“I make no promises. I am, as you know, an idiot.”
She nodded with mock solemnity.
“I do know that.”
She paused for a moment before speaking again. This time she was the one watching the traffic. Finally, she said:
“I’m very proud of you, Whit.”
Whit didn’t know what to say. She was his younger sister, and they didn’t often talk like this, but she kept going, her face all affection.
“A really horrible thing happened to you, and you had a hard time with it, because of course you did, but you’re doing okay. You’re a good dad, and you’ve figured out a way to do the really difficult thing Helen wanted you to do, and you seem like you’re actually happy again. Maybe not all the time, but enough of the time. I’m proud of you.”
He gave her a humble, frowny smile.
“Thanks.” He nodded. “Really.”
She shrugged.
Whit closed the passenger door.
“All right. Safe flight. Love you.”
Evie moved to him in a quick burst, giving him a brief hug before pulling away.
“Love you, too, Bubba. Drive safe.”
He watched until she was inside, and then he drove home buoyed by an unfamiliar lightness.
Darkness had descended on Merritt, and not just metaphorically: on the same evening thatSerious Gameshad finally caught up with her, a wide, long rainstorm had engulfed much of the Northeast. Merritt moved groggily through her shift at Goodenough Books the following morning, a change noticed by Huong as well as Moishe, who were both now working double shifts in order to accommodate the holiday rush.
Merritt felt a little guilty, as she herself was working at the rate of half a person, despite the fact that the store was indeed more bustling than usual.
“Are you all right, dear?” Moishe had asked when he found her kneeling in thebiographysection long after the go-backs had been returned to their shelves. She had lied, saying something about being tired with a headache.
“Hello, are you alive, there’s basically a line out the door,” Huong had said, less generously, when she found Merritt sitting in the break room with her hands on her knees and a blank look on her face. She hadn’t even bothered lying then. “Sorry,” she’d said, and then returned to the floor, which in reality featured a line of only three people.
The end of her shift could not have come soon enough, andthen she didn’t even bother to say goodbye, simply slipping out the door and into the pouring rain. A deceitful break in the storm earlier that morning had led her to leave her anorak and umbrella at home. After driving to Whit’s on autopilot, she ran from the car through the mud and now stood on the porch, pinching her cheeks and willing herself to feel peppy or focused or at the very leastawake.
Whit opened the door before she accomplished any of the above.
“Hi,” he said warmly, bouncily, until he noticed her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, walking past him. “Sorry about the mud.”
She tried wiping her glasses with her jacket, but the wet fabric merely moved the rainwater around. She groaned, shaking her glasses slightly, before replacing them on her nose.
Whit watched her, and she tried to seem calm, unshaken. But his eyes found hers, and she broke then, folding her arms across her chest and looking away.
“Oh,” she moaned in a voice that immediately drew Whit toward her.
He placed his hands gently on her elbows, correctly sensing she did not want a hug, and waited until she finally spoke.
“Ian Hoult figured it out,” she said at last, once she knew she wouldn’t cry. “He figuredmeout. He emailed me Friday night.”
“Oh God, Merritt, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you say sooner?”
She shrugged. “It was your last weekend with Evie. And I didn’t really want to talk about it anyway.”
