Maude’s movements slowed. “In her sleep, right upstairs. Peaceful. The doctor said it was her heart.”
I nodded, staring at the chipped teacup she set in front of me. “She didn’t call. Not once.”
“She said you had your own life,” Maude replied gently. “Didn’t want to pull you away from it.”
I almost laughed. If only she knew how small that life was. Work, grocery deliveries, late-night emails. I’d traded meaning for safety years ago. Routine was my religion. Predictability my prayer.
Now I was sitting in a house that groaned with history, waiting for a storm I couldn’t predict.
By evening, the air had turned heavy. The ocean hissed beyond the dunes, and rain gathered on the horizon like a dark promise.
I carried my suitcase upstairs. The steps whined beneath me. The second floor smelled faintly of cedar and something sweet—lavender, maybe, or dust pretending to be lavender.
My grandmother’s room sat at the end of the hall. I didn’t open the door. I couldn’t yet.
Instead, I chose a smaller room overlooking the water. The bedspread was faded rose. A mirror leaned crookedly on the dresser, reflecting my outline in fractured light.
I set down my bag, then opened the window. The air that rushed in was humid and alive, full of salt and something feral—like the island itself was breathing around me.
I should have felt peaceful.
I didn’t.
The quiet pressed too close. Every creak made my pulse spike. I’d spent years surrounded by noise—cars, elevators, the hum of office lighting. Silence felt like exposure.
Somewhere outside, a bird shrieked. Or maybe it wasn’t a bird.
I told myself not to be ridiculous.
Still, I locked the window before stepping back.
Later, Maude brought soup and biscuits to my room. “You’ll get used to the nights,” she said when I flinched at a gust of wind. “The island talks when it rains.”
I smiled weakly. “I’m not sure it’s saying nice things.”
That earned a faint laugh.
Maude set the tray on the bedside table and smoothed the edge of the blanket like she had done it a thousand times. “There’s more downstairs if you’re hungry later. I’ll be in the little apartment off the back porch. Knock if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it.
When she left, silence dropped back over the room like a heavy curtain. I sat on the edge of the bed with the bowl in my lap, listening to the rain begin its soft, suspicious patter on the roof.
I ate because it kept my hands occupied. Because the warmth filled a hollow I didn’t want to name. Because if I kept moving from one small task to the next—spoon, swallow, breathe—I could pretend I wasn’t terrified of this house, this life, this version of me that had stepped off a plane and into someone else’s story.
When the spoon scraped porcelain, there was nothing left to do but think. Which I hate.
My brain likes lists and boxes and things with labels. Feelings don’t come with SKUs. They don’t sort nicely into color-coded folders. They spill.
I set the bowl aside and stared at my phone face-down on the nightstand. I hadn’t turned it off airplane mode. No push notifications. No emails. No dating apps pinging to ask if I was still “looking for something serious” in a five-mile radius of my office because, apparently, the algorithm had deduced that I’m only attracted to men who own three button-downs and a sense of superiority.
I used to say I wanted to meet someone. The right someone. But wanting requires deviation, and I don’t deviate. Not from my commute, not from my workout, not from the carefully organized orbit of my life. A man would have to throw himself across the hood of my car at a red light, palms flat to the glass, mouth forming my name, for me to actually change lanes.
I huffed out a laugh at that—short, humorless. Here, there were no red lights. Just a one-lane road, a long, dark drive, and a house that remembered everyone but me.
The truth was uglier: I’m good at people in theory. I understand how they fit inside organizations. I can read the fine print of conflict and coach it toward resolution. I know how to say the right thing so the room breathes again. I’m less good at people in practice. When they lean too close. When they ask what I want and wait for the answer.
What do I want?
