Marcella calls Jeff and drops food off with them. It makes us all feel better to know, at least, that they’re eating.
I still haven’t heard more than a text here and there from Leo. Most of them begin or end withsorry. I know he’s busy, and when I feel my resentment turn to apathy, it doesn’t really bother me.
Tonight Sylvia is working on some mixed-media art project and retires to the back house after dinner, Styrofoam and tin foil in hand. I see Pea trail after her, unwanted, but Sylvia lets her in the door.
“I’ll finish up the kitchen,” I tell my parents, and they head up the stairs, yawning, waving thanks.
Tonight’s dinner was a fava bean stew with roast chicken, and the pans are gritty, oiled, and plentiful. This is going to take a while.
I pour some soap, turn up the water to scalding, and open Spotify.
We always listened to Bob Marley in the house growing up, andevery time I’m out here I still crave it—that easy, soulful, beach music.
I put on a mix and get to work scrubbing. I’m about halfway through “Waiting in Vain” when I hear a knock at the back door.
I look up to see Stone standing there.
I move to open it, but before I can even let the latch up I see it in his face—she’s gone.
“Stone,” I say.
He nods once, slowly, and then he moves toward me. Stumbles, really, and instinctively I reach out and catch him. I hold him steady as he folds into my shoulder. Long, shallow sobs that move both our bodies but have almost no sound.
“Come on,” I say. “Come in.”
He pulls back. He shakes his head. “I need to go,” he says. “I need to get out of here.”
I pull back. I look at him. I don’t know if he’s saying he needs to leave Malibu or if he’s asking something else, asking something of me.
“OK,” I say. “I’ll drive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I take us to the parking lot at the Trancas Country Mart. Or my hands take us. One minute we are on the PCH, and the next we are turning off at the Starbucks. I see a young woman behind the counter taking the order of an elderly couple.
The place is entirely different than it was when we were growing up here. There were no trendy boutiques or brunch places. It was the rodeo. A solid sandwich shop, a hardware store, and a coffee spot that had one kind of milk.
The center is nearly closed. The waiters are hovering over their last, lingering customers, and all the storefronts are shuttered.
I park, kill the engine, and roll down the windows.
“Do you want coffee?” I ask. Sometimes Starbucks stays open until ten. It’s 9:53.
Stone shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Thanks.”
“We could drive down to the water.”
“This is good,” he says. “This is perfect.”
We sit in silence like this, letting the moments pile up. Stone is one of the few people I can be completely quiet with, because silence is part of our language. There was so much that happened between us that had nothing to do with words.
There was a decade spent on the water, feeling the ocean, communicating for hours with just our bodies. We could read each other back then. We knew when one person was hungry or tired or frustrated or horny. We didn’t have to say it. I wonder if we’re now, after this past month, speaking to each other in this way again.
“It was really bad,” he says, after many minutes have passed. “The end was gruesome. Peaceful death, all that shit—” He punches his fist against the glove compartment. “She didn’t deserve that.”
“No,” I say.
“I should have done it differently.”
