Chapter 1
Isaid I’d sooner die than go back to Shearwater, but death forced me to return anyway.
It had been nine years since I’d last driven the curving country roads covered in ivy arches and high hedgerows. Old cottages hunkered in their overgrown gardens, kitschy statues of fairies and gnomes peeking out of flower beds. I passed a sign that raised all the hair on my arms.
Shearwater Spring.
Take a magical step through time.
I stopped my caravan, Lunaris, in the church car park. A black canopy of umbrellas loitered on the stairs leading into the funeral service, a queue of people offering condolences and prayers to the family. My family.
I couldn’t bring my umbrella. It was designed like a sunflower. I’d look as though I werecheerfulto attend my grandfather’s funeral.
“Right. Just go. Say hi. Pay my respects. Leave. That’s it.”
As if to soothe me, the seat warmer turned on and the old radio sputtered out an acoustic version of a song Grandad used to play on every trip to the seaside.
There’s a place where the sun shines warm all day
and we’re together, oh, together
with all the time in the world
I patted the dashboard. Lunaris couldn’t quite give me a hug, but this was the next best thing.
Before I left, I opened the cupboard under the sink, dug through the back for a bottle of whiskey, poured myself a generous portion, necked it, then braved the weather.
Rain spattered the suit I’d had fitted for the occasion. Grandad deserved my respects, and of all the passive-aggressive comments I’d receive today, I refused to let my clothes be one. Lunaris waved her windshield wipers to say,Goodbye and good luck.
Searching the crowd, I experienced the surreal, temporal crisis of seeing faces both familiar and unrecognizable. I’d come here to say goodbye, but it was saying hello that had me biting my nails.
My cousin Amelia stood a little apart from the others in a serene black suit interrupted by a loudly purple tie. When I’d left, she’d had the oversized hands and feet of an adolescent puppy and ears that earned her the nickname “Fins.” She’d grown into both. She was my height, smoking a cigarette on the path leading up to the church.
Back when I’d known her, she’d held that lowly spot in the family hierarchy reserved for the sin of never tolerating anyone’s bullshit. Amelia wasn’t rude or blunt. (That title was mine.) She just had boundaries. A criminal offense in a family like ours.
As my fellow black sheep, she was the best bridge to my re-introduction.
“Hey.”
“Well, you’re not the ghost I expected to see here today,” she said, letting me under her umbrella.
“Figured I should say goodbye.”
“Brave man.” She cocked her head, looking me over. “I like the mustache.”
“Thanks. I like your tie.”
“Aunt Lettie already gave it the look. You know the one.” She performed a perfect imitation of our auntie’s sneer, complete with the up-and-down eyes that catalogued your every sin and faxed them straight to God.
“Can’t wait to hear what she has to say about my mustache, then.”
“You know she won’t miss an opportunity to imply Grandad might have lasted a few years longer if you’d stuck around.”
Grandad and everyone else had only lasted this long because I’d left.
“Cigarette?” She offered me the pack.
“Don’t smoke.”
