Page 7 of Rhodes

The three dots come up right away. Libba is always right there, my other half, the easy one, the one nobody ever had to have a group chat about.

oh my GOD hell no. give me more credit than that. for the record my vote is leave tilly alone she is a grown adult with a 4.0.

3.9.

don't correct me while i'm defending you.

I am smiling at my phone like an idiot on an empty boat in the middle of a bay. That's what she does. She has done it our whole lives, reached across whatever room I have made too heavy and cracked a window. Fraternal, everyone always says, like it's a disclaimer. For some reason, everyone always feels the need to emphasize that we don't match. She is sunshine, and I am the gray-white winter day.

But she is the only person alive who has never for one second looked at me like I might come apart in her hands, and I would set myself on fire for her.

you okay?

I'm okay.

good. can I call you this afternoon? I'm running out to meet Mary-Margaret for brunch. love your face.

yeah. no rush. love yours, more.

That's always been our joke, since I'm blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and she is brown-haired with hazel eyes. We are the twins who couldn't look or act more different.

The skiff's engine changes pitch, and I look up. Jo is coming back across the flat, standing up in the little boat the way she does. She has one hand on the tiller, a string of empty traps behind her, and her hood down now that the wind has laid off. She noses in against the big boat, and I catch the line and cleat it without thinking. That's a lifetime of dock reflex in action. She hauls herself over the side and takes one look at my face and goes still.

"Who died?” She asks, and then hears herself and winces. "God. I'm so sorry, Tilly. I meant who called."

I gloss over that. I don't take offense.

"My dad."

“Is he okay?"

"He's fine." I hand her the thermos because her hands are red. "He's concerned about the beds, and he's decided the solution to all of it is to make sure I don't get left alone down here like I'm going to wander into traffic. Or fall off a boat."

Jo unscrews the thermos and drinks the coffee. She’s quiet for several seconds, which I appreciate. She is a shrimper's kid from down in Chauvin, so we're the same kind of animal, marsh-raised, mud in the blood. Pluff mud for me, bayou for her.

"He still doesn't get it," she says. It is not a question.

"They get it. They just get it like a diagnosis. To him, it's a thing that happened to me that could happen again if they stop watching." I take the thermos back. The coffee is terrible, and I love it. "In Charleston, I'm the girl who went to rehab. Over here, I'm the nobody tomboy. I don't know which one I'd rather be."

"Embrace them both. No shame for either."

"I'm trying." And then, because it's Jo and because the water is quiet and she already knows the worst of me so there is nothing left to protect, I say the thing I didn't say to my father. "There's something else. You know I take over Coop's place Wednesday, the second he flies out."

"Yeah. I know you're excited to have your own space, and to get out of that shitty roommate situation. And then we get to be roomies next year!"

"Yeah, well, I've got a real bad feeling about how they're planning to handle me while he's gone. Dad mentioned that he and Cooper have been talking, whatever that means."

Jo fumbles with her pocket knife, and then clips it to her waistband. "Handle you how?"

"I don't know yet." Out past the reef line, the tide has started to turn. I can see it in the way the grass leans, the whole bay beginning to breathe out.

"I mean, what are they going to do? Pull you out of Tulane? Send your dad to New Orleans? I think you're being paranoid."

"Maybe you're right," I say, and I start coiling the wet line because my hands need something to do. "I'll tell you one thing, though. The next person who tries to tie me off is going to lose a finger."

Jo grins at me, this slow, Chauvin grin, and reaches for the ignition. "Now that," she says, "sounds like a badass tomboy I want to be friends with."

She fires the engine on the big boat, and we head back to the boat ramp. I keep my eyes on the reef going wrong behind us for as long as I can see it. Somewhere between the marsh line and the landing, I make myself a promise with my back teeth. Whatever is waiting for me on shore, I am not going under for it, not this time and not for anybody.