Briefly, Grace thinks back to one of her first sessions with Dr. Anne. On that day, Grace started crying the minute she entered the office and didn’t stop until she left. She apologized for her blubbering emotions, like they were a silly character trait she hoped to edit out. At that meeting—Grace seated on a worn sofa, looking at the office’s many potted plants—Dr. Anne explained that in the beginning, one tends to cognitively register loss, but the emotional recognition often comes later, after the services, after the initial shock, after the sympathy cards stop coming, when life settles down. That’s usually when your heart catches up with your mind.
Now it hits her. Not just the loss but all it really means. Maybe it’s the setting. Or something in the air. Or that she’s finally been away from home long enough to think. But she can’t deny the truth. It’s none of these things.
It’s him.
His presence. His energy. This person who knows so many layers of her history, like a nesting doll that contains years of her past. There was something about him that would always let her put down her guard. To be present. To be her most authentic self in countless ways.
“Because, Ray.” Grace reopens her eyes. The words take their time coming out. Before she speaks, they feel truer than any other time she’s said them out loud. “Birdie’s gone.”
“What?” A look of genuine bewilderment molds Ray’s expression. “What are you talking about?” Behind him, Hooper continues to explore the farther stretches of the coast. “When?”
“This winter,” she explains, looking out at the horizon. “February. It was sudden. I had absolutely zero warning or time to prepare.”
Absorbing this information, Ray closes his eyes. His bare chest rises and falls out of cadence. “Jesus, Grace. I don’t know what to say.” He reopens them. “I saw her car and, well ...” He trails off while he tries to wrap his mind around it. “I had no idea.”
Tears fall down Grace’s face. Not a heavy sob or a dramatic downpour. Just a few sad lines of salt tracking down her cheeks.
“I told Meg,” Grace admits, too wrapped up in her emotions to really think about what she’s saying. “I ran into her at Smitty’s the day I got on the island. We had dinner at the Beachcomber the other night, before you showed up on my porch.”
“You had dinner with Meg? She knows you’re here?” He looks up and down the beach, like his sister might suddenly appear out of thin air. “She didn’t tell me that.”
Grace sighs. “She said she thought it was best to leave the past in the past.” Her fingers trail across broken bits of shells. “She said you’re finally in a good place.” Grace redirects her gaze upward, locking eyes with him. “She didn’t expand on what that meant. Did something happen?” she asks, wanting to know and yet not sure she does. “Is that why you moved here?”
A new wave rolls in, its foamy cap creeping farther up the beach.
Another breath. Another long sigh. “I was engaged,” Ray says, his words flat of feeling. “Down in Virginia. We never made it to the aisle, though. She broke it off a month before our date without any real explanation.” Hooper finally runs back over. “I needed a reset after that. I came up here a few weeks later, rented an apartment for a couple months. Thought it was a good place to be while I figured out my next steps.” The dog shakes off her golden coat, releasing a spray of water. “Turns out I’m not all that different than I was at twenty-five.” His head pans from left to right as he takes in the setting. “October marks two years that I’ve been back.”
“I’m really sorry,” Grace says, meaning it. Wishing he hadn’t experienced heartache. Wishing no one ever did. “About your engagement,”she adds, even as something inside her burns with anger and jealousy for this unnamed person who left him, despite the fact that she once did the same thing.
“It’s fine. At least, now it is,” Ray tells her, his voice soft. He pets Hooper’s soaking-wet head. “Life happens in funny ways. It ended up being a blessing in disguise for Meg, you know? Me moving here and being a few hours closer than I was before. My parents come up from down south for long stretches as much as they can, but they’re getting older. It’s hard.” He takes a breath. “Me living in Sea Drift has made things a lot easier for everyone. Traffic’s a nightmare, but if I time it right, I can head up to her place in Pennsylvania once or twice a week to give her a hand.” A small smile molds his lips. “Hooper here keeps me company on the long drives. She’s a good copilot.”
“It’s been a blessing for Meg?” Grace asks, confused. “What do you mean?” She thinks of their conversation—Meg glowing as she talked about her simple but perfect life. “What have you needed to give her a hand with?”
Ray’s face changes then, his expression forming into a hybrid of frustration and sadness. “Let me guess.” He sighs, long and loud. “Meg told you she’s staying at the beach house with the kids and my folks, yeah?” He pinches the bridge of his nose, then releases it. “Ben’s stuck at work for the week, right?”
“Well ... yeah,” Grace says, still replaying their dinner together, as well as their run-in at Smitty’s, in order to determine if there was some detail she missed. “Is that not the case?”
Nearby, a family—dressed in coordinating blues—poses near the water for a photo, their arms wrapped around each other, their hair billowing just so in the evening breeze.
“Meg’s a widow,” Ray states. “Ben died in an accident last May.”
The nauseous feeling returns to Grace, stronger this time, less like a ripple and more like a tsunami. Her fingers shake. She opens her mouth, but her vocal cords are paralyzed. Not that it matters. Not that she’d have a clue what to say.
“My sister’s a mess, Grace,” Ray continues. “She puts on a good act, but that’s all it is. The last few months, whenever she sees someone she used to know or meets someone new, she just pretends it didn’t happen. That her whole life worked out perfectly, according to plan.” He reaches for the rest of his belongings. “I guess that just feels easier to her than having to relay the story of what actually happened over and over again.” He clips Hooper’s leash to her collar. “It’s funny. I used to think people came to this island for different reasons, you know? To relax. To get away. Since moving here full-time, though? I’m starting to believe that it’s just a pretty place where people like to come and grieve.”
The family, having captured the perfect shot, unlocks arms and begins to walk away.
“How do I find her?” Grace asks. “What’s their rental address? I want to talk to her.”
“Don’t go to the house,” Ray insists, unwrapping his towel from his waist and tossing it over his shoulder. “Not with Emma and Quinn around. It’s only recently that they’re happy again and settling back into a normal routine.” He slides his dry T-shirt over his head. Grace’s eyes instinctively follow as the fabric slides over the lines of his chest. He slips on his hat backward, just like when they were teens. “But you can find my sister pretty much every night over at my place after the kids fall asleep.”
“O-okay,” Grace stammers, reaching for something to jot down his address, but realizing she doesn’t have anything—no phone, no pen. “Where do you live?”
Ray’s shoulders shake with a quiet laugh. “Not at my house, Grace,” he clarifies. “At my bar. The Dive.” He closes his eyes, a whole story unfolding in his mind. When he opens them again, he looks right at her, locking in her gaze before she can turn away. “I got a gig there a few nights a week when I first moved here. Something to hold me over. But then I remembered someone told me a long time ago that wasn’t a very grown-up plan.” The breeze blows, and it feels cooler than it should.“An opportunity presented itself early last spring, a few months before we lost Ben. Maybe in some ways I owe it to you.”
“Owe what to me?”
“The fact that I followed the signs, took a chance, and bought it.”
