Now it’s shortly after 6:00 a.m. Grace sits straight up and presses her back against the wall, indulgences like headboards not something the beach house provides. Through the window, the sky is webbed withthe traces of sun. It’s her first official morning back on the island in five years. And for better or worse, her last.
How can she possibly stay here? Alone. Lost. Practically drowning in her past. It’s time to leave. To turn around, go home, and figure out a plan. There’s nothing left to dispute or second-guess. This trip—this hiccup of disillusion—was a mistake. A series of coincidences—the phone call, the cardinal—that, in all her desperation, she convinced herself were signs. It’s only now, in the early light of a new day, that she sees they weren’t. Sometimes a bird is just a bird, and a call is just a call. Birdie, if she had any say from the afterlife, would never have sent Grace here, not knowing what—who—was waiting.
Her head throbbing with fatigue, Grace throws aside the comforter and stands. When she does, something falls from the bed and hits the floor. She rubs her eyes and finds the old photo album, which she carried into the bedroom last night but never looked through, now sprawled out on the floor. Grace bends to pick it up but stops when she sees her sixteen-year-old self—faded-blue tank, hair wild and sun-streaked—staring back at her through time. Grace sits on the edge of the mattress and sets the album on her lap. She runs a finger over the page’s plastic sleeve. Although the picture is 2D, the memory isn’t. One look and she’s lost in the sensory details of it. The warmth of the sun on her tanned skin. The water lapping her ankles as she searched for pearlescent treasures in the surf. The undeniable feeling that she was happy.
“No.” Grace’s words are the only sound in the house. “Don’t do this to yourself.” She slaps the album closed. “It’s time to go.”
Several minutes later, the few items Grace actually had time to remove from her bag the day before are folded and packed back up. The cereal and remaining snacks are sealed and stored in the kitchen cabinets, gifts for the home’s next guests. Soon, she’s dressed—shorts, a fresh T-shirt, the same faded-blue baseball cap she wore on the drive down—the bed neatly made, her duffel bag ready and waiting near thefront door. Quickly, she breezes through the house, giving everything a once-over before she leaves.
For a beat, Grace stands in the entryway and takes it all in one final time.
“So long, house,” she says, like it’s an old friend.
She doesn’t pull the door open yet. Instead, she waits another second, perhaps to see if anything will happen, some unexplainable something that will confirm this is the right path—or maybe the wrong one. But there’s nothing.
“We had a good run together, didn’t we?” She traces her fingers over the knob—a small, unconscious goodbye. “Thanks for all the memories.” With a sigh, she twists it open and sets one foot outside. Before she’s fully gone, Grace briefly looks back. “For everything, really, I guess.”
After she drops her belongings—bag, phone, laptop, the album—inside the Jeep, Grace walks around back, collects her toiletries, and places the key beneath the bottle of strawberry shampoo. Once she’s settled back at home (Is that what I should call it? Is that what it feels like now?), she’ll call Caleb and explain.
But that’s later.
For now, before she gets in her mother’s car and heads to the bridge, Grace knows there’s one final thing she needs to do before she drives away.
The beach is quiet. Empty. The breeze still cool with night. She kicks off her shoes, walks down the dune, and makes her way toward the wide, vacant stretch of sand. The lifeguard stands are empty—nothing for anyone to watch over yet. Up ahead, the water is a smooth sheet of blue that gives way to the gentle ebbs and flows of low tide. Above it, the sky has begun to soften into day. Muted yellows. Soft peaches. Bands of lavender and gray.
The magic hour.
Grace walks to the ocean and into the surf. The water is the ideal mix of cold and warm—a burst of refreshment, but in a welcome way. She twirls her toes through it, letting droplets splash up her calf. It’s calming. Cleansing. The sound so timeless and full of peace.
Her eyes close. Grace gives herself a few minutes to experience it. If only everything in her life could feel this simple, this easy to wade into without the need to think about what comes next. Back inside the house, everything felt too tight, the air heavy with things she couldn’t quite name. Out here, it’s different. Open. Lighter. At least for this minute, easier to breathe.
This is how Grace and Birdie ended every trip to the island. Whether Grace was five or seventeen or twenty-eight, it was a tradition they refused to break. The last day of their rental week, before they climbed back in the Jeep—or separate cars as Grace got older—and headed back to the mainland, they’d wander to the beach together at sunrise to collect shells, share a few quiet moments, get a last glimpse of the ocean for the season, then say goodbye to this place.
Grace reopens her eyes, deciding to walk. The haze lingers, though behind it the sun has started to rise, its bold, bright light warming her face. In the far distance, a few figures take shape. Someone walks an unleashed dog. A person carries a surfboard.
She stops, not wanting to go too far, knowing she should hit the road early. Before she heads back, Grace bends down. She runs her hand left to right through the shallow water. Her fingers rake the cool grains of sand, tracing lazy circles before they curl around her first discovery of the morning—a half-moon of a clamshell, its edges worn smooth with time. She thumbs it, then tosses it back, knowing it’s not the right find. Gentle waves roll in, bringing with them the usual suspects: fragile coquina shells, ridged whelk bits, the long narrow halves of razor clams. They’re all broken, each piece a remnant of something larger, something that was once whole.
Grace sighs, lets a collection of fragmented shells slide off her palm and plop into the water. She turns at an angle, her back to the beach and her face tilted up toward the sky.
“Mom?” She adjusts her hat, tugs it down to block out the glare. “Are you there?” The tide pats the shoreline—a rhythmic hush that fails to provide any answers. “I wanted to tell you that I’m leaving now.” With a subtle swivel, she scans the horizon, as if some sign or solution to her problems might be sailing out in the deeper water. “And to be honest, I don’t ever plan on coming back. As much as I once loved it here, it doesn’t feel right to me anymore.”
She shakes her head, trying to shake it all away, to be okay with this decision. It’s the right one. Still, a feeling of sadness lingers in her core. In no small way, this is grief. Learning not only to say goodbye to a person, or a relationship, or a version of yourself you once believed you’d be. But also about bidding farewell to certain places, too—ones that once filled you up but that ultimately transformed themselves into sources of pain.
“My whole life, I always felt as if you and I were a lot alike,” Grace goes on. “It’s only lately that I realize there’s one big difference.” She wipes a tear from her face. “You lost Dad, just like I’ve lost you. Only, you seemed to know what to do when you did.” She tries to swallow down some of her feelings, but they’re too big. “You knew how to turn lemons into lemonade, Mom. And it turns out I don’t.”
Grace cups water over her arms, then sits alone with her thoughts for a beat.
“Anyway, I thought coming here might give me some answers. Help me figure out my next steps. Point me down a path toward finding myself again, or at the very least, help me remember the person I used to be.” She sighs. “But unfortunately, I can see that’s not the case.” She closes her eyes, the light suddenly too bright. “This would all be so much more manageable if I wasn’t stuck doing it alone, you know?” Behind her, a splash—likely a fish, or a seagull swooping down. “I feel like my whole life right now would be so much easier if I hadsomeone else here with me to talk to or to help me or to give me tips or advice or—”
“I found another one!” a voice shouts out.
Grace jumps—literally jumps—at the sound, the surprise of it making her feel as though someone has sucked out all her breath. Off-balance and newly disoriented, she tries to steady herself, but it’s no use. She falls helplessly into the surf.
By the time Grace pulls herself up—her hair, her clothes, absolutely every part of her fully soaked—she’s choking on water, her mouth full of salt. She manically blinks, her vision blurred from the droplets that cling to her lashes, as she swooshes her hands all around her, suddenly on a mad search for her hat. An instant later, she grabs it, along with a handful of brown seaweed. Grace rubs her eyes, slides her drenched cap back on, then squints.
At first, she thinks she’s seeing things, that the sun is too bright and distorting her vision. But when she blinks again—slower, controlled this time—she sees more clearly. The person before her assembles in fragments, like a Cubist painting coming together piece by piece. The faded-blue tank top. The wild, sun-streaked hair. And then, the most inexplicable detail of all: a glint of gold at the girl’s collarbone. A necklace, one Grace knows as well as her own reflection.
Another wave comes in, a bit stronger now, the tide officially starting to shift. Grace, feeling as though she’s stepped outside her own body, like she’s watching the scene unfold on an old VHS tape—grainy, surreal, a little slow—ignores it and lets it slam her side. All she can do is stare at the pendant—the familiarCececharm—that sits on the girl’s neck.
