Chapter 13
Nadia is home by the time Adam arrives the next morning.
“Who’s this?” she asks, pointing him out through the kitchen window.
A lean form is walking up the driveway, his big hands in his pockets.
He’s wearing a green Henley paired with dark-wash jeans and leather boots.
That same rucksack, which I think must be part of his signature look, is slung over his left shoulder.
“That’s Adam,” I say. I’m filling up my reusable water bottle. “Adam Noemi? William’s grandson?”
“Oh, he’s the one you have a crush on.” Nadia’s pulling on her black blazer, the same one she’s worn to work for, like, the last two decades, with a cup of espresso in hand.
Every morning, for as long as any of us sisters can remember, Nadia makes two cups of espresso—one for her, and one for the old gods, which she pours right into the dirt.
I always imagined that the black liquid worked itself into tiny veins in the earth, like a cardiovascular system made up of caffeine, popping up on the other side of town to an old god like a fountain, and he would lower his little cup to fill it and throw it right back.
When Nadia looks up at me, she’s got a gleam in her eyes that I can’t say I appreciate. “Ahh, yes. And he’s got a crush on you now, too.”
“Don’t say that,” I hiss just as Adam knocks on the door.
She laughs. “Mija, you know that I know these things.”
I do know she knows stuff. That’s literally her superpower.
Her gift. But I can’t hear things like that right now.
The moths in my belly, which of course made a reappearance as soon as our meetup time appeared, now feel like they’ve made their way right to my throat.
Plus he’s literally on the other side of the door!
What if he heard her making claims to know things like that?
Nadia must be feeling fresh today, because she beats me to the door so fast, no one would ever guess she was an septuagenarian with two synthetic knees.
“Adam!” she says, as though I didn’t just have to explain who he was to her.
“What a pleasant surprise! Why don’t you come in.
Do you need some coffee or water or tea? ”
“No, ma’am,” Adam says, smiling with both his dimples out. “Sky and I were just about to hang out for a little while.”
“Is that right.” Nadia smirks at me.
Adam must sense her tone, because he quickly adds, “Sky’s a really great friend. You must be so proud of her.”
Friend. There that word is again.
As much as I have gotten on my knees and begged the old gods for real friends in the last year or two, I kind of hate that word right about now.
But I put my hand on my belly as the little moths dwindle and dwindle until it feels like only a handful. And then, only one. Oh, thank the old gods. Adam calling me a friend cured me of my nerves and hopefully any and all attraction to him. I can like the word after all.
“We gotta run,” I tell Nadia, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Will you be home for dinner?”
I know she won’t, but I always ask. I’ve invited her to join me and William just about every week since I first started bringing him food.
She’s never come. Not once. In fact, I can’t remember the last time Nadia and I sat down and had any kind of meal together.
Oh sure, in the beginning of my Great Return from the Land of the Old Gods, as she still refers to it from time to time, she would make sure I had food.
She’d cook for me and bring it to my room, or meal plan like a wild woman and fill the fridge with nutritionally balanced portions in mismatched Tupperware. Which of course I appreciated.
But the second I began to cook my own shit, she stopped.
And I know. I’m twenty-six years old. I don’t need my elderly auntie to feed me like I’m a baby or something.
But it’s weird, living with someone and never seeing them except in passing.
Someone could spy on her big, almost always empty house, and think we were roommates, not family.
Just like people would see me, Teal, and Sage and think we were friends—there that word is again—who drifted apart, not sisters.
So it doesn’t surprise me the least bit when Nadia turns down the dinner invite. Again.
“Oh, amor, I can’t tonight. You know I work late on Fridays. I’ll be stopping by the church on the way home because Mother Michelle’s giving me extra keys to the sanctuary this weekend, for the big summer festival, in case someone gets locked out.” Nadia looks between me and Adam. “You know what?”
“Um,” I say, because I suspect Nadia’s about to suggest something embarrassing.
And I’m right. She smiles big and continues with “You two should definitely go to that! What a great idea. The summer festival St. Theresa’s puts on every year?”
“Nadia—” I say. “We really need to be—”
“No, no, please. Just one second.” She is digging through a handbag the size of a Smart car as she holds her other hand up, pointing her red acrylic nail right at my heart.
Even though she may very well stab me with those bloodred claws, I rush to the front door, flinging it open. “Sorry, Nadia!” I call. “We’re just in a hurry, maybe you can—”
And as I’m trying to drag Adam out the door, Nadia shoves tickets to the festival into our hands. “Here’s some ride and food coins, too! But don’t tell no one I gave this to you, you hear?”
“Thank you, Tía. Have a good day,” I say as robotically as possible as I shut the door behind me.
Adam’s grinning by the time we get in the car. “She always like that?”
“Matchmaking, you mean?”
He laughs in response and my cheeks heat up so quickly, I must look like a tomato pie. Damn Nadia and her busybody knowing. I could’ve done without hearing Adam think about how hilarious I am as a romantic prospect. Or maybe it’s not so bad. I’m pretty sure every moth has evaporated now.
“Sometimes she is. Latine elders, especially the women. It’s how they are. They’re always trying to get in their kids’ business, whether we like it or not.”
Adam chuckles. “Sometimes Gramps gets like that with me. It’s annoying as fuck.”
I think of when I was a ghost, watching William yell at Adam about “jerking women around.” I wonder if Adam has ever been in love. “It really is.”
When we get in the car, I shove all the festival shit Nadia gave me into my purse and turn to him. “So. Where are we going?”
Adam turns his head to look at me. “It’s completely up to you. But I was thinking…Cranberry Falls.”
I nod. “You want to go to the scene of the crime, so to speak.”
“Only if you’re comfortable with it. Otherwise, I was thinking I could ask you some questions someplace less emotionally resonant for you. Maybe the beach.”
I shake my head. “We can go to Cranberry Falls. I’ve gone back, like, a hundred times already. It’s no big deal.”
Adam turns on some oldies radio station, one that plays the likes of Creedence Clearwater, Jimi Hendrix, and Fleetwood Mac, and we spend most of the drive in silence, just listening.
Cranberry has two state parks, one called Cranberry Wood, and the other Cranberry Falls.
Cranberry Wood is on the west side of town, and it’s mainly made up of biking trails, a few hiking trails, and some pickleball courts near the main parking lot.
Cranberry Falls is much more popular. It has a few hiking trails—obviously, since Teal and I were on one of those when I fell—but the big appeal is Crescent Beach, a hidden, seemingly secret little stretch of white shore.
Though it is the main appeal of Cranberry Falls, Crescent Beach isn’t ever near as busy and crowded as the beach downtown.
It doesn’t have the downtown shops, and you can’t buy food here, you have to pack it, but for many people, it’s worth the effort.
When Adam and I get out of the car, it’s clear that’s where most of the people in the parking lot are headed.
They have little red wagons full of snacks and kids, and they take the trailhead marked Crescent Beach with a crescent moon painted in white on the sign, over the top of the wood-etched words.
Adam and I take the one called Falls instead, marked with three long, vertically painted curvy lines—leading to the waterfalls the park is named for.
“Do you think it’s weird that I fell in a place called Falls?” I ask as we begin, the tall pine trees already shading us from the late-morning sunshine.
Adam gives me a side smile. “I think…a lot of things seem to be more coincidental, or poetic, than they should be sometimes.”
I hum in agreement and follow him as we ascend.
He holds his arm out for me at the narrow spots, which is thoughtful but unnecessary.
I wasn’t lying before. I’ve come back here a million times since my return.
I know this terrain by now the same way I know the secret places in the neighborhood and what the neighbors keep in their junk drawers, from my Ghost Times.
Whenever I visit Cranberry Falls, it’s always to do the same damn thing.
I go to where I fell, right next to where the city has now placed a huge new metal and wood railing, and try to…
well. I’m not sure, exactly. Remember? Or maybe get something back that I’d lost?
I don’t know. It’s similar to when I climb onto the roof a couple evenings a week and watch the distant sea, just barely making out the distant lines of bright seafoam.
Being high up feels natural now. Maybe I’ve grown into my namesake.
And maybe that’s why I took the attic room a few months after Sage moved out of it, too.
I feel strangely at home when there is a great deal of space between me and the black earth.
“So tell me more about your gift, Sky.” Adam offers his arm again, and I gently place my hand upon it. He’s so warm, I can feel it through his windbreaker.
“Um…okay. You want to know anything specific?”
Adam shakes his head. “Just whatever you want to say about it. I’ll ask questions if they arise.”