“It’s true.” Gabe clears his throat then, a little too forcefully; when I glance over his cheeks have gone faintly pink in the light from the store. “Anyway, all of that is to say that no, I don’t think you take up all the air. But I can kind of see how Imogen might feel that way sometimes.” He shrugs. “It’s not like you’re some silly drama queen,” he adds. “You’re tough. All the stuff that happened last year, plenty of people wouldn’t have been able to get through it at all. But you just soldiered right on through.”
“Yeah, well.” I wave my hand vaguely, like I can swat all of last summer away along with my own guilt at not having told him the whole story and my own bafflement at where to begin. “It was a long time ago.” I lean my head back against the cool glass of the window, looking out at the empty street. “I wish I smoked,” I announce, wanting to change the subject. “That’s what you do outside bars in Europe, right? Smoke and look cool?”
“Is it?” Gabe asks, glancing around. “I’m the wrong person to ask, probably. It’s my first time out of the country.”
“Mine too,” I admit, although I bet he already knows that. I haven’t actually mentioned it to Ian, secreting my brand-new passport away inside my purse before he could catch sight of its empty pages. “Is it what you thought it was going to be?”
“Some of it is,” Gabe says slowly. “Other parts... maybe not so much.”
That makes me smile. “Present company included,” I echo, teasing.
Gabe chuffs a laugh. “I mean, to start with, yeah.”
We stand there side by side for another long minute. Probably I should go back inside. From out here the noise of the bar is completely inaudible, like we’re the only two people left in town; a cat—the mean-looking creature who was sitting on the counter earlier or another one altogether, I’m not sure—darts underneath a streetlight half a block away. Finally I clear my throat. “Anyway,” I say, too loudly. “How are you? How’s school stuff?”
“You asked me that already,” Gabe says, lips twisting in the pale light from inside the store. “It’s good.”
“No,” I say, embarrassed, “I know.” Still, I think of Sadie in the bathroom earlier, press him. “You still think surgery is what you want to do?”
I’m trying to keep my voice casual, but Gabe’s eyes narrow, his whole body straightening up the slightest bit. “Did Sadie ask you to talk to me?” he asks.
“What?” I bluster, shaking my head. “No, not at all. I’m just making conversation.”
Gabe doesn’t buy it. “She did,” he accuses. “I can’t believe her.”
“I think she’s worried about you,” I tell him, wantingbadly to change the subject. This was a stupid gambit. “That’s all.”
Gabe sighs noisily. “What else do you imagine me doing, exactly?” he asks me. “Should I drop out and go play the guitar on street corners, trying to find myself? I’m literally tone-deaf. Or maybe I could take a sabbatical in Florence and write romantic poetry or, like, try out for the NBA.”
“Eh,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood again, “would never work. You’re not tall enough.”
Gabe smiles at that, just faintly. “I’m pretty fucking tall,” he points out. “The point is, somebody in my family needs to keep it together and think about a long-term plan.” He shrugs. “Julia’s the baby. Patrick is—” He breaks off. “I mean, you know how Patrick is.”
I do know, actually, but it’s not going to help either one of us to get into it. “And your mom?” I ask instead. “She’s the grown-up, remember? I don’t think she’d be wanting you to put all this stuff on yourself.”
Gabe shakes his head. “My mom isn’t great, Molly. Like I told you, the shop is in the crapper. She’s weird lately. She forgets stuff. She’s not holding up like she was right after my dad died.”
My heart seizes at the thought of it, Connie, who taught herself to fix their ancient station wagon by watching a YouTube video and bought me my first box of tampons and mommed me when my own mom didn’t always know how.“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think,” I try, then immediately wish I could take the words back. “I just mean, maybe if you guys try some of that stuff we were talking about this afternoon—”
“Can you stop?” Gabe interrupts, sounding suddenly tired. “Itisthat bad, Molly. We’re hanging on by our fingernails.” He shakes his head again, irritable, and then he tells me. “We’re probably going to have to close the shop.”
I blink. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, Molly,seriously.” Gabe laughs bitterly. He shoves his hands into his pockets, goes quiet for a moment. “Star Lake is coming back, right? That’s what everybody says. We were inTravel and Leisurethis year, did your mom tell you that? We made some BuzzFeed list about the hippest summer getaways in the Northeast. There’s all kinds of shit opening up all down Main Street, yoga studios and a green juice place and this home-goods store that sells, like, nine-hundred-dollar blankets. We don’t fit there anymore. All the rents are going way up. We’ll be lucky if we’re even open in a year.”
I close my eyes for the briefest of seconds, breathing in the tomato-garlic memory of the shop—the checkered oilcloths covering the tables, the ancient register clanging its noisy hellos. Chuck taught us how to throw pizza dough in the kitchen, all four of us—Julia, Patrick, Gabe, and me—turning it on our tiny knuckles as fast as we possibly could. I grew up back there. All of us did. The thought of it shutting down is unbearable.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him quietly. I feel like an idiot, parachuting in with my cheery suggestions and my Susie Sunshine optimism.Have you tried theme nights, Jesus Christ. “I had no idea it was that bad.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Gabe snaps. “You don’t actually know what it’s like to be in my family, okay, Molly?”
I recoil, taking an actual step away from him, the impact as physical as a slap. I made my peace with not being part of the Donnelly family anymore a long time ago—or at least, I tried to. But every once in a while it hits me: passing a woman in Boston who wears Connie’s perfume, or hearing a joke I know would make Julia laugh. They were my home, once upon a time. But I wrecked it, and kept on wrecking, and that’s my burden to bear.
“I’m sorry,” Gabe says, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m being an asshole, I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
I shrug, don’t answer. Gabe leans against the glass. We’re quiet for a long time, the sound of a car passing by a few blocks over and the blue-night breeze tickling the back of my neck. I keep expecting him to make an excuse and go inside, but he doesn’t. Finally he sighs. “Pilot died,” he says.
“Wait,” I say, my heart like a capsized ship inside my chest. “What?When?”
