Twelve
Grace sits on the front steps of the beach house, her mother’s photo album—retrieved from the Jeep, its windows still irresponsibly buzzed down from yesterday—sprawled open on her lap. For the last half hour or so, she’s been here, baking in the late-morning heat, staring at one photo in particular—the slouchy surfer-girl bag, the stack of knotted bracelets—while trying to make sense of the impossible. It’s so hot out that the sun’s incessant rays are making her dizzy. Just like earlier, she still hasn’t worked up the nerve to grab the key from the outdoor shower and reopen the door. After this most surreal day, she’s too afraid of what—orwho—she might discover inside.
“I see you’re a fan of the slow-burn leave,” someone says from a few feet away.
Grace looks up and finds Caleb standing at the curb, looking at her like she’s lost it. Again.
“Don’t ask,” she says, her skin burning. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” The arcade tickets sit next to her in a perforated line. “It’s a long, bizarre, borderline-unbelievable story.”
“Says the fiction writer,” he jokes, shifting his weight from one flip-flopped foot to the other. “Isn’t that part of what you do?” His brows rise. “Make the unbelievable seem within reach?”
“In theory,” Grace states as another renter from their block strolls past and waves. “Though this one is pretty far out there. Even for me.” Grace timidly returns the gesture, wishing that, like this stranger, she was busyenjoying a carefree day in the sun, too, instead of what she’s currently doing: sweating—both literally and figuratively—as she contemplates where the division line lands between the present and the past. “I’d planned to get on the road right after breakfast.” She sighs, wipes a slick of perspiration from her neck. “Life, it seems, had other plans.”
Caleb nods his understanding, even though he couldn’t possibly comprehend an iota of what she actually means. “Here.” He takes a few steps forward. “Assuming you’ll need this in order to leave.” He pulls his arm out from behind his back and passes over her purse, the one that also contains her wallet and car keys. “You left this at the diner earlier. Toni ran out and gave it to me right after you left.”
“Thanks.” Grace feels so out of sorts that she nearly forgot about it. “I swear I planned to walk back to Sunny Side any minute to go grab it,” she fibs, and sets the bag down beside her, feeling embarrassed and like an utter mess. “I’m sorry,” she adds, not sure who the apology is directed at—Caleb? Herself? Both of them? Nearby, a family moves up the block, carting enough coolers and towels to last them for a week. “My head’s been a bit ... in the clouds today.” She stops, contemplating. “If I’m honest, it’s been floating in the stratosphere all weekend, really.”
“No judgment,” Caleb states in his easygoing way. “We all go through days—weeks—like that.” A reserved grin unfolds across his face. “Seems like those seagulls back at Sunny Side made out pretty well as a result, though.”
Grace cringes, remembering the scene she caused when she toppled to the ground, as well as the fast-moving teenager at the center of it.
“You doing okay?” Caleb asks, his eyes narrowing with concern. “Really. All kidding aside.” Behind him, another troop of beachgoers tromps up the street, wearing matching wide-brimmed hats. “I know you mentioned having a heavy workload on your plate, but it seems like you’ve had a bit of a rough go since you got down here yesterday.”
Grace specializes in words, or used to. But right now, she can’t think of a single one to say that will seem right. She can’t exactly tellthis charming and handsome stranger that she’s been seeing people who maybe—probably—aren’t real. That everything she once valued, everything that once made her feel like herself—her mother, her marriage, her career, even her necklace—is gone. That she’s terrified she might be losing her mind, too.
“Let’s just say that I have a lot of memories on this island,” Grace explains. “Some that feel a little too real at the moment.”
“I understand. I have a lot of history down here, too.” He lifts an arm, scratches his fingers through his thick brunette hair. “Listen, I know we only just met, but if you ever want to talk ...” He trails off, letting the ocean breeze fill in some of the gaps. “I’m just saying I know firsthand that life—even down here—isn’t always as simple as it seems.” He smiles. “You’re welcome to unload on me.”
In the near distance, the sound of an ice cream truck playing a familiar childhood song fills the air. “Can I ask you something, Caleb?” Grace looks down at the album and the smiling thirteen-year-old who stares back, then up at Caleb. “Though I should warn you—it’s kind of out there.”
“Of course.” He gives her a playful wink. “So long as it’s not about a broken fridge. I think I’ve filled my quota on those types of questions for the day.”
“Do you believe in ... signs?” She waits to see if he’ll laugh or serve up a joke. He doesn’t. She presses ahead. “Little unexplainable clues or coincidences, you know? Like someone, somewhere, is trying to point you down a certain path?”
“Honestly?” Caleb stretches his arms upward. “Yeah, I sort of do.” He exhales, working out the second part of his reply. “I didn’t always, though. It’s a bit of a newer thing for me, I guess.”
“What made you suddenly start?”
He tilts his chin up, as if searching for an answer in the bright-blue sky. She sees through his shirt that his inhalations deepen, his chest rising heavy and smooth.
“Someone I cared about believed in them.” Caleb lowers his face, bites his bottom lip, as a look of sadness fills his eyes. “But I didn’t start believing in them myself until after she was gone.”
Grace passes the rest of the day asleep on the couch. After Caleb left to cater to more rental dramas (an ant issue over on Bay Road, a wonky AC unit out on Shore Drive), she closed the photo album and gave herself a dozen pep talks. (It’s easy, Grace! Just get in the Jeep, turn on the ignition, and drive!) Still, she failed to force herself into action. Despite logic, possible mental breakdowns, and the pressing weight of her real life and responsibilities back on the mainland, after everything she encountered that morning, she couldn’t bring herself to actually leave.
Instead, she dragged herself into the living room and, for the first time since arriving back on Sea Drift, let herself cry. A thousand tears, expelled like breath. At some point in the midst of it, everything caught up with her—the sun, the emotion, the sugary breakfast, Cece—and knocked her out with all the force of a tidal wave.
Now she pulls herself up from the comfortable new sectional following what she can only assume, based on the late-afternoon light that spills across the room, has been an epically long nap. Grace stretches, catlike, easing back into her body like a guest returning after a long absence.
“What time is it?” The inside of her mouth is stale with sleep. She pats around on the cushions for her phone, which rests next to the album, and sees it’s already almost five o’clock. “Good job, Grace. You’re officially a toddler.” She wipes her chin. “You’ve more or less slept the whole day away.”
Grace sets down her phone while her body begins to fully awaken. As it does, she turns her attention to her foot. The splinter, which she’d hoped might work itself out by now, is still there, suspended under her skin. It gently pulses, soft yet persistent, like a whisper beneath her flesh. She scratches the area with her fingernail, though the thinsliver of wood—this small, stubborn piece of the island lodged within her—doesn’t budge.
Annoyed by her inability to force it out, Grace sighs. If Birdie were here, she’d know exactly what to do—the precise way to press and pull it away, a practice she perfected over years of tending to her daughter’s wounds and scrapes. There were so many things Birdie innately knew how to do. Whip up a pot of perfect chicken soup with hardly any ingredients whenever Grace was sick. Determine, with just one look from across the room, whether her daughter had a fever. How to best heal all her child’s small injuries. It was as if some important switch inside Birdie—one that triggered a specific set of instincts—had been clicked on the moment she became a mother, one that’s never been activated for Grace.
Frustrated, Grace gives up now, choosing instead to ignore her heel and telling herself that the ache in it will eventually fade away.
She drops her feet to the floor and gives herself a minute. On the scuffed coffee table, the sand dollar and arcade tickets sit—two very real objects that feel impossible to dismiss or ignore—and she remembers what Caleb said about his newfound thoughts on these sorts of things.
