“Polly,” I say to Nora as if this is enough of an explanation for what I have to do next.
She must understand, though, because she doesn’t stop me or ask any more questions as I leave the kitchen, heading for the doors to the pool. She doesn’t try to follow me either, and I cut across the pool deck in a jog.
Then it’s just me and the bruised light of the sunset and all of Polly’s grief.
She doesn’t look up as I reach her. So I sit at the edge of her lounge chair, watching her shoulders shudder, and the sound she makes is strangled and broken, like she’s run out of breath to cry with.
“I’m sorry about your uncle Simon,” I whisper. It feels inadequate, but it’s all I have.
She scrubs at her face with the heel of her hand. Her cheeks are splotchy, and her eyes are swollen. “It’s not fair.”
“No,” I say. “It’s never going to feel fair. That’s the only thing I know for sure.”
For a long moment we sit there, staring at the lake. The water is flat again, and the air is cool. All of the humiditydeparted with the storm, leaving what should be a picture-perfect day.
I want to tell Polly it’ll get better, that the ache dulls.
But that’s not true, not really.
My parents have been gone for almost twenty years and some days, I still can’t believe it. Can’t believe all of the parts of my life that they’ve never seen. That they’ll never see.
“You don’t stop missing the people you lose,” I tell her. “You just…learn to carry them. Some days it’s heavy, and some days it’s lighter, but it never really goes away.”
Polly turns her wet face toward me, and it’s the cruelest thing, seeing the grief twisted into her features.
“My parents died when I was a kid,” I say, and it feels like a confession, like the words come out too loud. “It’s not something I talk about a lot.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever found words to describe what it’s like for them to be gone. Nothing feels…good enough. They were so exact. So sure. So smart. Everything I try to say feels too small. Besides, I don’t like the way pity feels—hate people thinking I’m not strong. And sometimes I wonder if I turned out how they wanted. I wonder if I’m good at carrying them.”
I have a sneaking suspicion they might actually think my life here is insane.
She sniffles, and I reach for her hand. Her fingers are cold and damp from tears, and I lean on the sensation to ground me.
“I pretended it wasn’t real. I ran from it for a long time,” I admit. “But the running doesn’t work. Grief will catch up to you eventually. It’s fast, and it’s sneaky. You have to let it hit you, like a wave in the ocean. You have to go all the way through it if you want to come out on the other side.”
Polly squeezes my hand, and I don’t look away as she cries, deciding instead to pull her to me, holding her as she trembles into my shoulder, her tears soaking through my shirt.
Stroking her hair, I take a deep breath and steady myself. I make a quiet promise that I will not run this time. I will go all the way through my grief.
And I will get Beau out of this.
My eyes start to wander past the pool deck and into the McGinnis yard.
At first, it looks like storm debris—scattered twigs and branches across the grass—waiting for Ford’s lawn care team. They’re probably working through a roster of cleanup jobs.
But then I see them. Pale stone fragments, glinting in the light of sunset. Not branches. Not leaves. Pieces of travertine tile, the length and width of my forearm, jagged and out of place.
I’m on my feet and running, following the trail from Tippy’s renovation toward the place where Simon’s body had been pulled from my pool.
Oh my God.
“Nora!” I scream from the far corner of my pool deck. “Marcus! Call Chief Kennedy!”
The shards look like bones in the grass. Travertine, torn from Tippy’s renovation, flung like shrapnel in the hurricane winds.
My stomach drops. The truth is suddenly so close I can feel it pressing down on my chest. I can’t unsee it.
