The ocean came through the open windows. The room settled around them.
Tyler opened his eyes, looked at the ceiling and closed them again.
“Gosh,” Meg said. She wasn’t talking to anyone. She was just saying it to the room.
Anna knew. Tyler knew. They all knew.
“One more week,” Meg said. “And they’re in her house. Alone. With Sam.”
Nobody answered. Anna let it sit. The girls in that house. Sam being Sam. The warmth that would feel real and themoment it would turn and the two seventeen-year-olds who wouldn’t see it coming the way the three of them would see it coming because the three of them had been seeing it coming their whole lives.
Tyler rubbed his face with both hands.
Meg’s thumb moved along the rim of her glass. “I can’t stop thinking about the bracelet,” she said. “The turquoise one. For my twelfth birthday. Do you remember?”
“I remember,” Anna said softly.
“Three months late. Because she was supposed to come and didn’t.” Meg’s voice thinned. “I cleaned my room for her. I never cleaned my room. I organized everything—files, planners, the whole shelf—because I thought she was going to walk through the door and come upstairs and see it.” She stopped and took a breath. “I cried myself to sleep every night for a month. And then it stopped. And the clasp broke and I threw it away and I didn’t tell anyone.”
Anna reached across and put her hand on Meg’s arm.
They were still for a moment, each of them somewhere else—in their own room, their own version of waiting for someone who wasn’t coming. The fridge behind the bar kicked on and hummed.
“I think you organized everything harder after that,” Anna said gently. “Like if you could just get it all in the right place—perfectly arranged, perfectly labeled—maybe she’d notice.”
Meg nodded. “I got more and more wound up in it. Anxious. Color-coded filing systems at thirteen. As if organizing the kitchen would make her walk through the door.”
They were silent again.
“Tyler disappeared into the darkroom,” Anna said.
“The darkroom was safe,” Tyler said, his eyes still closed. “Nobody expected anything from me in there. I could just be in the dark with the chemicals and nobody needed me to talk orsmile or pretend I was fine.” He opened them. “It was easier to hide than to keep hoping.”
“And I performed,” Anna said. She lifted her wine. “I made things. I cooked elaborate dinners for people who didn’t ask for them. I followed the light to paint, just like she did—the grand gesture, the big entrance—because I thought if I was impressive enough, she’d stay to watch.” She took a sip. “It was painful to try that hard and have nothing work. To notice her more than she ever noticed me. Like I loved her more than she loved me.”
“All those years,” Meg said quietly. “All the Christmases, birthdays—she’s never getting those back. Neither are we.”
Nobody spoke for a moment.
“Do you remember when we stopped calling her Mom?” Meg asked.
“I was fourteen,” Tyler said. “Anna started it.”
“I didn’t start it. I just stopped correcting myself.”
“Same thing.”
“’Mom’ is a promise,” Meg said. “She wasn’t keeping it.”
Tyler was looking at his wine. His jaw was set, his eyes somewhere else.
“Tyler,” Meg said. “What did Sam say when you called?”
Tyler turned the glass slowly on the table. He didn’t answer.
“Tyler?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I haven’t called.”
