Birdie looked at her through kind eyes, an entire dialogue passing through their silence. “Well, love, unfortunately, as your old, widowed mother knows firsthand, we don’t always get to choose the shape our lives will take.” She rubbed Grace’s leg through the blanket. “We make plans, Cece, and the universe—”
“Laughs,” Grace said, finishing her mother’s thought. “I wish it wouldn’t, though.”
A moment passed before Birdie conjured up a bright smile, her lips done up in her signature red, even then. “How about one of those silly Hallmark movies?” She grabbed the remote from the nightstand. “They’re airing a new one tonight that takes place at thebeach.” She clicked, finally landing on the right channel. On the screen, a serious-looking businesswoman stood at a marina talking to an absurdly handsome fisherman type. “See! Told you!”
Grace chuckled, rested her head on Birdie’s shoulder. She gave her mother the courtesy of a few nonjudgmental minutes before she offered up her opinions. “Oh my God, Mom, this issobad! I can already predict every twist and tell youexactlyhow it’ll end!”
“I know.” Birdie laughed. “That’s what makes it so good.”
They kept watching it anyway.
“Do you miss it?” Birdie asked a little while later as the main characters collapsed into each other’s arms and kissed. “The beach.Ourbeach. This month marks five years since we’ve been back.”
Grace sighed, but it made her abdomen hurt more than it already did. “I do.”
“I know, my girl.” Birdie waited before she uttered anything else. Just one more conversation by way of telepathy. Finally, she lifted Grace’s hand, pressed her crimson lips against it. “Me, too.”
“Mom?” Grace asked, not taking her eyes off the television screen. “Do you think we’ll be okay? In the long run? Me and Adam?”
Birdie breathed through her nose, her mouth shut tight. “I think sometimes life hands us hard things. But I also believe whatever it gives you, Cece, you’ll come out okay on the other side of it,” she said, never actually mentioning Adam or their marriage in her response. She nodded toward the TV. “And if all else fails, you can be like our leading lady here and run away to find yourself at the beach again,” she added with a wink.
Later that month, the week of Grace’s thirty-seventh birthday, while Birdie stayed home in Pennsylvania—their annual trips to Sea Drift a thing of the past—Grace and Adam sat outside having lunch at a coastal restaurant in Bar Harbor, Maine—a trip they’d planned late that spring, hoping it would serve as an early babymoon. Nearby, fishing boats with clever names bobbed in the marina, just like in that silly movie Grace and her mother had watched. Before the meal was over, Adam told Grace he wasn’t ready—that he might not ever be ready—to try again.His heart wasn’t invested in it the same way anymore. At that point—all the losses they’d experienced together stacked up like a precarious tower of blocks—he wasn’t sure if he even wanted a kid.
Now, back in Birdie’s old bedroom in the beach house, it’s light outside. After a long, solitary night spent trying to untangle a dozen unsolvable riddles, the first beams of sun stretch through the window, painting long yellow strips across the seashell comforter. Somewhere outside, a gull shrieks, a signal that the morning is officially underway.
Tired of being horizontal, Grace sits up. A wave of nausea washes over her, her body still processing last night’s meal, the most food and alcohol she’s consumed in ages. She clutches the comforter, steadying the feeling, sets the ring on the wobbly nightstand, then looks through the window, privately hoping that this new day will manage to shed light on things.
Beyond the glass, the other houses that separate hers from the beach sit like toys. At the end of them is the pink house—Caleb’s rental—right next to the dune. Is that where he was when he called her on Friday? Sitting on the deck, casually poking around on his computer, when he told her that Number 116—a house that, for years, was steadily booked every week of the summer—was newly available and free for the taking?
A thought enters Grace’s mind, one she hadn’t once considered all night. Other than Jenny, Caleb is the only person in Grace’s life—the only one on the planet—who hadanyknowledge that she planned to return here, to this setting, this house, and on a last-minute whim. Was it possible he and Ray knew each other? That this whole week was some elaborate game?
“Just go talk to him, Grace,” she says aloud. “Throw on some clothes, walk over there, knock on the door, and ask.”
However, she instantly shuts herself down. What would she even say?Hello, attractive and charming neighbor whom I’ve already embarrassed myself in front of multiple times. By chance, do you know my teenage crush, and if so, are you two in cahoots to make me think my mother is communicating with him from the afterlife?
“Sure,” she tells herself. “That’d go over great.”
She needs to tell someone. This information all feels too heavy for her to hold alone. It’s early—too early to contact most people—though Grace knows one person who, like her, though for completely different reasons, will be wide awake.
I saw him, Grace types, and hits send. It takes a minute of battling the Wi-Fi for it to go through.Technically, twice, she types as a follow-up.He said he talked to Birdie. That she told him I’d be back on the island this week.
Three dots quickly appear on the screen.
What does that mean?Jenny responds.Like ... through a medium or something?
I have no idea,Grace replies.I’m not even sure he knows that she’s gone. He just showed up at the house last night, dropped that bomb, and left.
A moment passes before another message comes through. Whether it’s because of a weak connection or Jenny’s hesitation is hard to say. Jenny knew about Ray. For years, she’d seen the way Grace’s face lit up whenever she spoke about him. Still, when Grace fell headfirst into a relationship with Adam—the steadier, more grown-up choice—Jenny never pressed her. It was clear Grace had already made her decision. Sometimes being a good friend meant giving someone the grace to rewrite their story, even though they still held the first draft of it close to their heart.
So,Jenny types,am I allowed to ask the obvious?She follows her message up with a half dozen winky-face emojis.
Grace hesitates, pushes away a strand of hair, then picks a flake of sunburned skin from her shoulder. She turns, quickly glances at the ring again, then swings her feet to the sandy floor.
He looked great,she admits.
Grace rinses off in the outdoor shower, then throws on fresh clothes, hoping these simple rituals—rise, lather, dress—might help inspire a feeling ofnormalcy. In the bedroom, she rubs lotion on her sunburned shoulders, combs her strawberry-scented hair, and slides on her sandals—the splinter and its dull ache still annoyingly present, much like the one in her head, compliments of her ongoing fatigue.
After a half-hearted attempt to make the bed—no sheet tucking, just smoothing the comforter a bit—Grace pauses in front of the room’s sole dresser and looks in the scratched-up seashell-framed mirror above it. Why did she really come back here? To this island? This house? Was it to sit in the sun and photosynthesize? To heal and find perspective on the parts of her life that felt unclear? To write a story she has no real experience with—a narrative that once felt like a blueprint but that she’s no longer sure she believes in?
