been lucid at the end, but Elena had been three time zones away, closing a deal she couldn't even remember now.

She picked up the fruit, its weight sickeningly soft. Her father had grown obsessed with tropical things after her mother left—palm trees painted on canvas, papayas ordered from specialty markets, anything that smelled like the cruise they'd never taken. He'd wanted to bear witness to his own capacity for joy, even if he had to manufacture it.

The phone rang. Mark. Again.

"You coming back?" he asked. "Or should I tell your boss you're permanently on vacation?"

"I need more time."

"Elena, it's been three weeks. The house isn't going to organize itself."

She hung up. The orange sunset through the kitchen window made everything look like it was burning. Her father had painted this room too—a clumsy mural of palm fronds and impossible fruit, his arthritis making the leaves jagged. She'd hated it when she visited. Hated the way he smiled through his disappointment, the way he bore her distance with such practiced grace.

In the bedroom, she found the box under his bed. Photo albums, tax documents, and at the bottom, a folded sheet of paper.

*For Elena. Papaya seeds. Plant them. They grow anywhere you love them enough.*

She carried the fruit outside. The sun had dropped below the horizon, the sky bleeding purple where it met the ocean. She dug her fingers into the papaya's flesh, black seeds slippery against her skin, and buried them in the sandy soil beside the palm he'd planted the year her mother left.

The bear of a man who'd lived here alone for a decade, cultivating joy from soil she'd called barren. She'd been wrong about so much.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Mark again, or maybe her boss calling to fire her. She didn't check. Instead, she knelt in the sand and waited for the tide, letting the salt water sting the cuts on her fingers, feeling something finally begin to grow.