10. Mac
Luckily going through Annie’s stuff isn’t too painful. Waiting for Shelby to get back is.
As for my sister’s things, most of it’s still stacked in boxes, so it hasn’t been too bad hauling it all to the basement. The hardest part has been not checking my phone for texts.
Cal, luckily, has kept his trap shut almost the whole time.
Nate, not so much.
“Isn’t my aunt in New York or something?” he asked when we were just getting started.
“Who told you that?” I asked, surprised. Maybe Dad mentioned it on our visits to the care home, though I didn’t think he remembered.
Nate shot me a glance that I knew meant it was his mom. Of course. She and Annie were friends once.
“Why would anyone want to move back here from New York?” Nate asked.
I couldn’t keep my hackles from going up.
“Hey, I’ve lived all over the place, and I always come back here,” Cal said, tucking a box under his arm.
Nate looked skeptical. “Still. You could have used this room for something cool.”
I had to pause before answering so I didn’t say something defensive. I know my son misses living in the city.
“Your grandfather wanted to make sure there was always a place for her,” I said.
The truth is, this room has always been more for Dad than for Annie. I always knew she’d never come home. Why would she, when we all but abandoned her after the accident? Dad threw himself headlong into work while I was distracted by all the magazine bullshit and hating everyone, including myself. By the time Annie started acting out, we were too late. She somehow cleaned herself up early, but she left Redbeard Cove at eighteen and never came back. We call and text sporadically, but she lives in New York City now. Has some flashy publishing job.
“She’ll come home someday,” Dad used to say, even after it was clear she wouldn’t. He kept wanting to come over to see the room he helped build to make sure it was ready for her. It’s how I knew his mind was starting to go. She’ll be back, she’ll be back, she’ll be back, he’d say.
I think sometimes he was talking about Mom.
“Are we done?” Nate asks at four. He’s sweaty and covered in streaks of dirt. He’s worked hard, and I relieved Cal an hour ago.
“Yeah, go ahead,” I say. Guilt rushes through me that I worked him so hard today. He did it without complaint. As he walks away, I say, “Hey, Nate?”
He turns around.
“Thank you. You were a big help today.”
He shrugs, but flushes too. Then he’s gone.
I wish he’d stay with me, that we could just be in each other’s company. I’ll bring up the gym again, maybe tonight when he comes down to grab food.
I check my phone again—no texts. I try to put a stopper in the worry that flares at the radio silence. She’s a grown woman. I’m not in charge of her personal safety. Still, what if something’s wrong? It’s only as I go to give in and text Shelby that I realize I don’t have her number. I don’t even know if she has a phone. She called me at the Dinghy from the inn’s landline.
“God dammit,” I mutter. I shoot a text to Chris, hoping they’re still together, and get a response right away.
CHRIS: Oh shit, boss, I’m sorry! I took her to the track!
A photo comes up a moment later of not just Chris, but Lana and Shelby. Lana stands primly with a smirk on her face. Chris is on her dirt bike, her face splattered with mud. Shelby has her arms up in the air, and she’s grinning like she’s having the time of her life.
CHRIS: New besties!
Three feelings war for attention: relief that Shelby’s okay, first and foremost; annoyance at Chris for absconding with her all day; and a low-lying feeling of dread that the three women appear to be thick as thieves in a matter of hours.
But I can’t help but zoom in on the photo of Shelby. God, that sexy crooked smile. It’s goddamned mesmerizing. It’s in that moment that I realize what it is about her I can’t shake: it’s like life to her is fun. Like it’s a big ole ice cream cone in her favorite flavor. Me, I look for problems. I’m on constant guard for things going wrong.
What would it be like to look at everything like an opportunity for joy? For change? For happiness?
I look at it long enough that the next text startles me.
CHRIS: Well? You worried? Or did you just miss her?
MAC: Go to hell, kid.
CHRIS: LOL. Lana has to relieve the babysitter soon, plus it looks like it’s going to rain. We’ll have your girl home by eight.
My girl. Fuck. I don’t like how much I like the sound of that.
Lana doesn’t have Shelby home by eight. I’m putting her on notice at the Dinghy.
At eight thirty, I get a text that Chris invited Shelby to spend the night at her place, since she’s close to the track.
Okay, Chris is fired.
I don’t feel like moping around at home, so I lock up Shelby’s room outside.
At the bottom of the stairs, I hesitate. I jog up to Nate’s room. Muffled video game sounds filter through the door. I rap on the wood with my knuckles.
The sounds cut short, then the door opens a crack. Nate’s face is in shadow, his big brown eyes on me.
My chest twists just looking at him. “Hey,” I say. “So Shelby’s not coming until tomorrow. So…I was thinking about heading out for a bit, maybe get some ice cream.”
“Okay,” Nate says. For a moment, my heart lifts. Then he starts to close the door.
“Wait.” He’s really going to make me spell it out. “I thought maybe you might want to come with me.”
Nate looks at me like he’d rather sip from a cup of rusty nails. “I’m good, thanks,”
I shouldn’t be hurt by the rejection. I knew he’d say no when I came up here. Still, I scratch the back of my neck. “You sure?”
“I’m sure, yeah.” He hesitates. “Thanks.” Then he closes the door in my face.
At least he was nice about it. Sort of.
The video game sounds resume.
I sigh as I head back down the stairs. The social worker said to expect all kinds of moodiness. “It’s partly what he’s been through—moving across the country; his mother dropping into his life, then out of it again; meeting his father for the first time. But part of it is just normal teenage hormones.”
I actually consider going for ice cream on my own. Then I give my head a shake and instead take Tink out to the Oceanview Inn to make sure those dipshits are behaving themselves.
The rain has finally come back after this spell of nice weather, just in time to match my foul mood.
When I pull into the driveway—finding it hard to believe it was just this morning that I drove here with Nate to get Shelby—my headlights dance over the ATVs parked haphazardly around the lawn, which is now fixing to turn to mud. Most of their trucks are gone, though. For a moment, I have the panicky thought that they’re at the dirt track, but when I text Chris to check, she assures me they aren’t. In the three years they’ve been coming to town, they haven’t discovered the track—or if they have, the locals have chased them off.
I check in with Diane and Ben, who invite me in for tea and assure me things are okay, that they think the group is out at the bar over in Swan River. Ben apologizes again for letting the men stay, though he’s looking at his wife when he says it.
I don’t blame them, except for the part about letting Shelby stay there with them. But Shelby’s hard not to want to help, so I’ll give them a pass. “I’ll check back in tomorrow night,” I tell them after a quick cup and a cookie I can’t resist, because Diane makes great cookies. I’ll have to get her recipe. “Just let me or Fred know if they pull anything at all,” I say, and even Ben hugs me after that.
I do a quick circuit of town while I’m out, but it’s mostly dead as usual on a Monday night. The Dinghy’s closed on Mondays, so I skip that one before reluctantly heading back home. She hasn’t even stayed a single night, but somehow I already feel Shelby’s absence sitting heavily on my shoulders as I head down my road.
Back home, I check in on Nate. The sound’s off, and for a moment, I’m hopeful he’s gone to bed early.
But he comes to the door wearing a huge set of headphones.
“Turn that off at eleven, please,” I say.
He pulls the headphones off. “Huh?”
“Eleven,” I say, a little snippy.
Maybe I wouldn’t feel this heavy emptiness if one thing was going right in my life. But right now it’s oh for three. One being Nate, Two being Shelby, and Three being every other goddamn thing.
“Fine.” Nate pulls the headphones back on. He holds the door open, and for a moment, I think he’s inviting me in. Then Tink trots past me, climbing up on Nate’s bed and yawning contentedly.
I’d feel betrayed, but I don’t even mind tonight, because at least one of us gets to spend time with him.
After heading back downstairs, I decide to jump in the shower to clean off from the day’s work. I like going to bed clean. It’s a miserable shower, though. I forgot that I ran the dishwasher and clothes washer before I left, and my hot water runs out when I’ve still got shampoo on my head.
I swear as I rinse off in the cold.
To top it all off, as I’m toweling off, I hear a noise outside—an unmistakable scrabbling sound on the deck.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I grumble, wrapping the towel around my waist. Something I didn’t mention to Shelby is that I’ve had a problem with raccoons out there lately, thanks to Nate leaving food outside on the table a couple of times. Once those little buggers get a taste of free dinner, they keep coming back.
I stalk out onto the back deck, and sure enough, one’s right on top of the table. The rain’s died off, but the deck is still wet and freezing cold.
“Hey!” I call. “Scram!”
The cute little menace ignores me, of course.
I glance around, then pull my towel off and snap it in the air in his general direction.
He looks at me like he’s enjoying the show.
“Little fucker!”
Another scrabbling sound comes from over by Shelby’s room. For a moment, I panic, holding the towel between my legs. But then a second raccoon pops out from around the side of the building.
“Hey!” I yell. I run over there, intending to snap my towel again, but whack my toes into one of the chair legs. I trip over it, cursing as pain shoots up my leg at the same time as my other foot slides on the wood, still slick with rain.
The iron chair hits the deck with an explosive bang while I’m still trying to right myself.
I regain my footing but keep slipping, narrowly missing going headfirst into Shelby’s little cabin.
I’m still bent over when the big wooden door swings open and clocks me square in the forehead, then slams shut again.
I inhale sharply as stars explode across my vision.
“What the hell?” a panicky voice comes from inside the room. Shelby.
She’s home. I didn’t hear her because of the shower.
“The door won’t open!” she exclaims, sounding kind of panicked.
“Shelby—” I croak, barely managing to get the towel over me before the door opens again, this time hard enough to knock me backward. I’d be okay if it weren’t for the wet deck surface.
But I’m not okay. My heel slides forward, and I go backward, falling over the chair and slamming with a thunderous crack onto the deck.
All I can think as fuzziness closes in at the corners of my vision is damn, that girl’s strong.