“I should’ve gone back. To Sea Drift.” Her voice cracks. “I was so stupid. So selfish.”
“There were reasons,” Jenny says gently. “A lot of them. Birdie knew that.”
Grace doesn’t respond. She shuts the album. When she does, something slips loose from the pages. A sand dollar. Fragile. Perfectly intact.
Without warning, a memory washes in.
The night of their third date, Grace explained her fixation with signs to Adam. They’d just left a restaurant in the West Village and were stopped at a corner, the neighborhood’s cafés spilling light onto the sidewalk as they waited to cross. That was the moment Adam abruptly interrupted their conversation, took Grace’s face in his hands, and kissed her for the first time.
“We should keep doing this.” He pulled back. The rest of the city kept moving, even though to Grace it felt as if everything had stopped. “Spending time together, I mean.”
The light changed. They took a step. And that’s when Grace saw it: a shiny penny, planted at her feet. Her heart did a somersault as she instinctively bent and picked it up. Adam looked at her like maybe she was a little crazy, which prompted her to explain the practice.
“I’m guessing this is a deal-breaker?” she said, half joking.
“Not at all.” Around them, the autumn breeze picked up. “I’m not sure I believe in that stuff.” He smiled. “But it’s romantic that you do.” Adam buried his hands in his coat pockets. “So what’s that penny a sign of? Anything good?”
Grace squirted hand sanitizer into her palm. “I hope so.”
Back in the living room, Jenny’s voice chimes through the phone. “Look, you can’t beat yourself up. Birdie knew you had your own life.” She stops. “You know what I think she’d say if she were here?”
“Probably something maddeningly optimistic.”
“Exactly. She’d tell you to stop being so hard on yourself. Clean yourself up. Go outside. Get some sun, and—” The baby wails. “Shoot. I’m sorry. I’ve got to call you—”
“It’s fine,” Grace assures her. “Really.” She bites an unpolished nail, thinking. “Before you go, can I ask you something?”
“The secret to perfect pancakes is a smidge of ricotta and—”
“Cute,” Grace notes, picking up the Magic 8 Ball again. “Granted, your kids are young, but out of curiosity, have you started to put boxes like these together for them yet?”
“There is currently a plastic bag in my underwear drawer filled with locks of hair and baby teeth,” Jenny admits. “I’m like a sentimental serial killer when it comes to my kids.”
“What do you plan to do with it? Other than store it with your underpants for eternity?”
“Hard to say.” She consoles the baby with hushedShhhsounds. “I just can’t get rid of it.”
Grace shakes the toy.Will life get easier? Will I ever get through all this?She turns it, watches the purple triangle float to the viewer’s surface.Reply hazy,it reads.Try again.
“When will I feel like myself again, Jenny?” she asks, sounding newly desperate. “Like the old me. The one who had life figured out.” Tears sting her eyes. “Tell me. Give me a date.”
Jenny exhales. “I don’t know, Grace. I wish I could.”
“Nothing’s helping. Not therapy. Not my silly keeled-over plants. Not time.”
“Things will get better.” Jenny’s tone is soft and motherly, but firm. “You’ll see. You’ll find your way. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. Or next week. But eventually, you will.”
Grace lets out a heavy breath.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Grace wipes her cheek. “It’s just that Birdie used to say that, too.”
Grace wakes to the sound of her phone ringing—a sharp, electronic trill.
She jolts, tugged mercilessly from a dream she feels but doesn’t totally recall. Pulling herself up from the couch cushions, she rolls out her neck. It comes to her in pieces. Warm air. Golden sunlight refracting on the water. A sense of weightlessness, as if she’s floating. The sound of a voice that feels familiar—comforting—but which, in her present state, she can’t quite place.
Ring, ring.
