“Cookies,” Mae says eventually. “I think we need cookies, don’t you?”
Hugo watches her head down the stairs that lead to the café before he returns his gaze to the window, unsettled. They’re not far from Emeryville now, and then there’s the bus ride into San Francisco, and then what? He decides he’ll meet up with Margaret tomorrow, once Mae is on her way down the coast. He doesn’t want to waste any of the time they have left, doesn’t want the two things to be muddled at all. He and Mae will eat clam chowder by the bay and walk the hills and see the sights. And then they’ll spend one last night together before saying goodbye.
Her phone begins to buzz from the ledge, and Hugo reaches for it so it doesn’t topple off. It’s a call from home, and he stares at the screen until it goes dark again. But a second later, there’s another call. And then another. And one more.
He holds the phone in his hand, his nerves vibrating just as fast.
A minute later, a text from Mae’s dad pops onto the screen:
Call us as soon as you can. xx
Hugo’s heart falls, because nobody rings that many times if everything is okay. For a brief, insane moment, he wishes he didn’t have to tell Mae. He wishes he could hide the phone, throw it off the side of the train, let it get buried at the bottom of this mountain. He wishes he could protect her from whatever this news turns out to be.
Which sounds noble, even though it’s actually selfish.
Because mostly he knows that the minute she talks to her dads, something new will be set in motion, and he’ll be that much closer to losing her.
He stares at the phone in his hand, his mind desperate and scrabbling. Should he put it back on the ledge and pretend he never saw the message? Should he just hand it to her when she returns and let her read the text herself? He looks around the busy train car at the other passengers, all of them talking and laughing and pointing out the window, and his stomach lurches at what’s about to happen.
And then, before he has more time to think about how ill equipped he is to handle this, she’s back.
“Here,” she says, tossing him a box of chocolate chip cookies, which he barely manages to catch. As he does, the phone falls out of his hand and onto the floor.
Mae looks at it, then back at him, and her smile slips.
Hugo realizes then that it doesn’t matter how she finds out.
It’s clear she already knows.
Mae’s head is swimmingas she steps off the train for the last time.
Her phone is clutched in her hand, the news still rattling around inside her: that Nana had another stroke this morning, this one much worse. And that she’s gone.
It seems impossible, but it’s true. Her brain knows this. It’s just that her heart hasn’t quite caught up yet.
Already, she’s spoken to her dads four times and booked a flight that will leave SFO in exactly three hours. She’s checked how long it will take to get to the airport from the train station, and she’s even remembered to give Hugo enough money to last him until his new credit card shows up.
But she hasn’t cried yet.
She’s determined not to cry.
It’s not such a hard trick, in the end. All she’s had to do is avoid thinking about what’s happened. Instead she’s tucked it into a corner of her mind and gently shut the door. Later she’ll open it. Later she’ll think about this absence that she’s always known would come at some point, the loss so big it might swallow her whole.
But not now. Not yet.
First, there is a step down from the train. One, and then another. Then there is the platform, and the weight of her backpack, and the door to the station. There is the back of Hugo’s head as she follows him, a sight now so familiar it makes her chest ache.
One thing at a time.
This station isn’t grand, like the others they’ve been to, just a squat gray building that could as easily be a post office or a DMV. Mae follows Hugo’s backpack as he picks his way around the rows of metal benches. He hasn’t said much in the last hour; mostly he’s just been there, a solid presence beside her as she made arrangements and sorted out information. He’d known instinctively to hold her hand while she booked a flight and to give her space when she spoke to her dads, and underneath the fog of grief and shock and confusion, she’s grateful for that.
He pauses at the glass doors in the front of the building to make sure she’s still with him, then walks back out into the daylight. There’s a charter bus idling on the street, and a few cars waiting for people in the circular drive, but otherwise it’s quiet. Four o’clock on a Tuesday in the middle of August, and the world feels slow and sleepy.
Hugo sets his bag down beside a wooden bench, and Mae leans hers against it. But neither of them sits. Instead, they just stand there awkwardly, an unfamiliar space between them.
“Have you called for a car yet?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll do it now,” she says, but she’s hit by a wave of panic when she pulls out her phone. Because the minute she makes her request, there will be a clock to all this. A countdown. And Mae doesn’t feel ready for it.
