Chapter Fourteen
Bzzzz.
Beep.
Ding!
With every alert, every chime, my body reacted like a rat trained by a bell. Even from a distance, it was all I could hear.
A couple of hours earlier, after the consignment ladies had left, followed by Kasey and Liz, I’d gone into my bedroom. The plan was to only close my eyes for a second.
The next thing I knew, the sun was setting on the other side of what I now couldn’t help but think of as the Bone Breaking window. I rolled over, as if I could push myself back into unknowing, distracted sleep.
Bzzzz!
Ding!
“Jonathan says he’s on the way,” I heard Anne say. “And he got too many fries.”
“Not possible.” That was Lana. “I’m starving.”
Ding!
“What’s with the notifications?” she asked. “Got a girl we don’t know about?”
“Group chat for that school project,” Clark replied.
A sigh. “Do you ever take a break? It’s summer. Classically a time off.”
“Not for me.”
Bzzzzz!
Ding!
I squeezed my eyes shut. Then, like an answered prayer, I heard something else. Music.
Guitar chords, to be specific. First it just sounded random, little pieces, but then the notes arranged themselves into something I recognized, although I couldn’t quite place it.
“Wow,” Anne said. “You got that thing working?”
“Tuned it and put on new strings,” Ben replied. More notes, faster. In contrast to the motorized beeps and chimes, it sounded uneven, a little messy. But alive. It also, like so much else, made me think of Colin.
A few months after we’d met, at Christmas, he had gotten a guitar and lessons as his big present.
Through the new year and winter, we’d spent countless hours with him picking at chords while I did homework or read.
He was determined to learn, as he put it, “showstoppers,” big sing-along performative songs.
But the first thing he learned to play all the way through was “You Are My Sunshine.”
It sounded terrible at first. And, honestly, did not improve much before he got too frustrated with how long it was taking to learn, and lost interest. But those few winter days, when he’d pick up the guitar and smile at me: They were the best.
“Play me something,” I’d say.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Even when the notes were clumsy, his voice off-key, my heart would feel like it was growing in my chest, unfolding tendrils and shoots. Our song, just for me. I’d never felt so loved. It was everything.
Bzzzzz.
Ding!
Beep.
“Hey!” Anne said when I came out a few minutes later to join them in the muggy evening. “We lost you.”
“I fell asleep,” I replied as there was another beep.
Immediately, she picked up her phone. Meanwhile, Lana, at the bottom of the steps, was studying her screen, while Clark had his own conversation a few feet away.
I looked at Ben, who was on the middle step, still strumming. We were the only ones not plugged in.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it eventually,” he said, as if I’d said this aloud.
I watched as Lana typed something, fingers flying. “How long is ‘eventually’?”
He smiled, playing a few more chords. “It does help to have something else to do. You any good at crossword puzzles? Knitting?”
“Those are my options?”
“Well, there’s also obsessing about your problems and those of the world in general,” he replied. “But that gets old fast. Trust me.”
I sat down, pulling my knees to my chest. “I did that even when I had a phone.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to impress me with your multitasking skills?”
“Maybe. Is it working?”
“Totally,” he replied. I felt myself smile again. With him, somehow, I was particularly aware of it.
“Finley.” Anne put her own phone down on the step, giving me a sympathetic look. “I know this is difficult. But like I said, it’s good that you’re incommunicado right now.”
Lana groaned. “Please tell me you’re not talking about that book again.”
“Intrigue breeds attraction! That’s how it works in nature.”
“She got dumped. She’s not a peacock.”
As I winced, Ben gave the guitar one big strum—clang!—like a rim shot. Helpful.
“Not necessarily,” Anne countered. “As I told her, according to Wild Love, it’s typical for a suitor to grow distant or even sever ties before making a relationship permanent.”
“Suitor?”
“Partner. Other half. Whatever.”
Just then, I heard gravel crunching. A beat later, as if on cue, a gray 4Runner was bumping into view, a blond guy in a collared golf shirt behind the wheel. Anne jumped to her feet. “And there’s mine!”
With that, she was running barefoot across the grass to jump into his arms. It was like something out of a shampoo ad.
“Hey. Peacock,” Lana said. When I looked at her, she nodded down the hill, toward the water. “Let’s take a walk.”
It was hard not to have a sense of foreboding as I did what she requested. “Are you breaking up with me now?”
“Ha ha. No.” She slid her hands in the pockets of her shorts. “What I do want to say is that Anne is the exception, not the rule. Book or no book, she shouldn’t go around giving false hope.”
“So you’re saying your suitor has not always returned to commit,” I said, clarifying.
“I’m saying that dumping a person sucks. You don’t do it unless you’re sure.”
“You’ve broken up with a lot of people?” I asked.
“I’ve been on both sides,” she replied with a shrug. “I much prefer yours. First off, he’s automatically the asshole. Whereas you get sympathy.”
Of course I thought of grapes.
“Also,” she continued, “you control the better narrative.”
“I do?”
“Absolutely!” she said. “Think about it. Who would you rather be: the one who caused the sob story or the one who survived it?”
“We’re going to the same school in the fall,” I told her. “Is there an upside to that?”
She thought about this for a moment. Then she snapped her fingers. “You’ll perfect your avoidance skills. Which will come in handy long after you’ve forgotten him.”
“I had a chance to go somewhere else, too.” I sucked in a breath. “I’m so stupid.”
“Well, don’t dwell on that.” But she did not, I noticed, dispute it. “Learn from it. From now on, promise yourself that what you do is up to you. No one else.”
“Finley?”
I turned: It was my mom, at the end of the dock. “Hey,” I called out.
“Did you eat?”
“Not yet.”
“Jonathan brought burgers,” Lana said. “I’ll go see what’s happening with them.”
She headed toward the house. When my mom got to me, she looked at the water for a moment before speaking.
“So I just talked to your dad. You told him about my diagnosis.”
I sucked in a breath. Shit. “Mom, I’m sorry. He—”
“—is a terrible liar,” she finished for me. “It was clear he knew, the moment he spoke.”
I believed it. My dad was a lot of things, but duplicitous was not one of them. Colin, a poker whiz, had long refused to play with him, saying it was just too easy.
I knew I should probably apologize again. I had broken a promise. Instead, I said, “I was scared.”
Her face changed. Like this blurt of honesty had surprised her, too. “See, this is why I wanted to keep it quiet. I didn’t want you to be worried.”
“Of course I’m worried. You’re my mom.” I couldn’t believe I had to say this, explain it to her. “But it would be worse to be in the dark. If something’s happening with you, I want to know about it.”
“Okay.” I watched her swallow, pointedly. Then she cleared her throat. “In that case, I have to go back to Timlee tomorrow for tests. I told your dad I’d drop you off on the way.”
“Tests?” I turned to face her.
“And other preop things. My surgeon had an opening. July ninth.”
We’d graduated on June 7. “That’s soon.”
“I’m lucky they could fit me in. Apparently.” She did not exactly sound convinced. “Look, I know this has been the farthest thing from the fun trip I promised—”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“—but I’ll make it up to you. We’ll do New York. It’s better in the fall anyway.”
She said this like everything would be back to normal by then. What if she was recovering from treatment? And why was I the only one thinking about this?
“What about the Woods?”
“The Woods?”
I tilted my head toward the hill, and the lights beyond. “Are you coming back for the estate sale and all that?”
“Oh.” She made a face. “Yes. I have to be here to sign papers.”
I heard an engine: A beat later, Liz’s van came into view. Kasey was in the passenger seat. “You’re still not going to tell them about all this?” I asked.
She glanced over as Liz got out, bumping the door shut with her hip. “No need. I’m just going to say I got called back for business.”
Her reticence was not a surprise. But I felt a flare of annoyance for my aunts. My allegiance, shifting again.
“I think you should,” I told her. “I mean, it’s obvious they care about you. The least you can do if you’re leaving is to let them know the reason why.”
As I said this, I realized the volumes it spoke. She’d taken off on me, too, leaving a baby album but not an explanation. It sucked.
“Fine,” she said. The word was so quick, one syllable, that for a second I wondered if I’d misheard it. “But let’s get it over with.”
I was stunned. In no world had I really thought she’d agree. But then she was turning, setting her shoulders as if walking into battle. How weird it must feel, I thought, to always be fighting against something.
She headed down the dock and I fell in beside her. Halfway to the house, I saw a trio of hummingbirds ahead. They were circling one another, clicking and arguing, while still moving in the same direction. Such an inefficient way to cover ground, but they got there just the same.