Mostly, though, as she clicks on her blinker, preparing to leave the causeway and everything else behind it, she finds herself silently hoping that her mother was right.
Five
Grace makes it onto the island without sobbing, so that’s something.A step,like Jenny said. After a summer of nonstop push-and-pull emotion—grieving and remembering, trying and failing, holding on and reluctantly letting go—perhaps she’s finally reached her limit and is all cried out. Like those sad houseplants back on her desk, maybe she’s simply dried up, too.
The Jeep rolls off the causeway and up to Sea Drift’s only four-way traffic stop. Despite the congestion on the bridge, things have always had a way of evening themselves out down here. Ahead of her, cars peel off in both directions at a leisurely speed, their smooth, even-keel motion the vehicular equivalent of a contented exhale. As usual, Grace turns right onto the main boulevard—a two-lane artery that runs the length of the island from tip to tip. It takes about three seconds for her to see that Caleb was right.
Nothing’s changed.
The same weathered surf shops, their windows cluttered with bathing-suit-clad mannequins. The same five-and-dimes, their bins of cheap towels and sand toys spilling onto the sidewalks. The miniature golf courses and ice cream stands, drawing what look like the same midday crowds. The bakery where Grace and Birdie walked to get crumb cake. The small bookstore, with its striped awning and dollar-paperback bins. The seafood shacks, their windows buzzing with neon signs. The one-theater cinema that shows summer classics as matinees. The pastel motels, so dated they feel new again.
Grace drives. The setting slides by, frozen as if in another era—Pompeii at the beach. Memories of her at varying points in her life outside every establishment appear in her mind like pages in a flip-book. Time blurs here. This feature once warmed her heart, made her feel like arriving back on this strip of land every August was a homecoming. Now it makes her feel a little sick.
Up ahead, a young mother lingers at a crosswalk, a chair strapped to her back and a child at her side. Grace slows to a stop. They hustle across the street, pulling their packed wagon.That could have been me,Grace thinks, like she always does when she sees this type of scene. A mother. A child. The life she thought she’d have. A feeling of envy and heartache she can never turn off.
Grace glances at her phone to check the time, something to fill the void. It’s a little after one o’clock—another hour to kill before check-in. No point in driving past the house yet. She knows from experience that the cleaning crew will still be there, valiantly attempting to sweep away every last grain of sand. When she looks up, the duo is on the ocean side of the block. The mother waves, just as a hot breeze drifts through the Jeep’s open windows, carrying a familiar fragrance with it. Charcoal. Fryer oil. A thick, golden scent Grace could recognize in her sleep.
Grace waves back, but the dull pain inside her remains.Why—Why?—couldn’t that have been me?She taps the gas pedal, the smell tugging her like a leash. Her stomach aches. The vehicle moves forward as the woman and child disappear in the rearview mirror.
Suddenly, Grace feels impossibly empty.
Smitty’s isn’t fancy. A decades-old snack shack tucked between a bait shop and a marina on the bay side of the island, it boasts a walk-up window, splintered picnic tables, and a revolving staff of teenagers who offer about a 50 percent chance of getting your order right. It’s perfect.
Grace parks, cuts the ignition, then sits. All the movement of the morning—the packing, the driving, the breezing in and out of rest stops, the incessant contemplation of her choice to return—finally slows to a halt.
“Well, I’m back,” she says aloud and observes the snaking line. Dads in board shorts. Moms balancing trays of sodas. Sunburned kids chasing each other at the edge of the street. It’s a scene she’s been a part of dozens of times. Today, she feels like an outsider looking in. “Timing’s a bit off. Guess I’m a little late.”
She watches the crowd, recalling all the occasions she waited there with Birdie—her mother’s lips red, even though they were at the beach, her long gray hair tumbling from beneath a wide-brimmed hat. Before they reached the window, Birdie always handed Grace her wallet and said, “You know what we like, Cece,” then expertly lingered near a picnic table, schmoozing up other customers in her charming way so she could snag their seats the second they were done.
“Anyway,” Grace says now, “I’m not entirely sure why you nudged me here.” She sighs, finally acknowledging the fact she’s tried to ignore. “Or if you didn’t and I’m simply desperate and read too deeply into things.” She fumbles with her necklace. “Regardless, here I am.”
She inhales again, buying herself a second, then grabs her wallet and faded-blue baseball cap, swings open the door, and steps into the August heat. The sun burns bright and blazing—what Birdie would have called a real gem of a summer day. Perspiration instantly beads all over Grace’s body, the heat pressing her forward like a guiding hand. In the near distance, the bay shimmers. Grace joins the line, scans the chalkboard menu—the one that’s sat on the ledge for about a hundred years.Today’s Special: Old Bay “Dune” Fries. Same as always.
“Next!” a young girl—tank top, puka-shell bracelet, glowing tan—calls from the window a few minutes later.
“Hi,” Grace says. “Burger and a small bucket of fries.” There. Simple. Classic. Reliable. The food equivalent of an old friend. “Oh, and a red birch beer. If you still serve them.”
The girl lifts a judgmental brow, her response to Grace’s obviously foolish question, the regional soda a longtime staple of this place. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Grace confirms and hands over some cash.Unless you have a piece of my past you’re hanging on to somewhere in the back.
“You’re Number 17,” the girl says. “Next!”
Grace walks across the crushed-seashell lot. The seating area is packed. Families. Pods of friends. Dozens of strangers, all engaged in a good time. Not sure what to do with herself—Am I seriously the only person here alone?—she leans against a weathered fence. Nearby, a group of preteens plays an old hook-and-ring game, the one she often enjoyed herself at their age. She watches them, recalling the satisfaction of the metal hook hitting its target, back when life felt simple. Uncomplicated. A guaranteed win.Clink.A girl in a rash guard and bathing suit bottoms makes her mark. Everyone cheers. Grace smiles at the achievement, remembering, then turns to look at the water, the mainland a faint sliver off in the distance.
“Grace?”
A voice calls out from behind her. Grace turns, blinking against the sun, assuming it’s a coincidence—that some other person shares her name. It takes a minute for her to register a woman moving toward her, arms waving overhead. Grace observes her in pieces. Waves of strawberry-blond hair. Jade-green eyes. Long limbs. Freckled skin. The pieces slide into place—a lock twisting into position. Meg. Her old beach friend. The one Grace last saw when they were both twenty-five. The one she never expected to see again.
“I knew that was you the second you got out of your car!” Meg proclaims, her tone as bright and bubbly as ever as she draws closer. “Your hair is way darker—and shorter—than the last time I saw you, but it’s no difference! No matter how many years pass, I’d recognize you from a mile away!”
“Meg?” Grace momentarily freezes. “Meg Murphy?” She adjusts the brim of her hat, wishing she’d grabbed her sunglasses, too, likea celebrity out in disguise. Jenny was right. Sea Drift is small. Grace assumed she’d seesomeoneshe knew at some point, just not within her first ten minutes back. “Is that really you?”
“Of course it’s me!” Meg, dressed in a sleeveless cover-up and straw surfer hat, throws her arms around Grace’s neck like it’s a life preserver, her skin warm and scented with SPF. She lingers before pulling back. “Where else would I be?” Meg peers around, as if this is the only place in the world that exists. “August in Sea Drift is basically a nonnegotiable, right?” She shrugs, offers up a thousand-watt grin. “At least, it used to be.”
Grace blinks sweat from her lashes, her vision momentarily blurred. “I definitely wasn’t expecting to see you here,” she manages.
“I know, I know. It’s been, what? Ten, no”—Meg stops, calculating the time that’s passed—“fifteen years?”
