“To Whitney,” I say.
Saylor picks up his half of the Hawaiian. Raven snags a roll, inviting herself into my toast.
“To Whitney,” they echo.
We eat. And for the first time all day, the grief doesn’t feel like drowning.
It feels like the beginning of something.
chapter 8
Saylor
After dinner, Celeste, who had been debating, decided she didn’t want to drive back to the city after all. She offered to get Raven a room at a nice hotel, but Raven insisted on driving back to Jersey City before dark settled. Celeste bit back her concern, but I saw the space between her eyes crinkle in anguish. Already, she feels protective over this baby.Now, her baby.
After saying our goodbyes and see-you-soons, Celeste and I climbed into her vehicle with nowhere to go. I suggested a Motel 6 that I spotted on the drive up. She looked at me as if I’d suggested she bathe butt-naked in toxic waste. Instead, with one phone call, Celeste conjures up a suite at the Hampton’s most exclusive bed and breakfast—a place that according to their website mere mortals couldn’t book with six months’ notice and a personal connection.
Actually, that’s a slight exaggeration. It was two calls. The first was to her assistant to carry out said task, and when that flopped, Celeste called her contact personally. Judging by the way Celeste’s nostrils are flaring as she tries to keep calm, her assistant, Margot, needs to be very concerned about her job.
According to Celeste, Margot is getting a six-figure annual salary to consistently drop the ball. She’s always leaving work early for mental health reasons and even tried to use petty cash for her weekly mani-pedi. Margot has set very clear boundaries about her work-life balance which apparently is a ninety-ten split the wrong way. Look, if you’re making six figures to be someone’s right hand, sometimes that hand needs to answer the phone on a Saturday when your boss’s life is imploding. That’s the job you signed up for. That’s what the extra zero in your paycheck is for.
“Thank you, Dianne. You are so very kind. Please don’t worry about dinner service, we already ate… No need for champagne… Yes, I attended the service, thank you for asking… Flat water is perfectly fine.”
I can only hear Celeste’s part of the conversation, but whoever is on the other end is asking enough questions to renew a passport.
She ends the call and types an address into the GPS which instantly demands I make a U-turn.
We drive in silence for a bit. Through the car window, the Hamptons blur into a mirage of manicured hedges and mansions that probably have names instead of addresses. I try to enjoy the scenery, but eventually the silence between us stretches thin, pressing against my chest like the last seconds before breaking the surface after diving too deep.
“So, Tidewater House?” I glance at the GPS.
“For privacy. It’s highly unlikely any of the funeral guests are staying there. You’d need a reservation months in advance.”
“How’d we get in with such late notice?”
She bites the inside of her cheek until a small hollow appears beneath her carefully applied blush. “In my world, making a call means pulling a favor. The inn owner’s daughter is an up-and-coming runway model. I might’ve hired for a few shows in exchange for?—”
“A room that’s always ready for you.”
Celeste turns her head, looking out the window. “Saylor, can I ask you an honest question? Don’t spare my feelings.”
“This feels like a trap, but I’ll bite. Please continue.”
“I don’t really come off maternal, do I?”
“Sorry?” I steal a glance away from the road to study her face. Nothing there to read. Just the perfect profile of a woman lost in a thought beyond the glass. “What is maternal to you?”
She pauses. “That’s the thing. I don’t really know. Whit and I were both raised by parents that saw us as investments. With all the money in the world, they sent us to the best private schools, we had name-brand clothes, got brand-new cars on our sixteenth birthdays. But none of that felt…warm. And every generous thing they did for us was laced with expectations. We were dividends yet to be paid out. That’s not the kind of mom Whit wanted to be. That’s not the kind of mother I want to be. But how can I be something I’ve never known?”
The question hangs in the car like smoke from a fire neither of us started but both of us feel responsible for putting out. It’s not the kind of fire you smother right away—the kind you watch to see how long it glows.
I think about Mum. About the way she’d pack my school lunches with little notes folded into the napkin—not inspirational quotes or anything precious, just simple observations.Thank you for feeding Red this morning. You’re so responsible, Saylor. I’m proud of you. Thought you should know.Or:You are so loved, my sweet boy. I’ll have cookies waiting when you come home.I’d unfold these in the cafeteria and roll my eyes because I was twelve and resisting all forms of affection from your mother was the entire job description. But the memory has lingered this whole time. It planted somethingdeep in the chasms of nostalgia, and all these little seeds was my mum planting a happy childhood. I never felt lonely or lost, even without my dad around. She was my everything.
“You didn’t have to come to this, Celeste,” I say. “Who could possibly hold you accountable?”
“Me.” She turns to look at me. “Of course I had to come. Of course I had to be here. She was my closest friend.”
“Sure, but nobody at the funeral would judge you. You don’t speak to someone for two years, space is natural. Sometimes you can’t go back.”
