Quiet falls between them, a soft kind that fills the space between two people who have more than they maybe initially realized in common.
“This house reminds you of her,” Grace says, not as a question but a fact.
“It does,” Caleb admits. “Two weeks every July. We shared the bed in the front room. Ate dinner barefoot out back every night.” He rubshis thumbs over each other. “Funny how a place you only ever stayed in for a few days every year can feel so much like home.”
At the end of the block, the faint sound of a song fills the air as the ice cream truck turns onto Surf Street. Like clockwork, a sea of children swarm it from every direction.
“Can I ask you something?” Grace poses and watches the kids, so happy to receive something so small. “Are you able to view past rental records? See if someone named Elizabeth Porter stayed in the house this same week last year?”
“No need to check,” he responds. “House was empty. My parents canceled all reservations for the remainder of August after Kelly passed, paid everyone back. They didn’t want to deal with any landlord emergencies in the wake of everything.” Caleb’s gaze narrows, like he’s thinking about something. “Why do you ask?”
Grace shifts the pharmacy bag to her other hand. “Just trying to figure something out.”
Caleb nods, then stands. “Anyway, I won’t keep you.” A small, teasing smile forms on his face. “Seeing as you have so many unauthorized visitors and all.” He makes it a few steps toward the street before he turns back. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how much loss changes a person.” He holds his palm to his forehead, squints. “If I was the old me—the one I was before I lost Kelly—I’d be pretty jealous of Adam. You seem like someone I’d be very interested in.”
“And now?”
“Right now,” Caleb tells her, “I’m still trying to figure out which version of myself I am.”
Back inside the house, Grace puts the pharmacy bag in the bathroom, then sits on the couch to wait for Jenny to return. While she does, she adds the Madame Mermaid coupon to her pile of strange souvenirs, the growing museum exhibit of all her past selves right there on display.
She sinks into the couch, kicks off her sandals, and grabs Birdie’s oldSummer Memoriesalbum, which still rests on a cushion from the other day. She flips, past photos of her and her mother from every era of her life, now viewing each picture a little differently than she did just a few nights ago. Grace holds the album close to her face, examining the images, like maybe the answer she’s looking for will appear, as if Birdie’s expression is a Magic Eye illustration: If she just stares at it long enough, some secret will be revealed.
“Why did you come here?” Grace asks the air, the first time she’s spoken aloud to her mother in days. “What were you doing or looking for that you couldn’t tell me about?”
The phone rings, the intrusion of it enough to make Grace jump. She drops the album, fumbles in her pocket for her phone, and quickly presses it to her ear.
“Grace,” the voice says through the line. “Hi. I’m just checking in to see if you’re okay. It’s Dr. Anne. You missed your weekly appointment yesterday.”
“Shoot,” Grace says through a sigh. “Dr. Anne. I’m so sorry.” She rubs her forehead, embarrassed to have stood up her therapist. “I’m fine. Honestly, I just completely forgot to call and cancel.” For a moment, Grace thinks back to last week, sitting in Dr. Anne’s office, talking about breath work and breakthroughs. How much has changed—not just her location but so many things—since then. “I ended up taking a very last-minute trip down to the beach,” she explains. “I’ve been here since Saturday and am still sort of wrapping my mind around the fact that I’m even here at all. I’m sorry that I flaked.”
“It’s okay,” Dr. Anne assures her in her typical kind and professional way. “I just wanted to be sure you were all right. It was out of character for you.” She lets her comment sit there, like they’re in session, giving Grace a minute to process and then reply.
“It’s the place my mom and I used to come every August,” Grace says. “Our old rental house became available at the last minute. I hesitated, but then gave in.”
“That’s ... interesting,” Dr. Anne states, always leaving a syntactical door open.
Grace lets a few long seconds pass, deciding whether she wants to proceed with the questions running through her mind. “Do you remember that session we had earlier this summer?” she finally asks. “The one where you told me to try to remember what I was like when I was younger?”
“I do,” Dr. Anne says, willing to listen even though this isn’t their scheduled time slot.
At the time of that meeting, Grace had been seeing Dr. Anne for a few months, mostly to help her work through Birdie’s loss. But by that session in June, so many other parts of her life had started to crack. Trying to think about the past felt like purposefully placing her hands on hot coals, an excruciating pain that did nothing but make her hurt.
“I’ve been ... seeing myself,” Grace says, cautious to phrase things in a metaphorical—not a literal—sense. “Past versions of me, all over this island.” She glances at the photo album, the one full of images of them. “Everywhere I go, it’s like there’s a new one waiting for me, like my memories are staging an intervention or something.”
Dr. Anne doesn’t laugh. She never laughs. “What have they all been like?”
Grace looks down at the assorted objects on the coffee table and runs through a mental roster of them all. “Happy. Determined. Messy. Full of doubt. Thoughtful. Confused.”
“And how did you feel toward each of them?”
Grace exhales softly. “Tender, I think.”
“Interesting,” Dr. Anne states again. “Well, maybe you ought to turn that observation into a question,” she suggests. “How do you think a future version of yourself might view present-day Grace, the one you’ve been awfully hard on the last few months?”
Grace picks up the sand dollar, turning it in her fingers. “The same way, I hope.”
Grace is half asleep on the couch when Jenny bursts through the door, wearing a wide-brim hat and holding a bottle of wine in each hand.
