“I found something,” Caleb states as soon as Grace pushes open the screen door and moves onto the top step. He stands on the walkway. “Last night. I didn’t want to knock too late.”
Grace—dressed in a tee and shorts—pushes a strand of loose hair out of her eyes. “What is it?” For the first time in days, her fingers drift to her collarbone to search for her old necklace chain—something familiar for them to tangle themselves up in. “What did you find?”
Caleb pulls a folded-up sheet of paper from his shorts pocket, though he doesn’t unfold it just yet. “You said your mother’s last name was Porter, right?”
Her lungs freeze, everything in her chest instantly becoming tight. “Yes.” Barefoot, she steps down the remaining stairs. “Why?”
“Well, in that case, she definitely didn’t rent the house last year,” Caleb confirms. “It was a totally different family who rented it. At least, before my folks canceled on them.”
His comment both instantly deflates Grace and simultaneously fills her up. “Oh,” she says, not sure what answer she hoped to hear. That, yes, her mother was here last summer while Grace was in Maine. Or that, no, she wasn’t, and the Murphys were all caught up in some elaborate misunderstanding. “Okay.” She shifts her weight on her feet, yesterday’s Band-Aid curling off her heel. “That makes sense.”
Caleb smiles, pleased to share this information. His expression calms Grace, makes her believe that, at least for now, this one point of confusion in her life can be put to rest.
“Grace?” he says before the feeling has a chance to sink in. “Do you remember when I called you last Friday and said things fell through with the original renter forthisweek?”
“Y-yes. Why?”
“My dad, well, I told you, he’s been a mess since Kelly passed. He didn’t realize until the other day that this week’s renter never sent a deposit; half was due back in February, and half at the start of this month. I called, but the number I had on file was disconnected. I finally just figured they decided to bail on it.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, like he’s trying to determine how to say the next part. “By chance, did your mom go by a nickname or anything like that?” He steps forward, passes her the sheet. “Because if so, then I think it’s possible she was the person I was trying to reach one final time last Friday, right before I called you.”
Grace unfolds the paper slowly, afraid any sudden movement might make it detonate in her grip. There, printed at the top of the lease for 116 Surf Street, is her mother’s name:Birdie Porter. A few lines below it, in the section indicating any additional occupants, the wordsGrace Elizabeth Porter—her daughter’s maiden name—appears. Her eyes quickly skim over the blocks of text—rules and regulations and fine-print legalese—until they land on the most pertinent details of the agreement. The dates. A one-week rental set to begin at two o’clock last Saturday, the same day Grace checked in.
“Everything okay?” Jenny pushes the screen door open. Grace looks back, her expression revealing everything. Jenny steps outside and, without a word, takes the paper from her friend. She gives herself a minute to skim it, then looks up, her eyes bouncing back and forth between Caleb and Grace. “Your mother booked the house for the two of you when she was on the island the day of your birthday last year?” She pauses, letting the puzzle pieces click together in her mind. “For you to come down togetherthisyear?” Jenny looks at Grace, then at Caleb, then at Grace again. “As in, right now? This current week?” She takes another glance at the sheet, trying to make sense of something, then passes it back. “I don’t understand. She never mentioned it to you, Grace? Why wouldn’t she have told you she planned to do that?”
Grace looks at the paper, flipping it over as if some hidden message might appear. “I don’t know.” Her sight falls to the bottom of the agreement and the boldfaced word—Sign—just beneath her mother’s name. “Maybeshe was planning a surprise for my birthday?” Grace suggests, though she’s not sure this makes sense. Birdie wouldn’t book something like that—a full week away—without running it past Grace and cross-checking her availability first. Would she? Just as she thinks this, her mind tumbles backward to last summer and the day Birdie came and watched Hallmark movies with her in bed—the afternoon she subtly hinted that she felt Grace’s marriage might not last and the little joke she made about running away to the beach. “But I know someone who might have some insight.”Someone,Grace considers,who I think my mother wanted me to come down here and see. She looks to Caleb, holds up the agreement. “Can I keep this?”
“Of course. It’s just a copy. That’s why I brought it.”
Grace nods her appreciation, then turns to walk back inside. Before she makes it to the top step, she pivots back. “I understood what you meant yesterday. About how loss changes you.” She tucks the sheet into her back pocket. “For the record, I’m still trying to figure out which version of myself I am these days, too.”
Ray is nowhere.
For the last two hours, Grace has biked the full stretch of the island, hoping to find him and force him to tell her everything he knows. Back on her porch the other night, when Ray initially mentioned Birdie, her mind turned to the surreal—maybe a weird dream he’d had or the impossible fact that he was somehow seeing bits of the past everywhere on Sea Drift, too. Now, though, after bumping into Carol and hearing Caleb’s news, she understands that he didn’t mean his remarks in a metaphysical way. He saw her. Last summer. Talked to her. Knew something right now about Birdie that Grace didn’t.
Even though Jenny insisted that she come (Let’s at least drive ... in a car ... with AC!), Grace told her she wanted to be alone. She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for or what she mightend up learning, only that she wanted to be by herself when she finally found it.
Grace pedaled her way to every logical spot. She started at the Dive, hoping to find him working an early shift, but when she arrived, the lights were all clicked off and the door was locked. She rode over to Dune Street, walked her cruiser up and down the block three times while she studied every porch and window with the intent of catching a glimpse of Carol or Meg—someone to tell her something or point her in the right direction—but she had no luck. She pushed onward. Up to the lighthouse. Back to the boardwalk. Over to the old fishing pier. Down to the part of the beach where he liked to surf.
Nothing.
The whole time she rode, Grace thought of her mother. She tried to imagine Birdie driving over the bridge by herself last August—while Grace was hours away in Maine, stuck in a place and a part of her life where she didn’t quite want to be—and finding Carol, then Ray, then ... what? Did Birdie stay for the week in some other rental or hotel? Did she drive back home after going to the rental agency and signing a lease for Number 116 for this very week?
Grace had so many questions she might not ever be able to answer. So many things about her mother she felt desperate to know.
And that, she understood, was one of the hardest parts of losing someone you loved.
You couldn’t pick up the phone anymore to call and ask a simple question—Do you still have that recipe for those cookies you made? Do you remember the name of that little place we went to that one time? Did you talk to my childhood crush, book our old vacation home, then never tell me about either thing?
The absence hurt Grace in ways she couldn’t explain. Her mother was nowhere. And everywhere. She saw her in everything, not just on this island but in every part of her life. But she couldn’t talk to her. Hear her voice. Beg her for advice. Instead, Grace just clung on to herbeliefs and told herself a bird in the window or a feeling in the breeze was Birdie.
Now, her search more or less over and feeling hot, tired, and completely wrung out, Grace slows her pedaling, looking for somewhere to stop.
It’s lunch by the time she parks the bike in the rack outside Smitty’s. As always, the lot is packed. The line from the takeout window already snakes halfway down the crushed-seashell lot. Sunburned kids dart in every direction. Moms balance trays of food. A group of preteens is gathered around the old hook-and-ring game, cheering with every bit of enthusiasm they have each time one of them lands a shot.
“Anyone sitting here?” Grace asks a few minutes after she orders. She stands next to one of the picnic tables holding a plastic tray—red birch beer, small bucket of fries—and waits for the woman in question to respond.
“Nope,” the woman says, her gaze focused on her food. “My kids are off running somewhere.” She waves to the empty seat across from her. “It’s just me.”
“Your brother told me what happened,” Grace says when Meg finally looks up from her paper plate. “We’ve run into each other a few times down here this week.”
