Chapter 12
She left before dawn.
She hadn't told anyone. Not Beck. Not Morgan. Not Jon. She'd set her alarm for four thirty and gotten dressed in the dark and walked past the kitchen where Nate's tools were lined up on the counter, waiting for Monday.
She thought about Beck. About the beach and the kiss and him tucking her in at Luke and Addison's house and taking the couch without being asked.
She thought about the ball in his pocket from the cage with Tyler and Noah.
She thought about Jon on the porch handing him a Corona and calling him son.
She thought about the bar prep box in the closet with the tape getting looser every time she opened the door.
She thought about the question she couldn't answer.
The sun came up somewhere south of Savannah. The highway opened and the flatlands spread out and the coffee went cold and she kept driving.
April's house was in a neighborhood off San Jose Boulevard. A one-story ranch with a small yard and a front porch with two chairs and a pot of something blooming that April would know the name of and Kirstin would not. The driveway was short. April's car was there. Kirstin pulled in behind it.
She sat in the 4Runner for a minute. Then she got out.
The front door opened before she reached it.
April Green stood in the doorway in jeans and a white blouse with bare feet and her hair pulled back. She was fifty-three and looked forty. The same eyes as Kirstin. The same posture, straight and sure.
"Oh, sweetheart," April said. "You met someone."
Kirstin stopped on the porch steps. "He told you, didn't he?"
"Jon didn't say a word. Your face did."
April held the door open. Kirstin walked through it.
The house smelled like coffee and something baking.
The living room was small, warm, filled with light from a bay window that faced the yard.
Books on the shelves. A blanket on the couch.
Pictures on the wall, most of them Kirstin at various ages, a few of April and Jon from before, young and tan and smiling on a beach that was probably Ellery Cove.
April poured her coffee without asking how she took it because she already knew.
They sat on the couch. April tucked one leg under her and turned toward Kirstin and waited.
"Tell me about him," April said.
Kirstin buried her chin in her chest. The same way she used to when she was a little girl, shy and unsure. Her eyes lifted to her mom.
"He's funny," she said. "Like really funny. Not stupid funny. He has the sweetest dog, Hudson, and he's nice, mom. He likes kids and has feelings."
"Wow," April said. "You are in so much trouble, little girl."
"Why?"
April held up her phone. She'd googled him. The screen showed Beck in an Atlanta uniform, the curls coming out from under the cap, the jaw, the brown eyes. The corner of April's mouth moved in a way Kirstin recognized immediately because she'd seen it in her own mirror.
"Because you haven't even mentioned this face yet."
Kirstin broke. The shyness left. The composure left. The bartender left. What was sitting on April's couch was a twenty-nine-year-old woman with a big grin who had been waiting to tell someone about a boy.
"Oh my God, mom, those curls. I made up a hat rule in the bar just so I could see them."
April took her hands. They laughed together, the kind of laughter that fills a small living room and makes the coffee shake in the cups.
"That," April said, "you got from me."
She started at the beginning and didn't stop. The bar, the hat, the shoulder, the dog, the dancing, the night everything changed. She told her mother everything.
This wasn't a report. This was a confession.
"He's staying on the island," Kirstin said. "The Braves released him and he chose to stay."
"Why?"
"I don't know. The facility. Luke and Brady. The kids he's been working with."
"You."
"Maybe."
"Sweetheart."
"Probably."
"Kirstin."
"Okay, yeah. Me."
April set her coffee down. She tucked Kirstin's hair behind her ear, the gesture automatic, the muscle memory of twenty-nine years.
"You love like your father," she said. "And that's a good thing. It means you put everything into it." She kissed Kirstin's head. "I still love that about him. I'm glad you got it from him."
Kirstin leaned into her mother. The couch and the coffee and the light from the bay window and the pictures on the wall of a girl growing up on an island three hours north.
"How's the kitchen?" April asked.
"Nate's doing it. Finally."
"Good. I want pictures."
"You'll get pictures."
"And the other thing?"
Kirstin knew what she meant. The box. The bar prep materials. The thing April had never pushed but had never stopped noticing.
"I don't know, mom."
"You don't have to know today."
"I know."
"You just have to know you're allowed to want it."
They sat together. The morning turned into afternoon.
April made lunch. They ate at the kitchen table and talked about the bar and Jon and the island and the friends Kirstin had who were married now and happy.
April asked about Morgan and Addison and Kirstin told her about the wiffle ball game and the jerseys and April laughed until she had to put her fork down.
At three o'clock Kirstin stood up.
"I should go. Three hours."
"I know."
They walked to the door. April hugged her. Held her. Longer than polite, because polite isn't what this is.
"Do you love him?" April said.
Kirstin's mouth opened. Nothing came out. The word was right there, close enough to taste, and it wouldn't cross the distance between thinking and saying.
April pulled back. She looked at her daughter. She smiled.
"Yeah," April said. "You got that from me also. Go home and see your man."
The drive back was different.
The sun was behind her. The radio stayed off. She kept thinking about Jon and April loving each other enough to fool themselves and honest enough to stop. And the hesitation. The word she couldn't say out loud in her mother's doorway.
The causeway appeared at dusk. The island was low and dark ahead of her, the trees and the marsh and the bridge, the same view she'd been seeing her whole life.
She crossed it. The live oaks closed over the road.
The pavement ended. The gravel started. The 4Runner pulled into the circular drive and the porch light was on because she always left it on.
She cut the engine. She sat in the dark.
She pulled out her phone and texted April.
Yeah, mom. I do.
She put the phone on the passenger seat. She looked at her house. The porch. The light. The kitchen behind the front door where Nate's tools were waiting for Monday.
She went inside.