I really couldn’t comment on whether or not I believed in those signs. I definitely pictured Dad somewhere, in one of his usual rugby shirts with their fraying cuffs and khaki shorts with a pair of Adidas Sambas. He probably sipped a Miller Lite every now and again, or a martini with his own dad. “Stoli up with an olive!” I’d memorized his drink before learning what the phrase even meant.
But I couldn’t hear him laugh or feel him shake my shoulders anymore. I couldn’t ask him anything. Sometimes it flashed through my mind—I’ll ask Dad tonight—and it killed me when I realized I couldn’t. When my sisters and I were younger, Mom recorded a bunch of home movies of us and Dad on her old iPad. It now sat in my bottom desk drawer. If I wanted, I could charge the iPad and watch them. If Ireallywanted, I could hear that laugh and see him smile.
Doing that would sink me.
“Grief has no timeline, Everett,” my therapist emphasized, but it’d been two years and I didn’t see things getting any easier. I wasn’t a train wreck every day; at least I could say that.
“Honey,” Mom said now, gently, “I want you to enjoy therest of your visit, but I think later we should rediscuss your new med—”
“Why won’t Isa stop shutting me out, Mom?” I cut her off, the question coming out of nowhere. “I keep trying, but nothing works.”
As far as I knew, Mom was the only one of the parents who realized Isa’s and my friendship was now a performance piece. She had a sixth sense. “That’s not our Isa,” she once commented while we were loading the dishwasher after hosting a dinner party.
“I know I broke up with her,” I started rambling. “But that was ages ago.” The corners of my eyes prickled. “She couldn’t even put it aside for Dad, Mom. She was there for Dad, for you, for Margot and Abigail—just, everyone except me. The reason why I ended things in the first place was because…”
“I know why you ended things, Everett,” she said when I trailed off. “But does Isa? Does she truly know? Have you ever told her?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. She already knew the answer.
“You pulled away, too,” she added. “Don’t forget that. She reached out, but you chose to ignore her.” She hesitated. “You could’ve been kinder.”
Again, she was right. I remembered Isa calling me—we’d always preferred talking to texting—several times to ask how I was doing after Dad died and if I wanted to grab water ice together. Those calls had lasted a minute max. I’d felt so brokenthat I barely spoke. And while I’d mumbled thanks to her invitations, I never accepted them.
“The two of you need to talk,” Mom said. “You should’ve talked a long time ago, especially because Isadidtry. Remember that, okay?” She sighed. “I’m sorry, but I should go. Abigail’s chicken soup is on the stove. I had to pick her up from school this morning. Like Grace, she has a bug.”
“Wait, no,” I said. “Really?”
“Yes, she got sick all over her math textbook,” Mom said, chuckling. “Please prepare yourself to watchNational Treasure 2later.”
I was so glad I decided to steal the Declaration of Independence.
“I texted Grace earlier to check in,” Mom continued. “But she hasn’t responded, so I assume she’s napping.”
Hmm,I thought. Grace hadn’t mentioned a text.
“Yeah, probably,” I mumbled, a warning bell going off in my head. I wouldn’t put it past Mom to show up at Grace’s house with soup.
“What’s next on your agenda?” she asked.
“Uh…” I fumbled. “Lunch. Lunch in the executive dining room.”
“Ooh, swanky,” she said, and then right after we said goodbye but before hanging up: “Everett, one more thing.”
“Yes?” I asked.
I heard her hesitate. “Isa is going to need you,” she said softly. “I have a feeling she is going to want her friends soon,and even if you two still aren’t on the same page, you should be there for her.”
“I will be,” I told her. “I promise.”
Because again, my mother had a sixth sense.
And it wasn’t just about Isa and me.
Chapter 16
Isa
As planned, Everett met Grace and me at the courtyard’s center fountain. An invisible hook tugged on my heart when I noticed he didn’t have a souvenir in hand. I didn’t think I had a right to feel this way, but I did. Back when we were friends, Everett always bought me a postcard from whatever museum’s gift shop featuring a woman with a very particular expression on her face, from amused to judgmental to flat-out bitchy. I’d tacked them up on the bulletin board above my desk.The Wall of Badass Women,he’d dubbed the collage.
