Grace picked at her cuticle. “Maybe.”
Birdie was the one who came up with the nickname “Cece”—the only person who ever actually called Grace that. Looking back, Grace didn’t remember when it started, only that it’d always been there, stitched like a fine thread into their shared history. According to Birdie, Grace had been a relentlessly curious child. Always pointing. Always noticing. “See! See!” she’d shout at every small wonder. A shiny stone. A feather on the sand. At some point, “see-see” turned into Cece, which Birdie said made sense, the nickname rooted in the letters of Grace’s name.
“Grace,” Birdie said, her voice—and the name she used—a touch more serious.
“Not now, Mom,” Grace said, knowing the direction their conversation was heading.
“It’s okay to admit that you made a mistake, sweetheart.”
“Is that what you think?” Grace asked. Not urgent. Not begging. Just wanting to know. “That it was a mistake? That I should have—”
Birdie sighed. “It’s not about what I think, darling.”
Grace sank back in her chair. A question rose to the surface of her mind, but she was hesitant to pose it. “Did you ever think we were going to end up together?” she asked anyway, knowing there was no need for her to state a specific name. “For real, I mean.”
Birdie inhaled, long and slow. “I did,” she admitted. “Maybe not in the beginning when you were younger. But later, there was a long period when I thought maybe ...” One side of her mouth lifted. “It became hard to ignore the way you used to light up when you were with him.”
Grace swallowed. “Why didn’t you ever come out and tell me that back then?”
“Because, love,” Birdie said, wrapping up, “before you could really find him, I knew you needed to find yourself first instead.”
Back in the kitchen, Grace winces at the memory, right as her phone dings inside her pocket. She pulls it out and sees a message from Jenny.
Holding up okay? Any dramatic crying jags on the beach yet?
Grace releases a hushed laugh. Though she’s hours away, Jenny’s voice is a comfort.
At the house,Grace types.The lifeguards haven’t started doling out free therapy ... yet.
She tries to send the text, but it’s caught by a dreaded green line. Finally, the signal catches. Grace begins to draft a second message about her encounter with Meg, then backpedals, deletes it, and types out a different follow-up instead.
Anyway, going to change in a minute and go look at the water,Grace writes.Will likely bring a box of tissues just in case.Stubborn, the message fails to go through.
Grace sets the phone on the counter, grabs her bag, and moves down the single-story home’s only hallway, walking past the small bathroom until she’s faced by two open bedroom doors. Usually, she’d walk into the one on the left—herroom—but moves into the one on the right instead. The space is simple. A queen-size bed with a beach-motif comforter. A rattan nightstand. One dresser that’s at least as old as Grace. Before she roots through her duffel bag for her bathing suit, she sits on the edge of the mattress.
“I’m here, Mom,” she whispers. “I made it to the house.” Her sight falls on the window, her fingers fumbling with her necklace. “Now what? Any plans in place for me this afternoon?”
She waits for a sign, but her request is met with only silence.
Grace pulls herself up and clicks on the window AC unit, not only to cool the too-warm space but also to fill it with noise. It’s so quiet. No kitchen cabinets smacking shut. No screen door slapping closed. No voice calling out with promises of a joy-filled day. No anything.
“Oh, another thing,” Grace adds. “It might have been nice if you’d found a clever way to give me a heads-up before I drove down.” She presses her fingers against the glass. “You know, something to prepare me.” Her reflection blends with the light. “Anything so I had some knowledge that Ray was also back.”
Seven
The beach is breathtaking. Wide. Endless. Almost too perfect to be real.
Grace pauses at the top of the dune and takes it in. The ocean is a brilliant shade of blue green, so clear it could be mistaken for glass. Beyond it, the horizon line sits, as bold and crisp as an artist’s brushstroke. Up and down the shoreline, white lifeguard stands dot the sand—silent, steady reminders that even in her absence, someone has been here watching over this place. She closes her eyes. For an instant, Grace just listens. The hush of the waves. Distant laughter. The whisper of dune grass. The melody of it all, once memorized, now almost forgotten.
Exhaling slowly, she kicks off her flip-flops, leaving them behind with the other scattered sandals—one of the many unspoken rules of this setting. She tromps down the dune, the hot grains sliding beneath her every step. It’s late in the day, a little before five o’clock. The air is thick with heat but beginning to slip into that soft, golden-hour cool.
The magic hours.
Birdie’s favorite times of day here, just before sunrise and sunset, when the sky softens into muted pastels, the world quiets, and everything feels like a dream.
Grace navigates toward the water, hauling an old chair she dragged out from the house’s shed. She sees the beach is changing hands, like stepping into a restaurant between shifts. Families are packing up. Shaking out towels. Rinsing off toys. Stuffing food backinto coolers. Brushing sand away from sticky legs. They’re all preparing for the inevitable transition from day to night. Soon, the lifeguards will pull their warning flags, leaving this place ruleless. That’s when it belongs to the stragglers—the ones who linger to watch the sun melt into the water, to swim out too far, to set up fishing poles in the fading light. And then, there are those like Grace. The people who’ve come to sit at the edge of the world and just think.
Down by the coastline, tide pools shimmer. Sea Drift is known for them. At certain times of day, the ocean folds in on itself, creating vast sandbars and shallow playgrounds. Grace settles by one. It’s only a few inches deep before it gives way to the open sea. She wrestles the chair open—its metal rusted from saltwater and time—then sinks into it. Her toes press into the damp sand. She drags her fingers through the wet grains.
