FIVE
DANIEL
Hannah had not answered by morning.
I checked before I got out of bed, again while the shower warmed, and once more after I dressed. My messages still showed as delivered. The last one, sent at two fourteen, said I was sorry and would call after she slept.
I had slept. She probably had not.
The photograph was no longer on Lauren’s page. I had called the hotel manager before midnight and asked him to remove it from the events account too. He apologized, explained that diners in the terrace section agreed to photography when they accepted the reservation terms, and took it down anyway.
It was a problem I could fix. The pictures were gone.
The flight page remained open on my laptop.
There were three seats on an afternoon flight home. I selected one, then pulled my suitcase from the stand and threw in the shirt from the chair. One sleeve trailed across the carpet. I left it that way.
Confirm change.
If I pressed it, I could be home before dark.
I tried Hannah again. Her phone went straight to voicemail.
“I’m looking at flights,” I said after the tone. “Call me. I don’t want to make this worse by guessing what you want.”
She had told me what she wanted. In the hospital corridor, she had said come home until her voice broke.
I set the phone beside the laptop. The suitcase waited open behind me while hotel employees lined up bicycles for the route Hannah had marked on our itinerary.
The itinerary had been her idea—the hotel, the restaurant, even the car reservation. Canceling it had felt insulting after she spent so long arranging it. Bringing Lauren had seemed like a way to use what Hannah could not.
Now there was a photograph of Lauren at Hannah’s table, even if nobody could find it online anymore.
My phone rang. Lauren.
“I’m downstairs,” she said. Her voice was tentative. “Can we talk before you decide anything?”
The confirmation button waited on my laptop. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
She was sitting in a chair near the front windows with a paper coffee cup between both hands.
Her room was four floors below mine. I had requested the distance at check-in and paid for both rooms with the card Hannah and I shared because Lauren’s accounts were still tangled in the last steps of her divorce.
“I deleted everything,” she said as soon as I sat across from her. “I didn’t know the hotel was going to use that picture.”
“You reposted it.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the table. I was thinking about finally being free and having someone show up for me.”
“Hannah saw it.”
Lauren looked down at her coffee. “I’m sorry she was hurt.”
The wording bothered me. Starting another argument would take energy I did not have.
“She wants me home.”
“Are you going?”
“There’s a flight this afternoon.”
Lauren nodded slowly. “Then go if that’s what you want.”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“No.” She rubbed her thumb along the cup seam. “The picture already happened. Going back now won’t erase it. It just means you leave me here after telling me I wouldn’t have to do this weekend alone, and you arrive home while she’s still furious.”
“She’s not just furious.”
“I know. But can you fix that today?”
I thought of Hannah ending the call, then refusing the next three. If I flew home and found her at the hospital, I would be one more person asking her to stop what she was doing and deal with me. Her father had made it through the procedure. Her sister was there. I could not undo the dinner.
“Probably not,” I said.
“Then maybe don’t make every part of this worse at once.” Lauren looked toward the bicycles outside. “We can keep out of each other’s way if that’s easier. I don’t expect you to entertain me.”
The airline page would hold the seat for six more minutes.
“Give me a second,” I said.
I went back upstairs. Five minutes remained on the seat hold.
The shirt still hung half out of my suitcase. I picked it up, folded it, and put it back in the closet.
Four minutes.
I sat on the bed. The number changed; the hold expired.
The page returned me to the list of flights. The afternoon option now showed two seats instead of three.
I closed the laptop.
Before I left the room, I called Grace. My sister-in-law answered, covered the phone, then put her on. Grace sounded as if she had been awake for hours.
“How’s Grandpa?” I asked.
“He walked around the floor yesterday. Mom said the doctor might let him go home today.”
“That’s good.”
“He hates the food.”
“That sounds like him.”
She did not laugh. I heard paper moving near the phone.
“Are you still away?” she asked.
“I’ll be home Sunday.”
“So you’ll be at my game Monday?”
“Yes.”
“It’s at six. Warm-ups are at five fifteen.”
“I remember.”
“You missed the presentation.”
The words were flat, a correction rather than an accusation. “I know. I won’t miss the game.”
“Okay.”
“Do you need me to bring anything back?”
“No.”
“Is your mom there?”
“She’s at the hospital.”
I waited, hoping Grace would add something. She had never been a child who filled silence for adults.
“Tell her I called,” I said.
“You can text her.”
“I have.”
“Then she knows.”
Someone called Grace from another room. “I have to go. Auntie says we’re leaving for the hospital.”
The call ended. I stood with the phone in my hand before the dark laptop screen. There was a faint rectangle in the dust where it had rested beside the unpressed button.
We rode the coastal route because the bikes were included with the room.
Lauren stayed several yards ahead of me for most of it.
The path ran above the water, curving past low cliffs and patches of scrub bent by the wind.
Hannah had saved three stops in the itinerary.
At the first, a wooden stairway descended to a narrow beach.
At the second, there was a coffee stand she had flagged because it roasted its own beans.
The third was an overlook where gray whales sometimes passed offshore.
I stopped at each one.
At the beach, I took a picture and almost sent it to Hannah. I deleted it before it left my phone. At the coffee stand, I ordered the drink she liked out of habit and threw it away after one sip. At the overlook, Lauren asked whether I could see anything in the water. I said no.
When we returned the bikes, the activities attendant scanned my room key and smiled at the name on her tablet.
“Did Mrs. Mercer like the north overlook? She called earlier this week to make sure the trail had reopened.”
I put my helmet on the counter. “She didn’t make the trip.”
The attendant’s smile changed. “I’m sorry. We can refund the picnic add-on if you didn’t use it.”
I had not known there was a picnic add-on. Hannah had never mentioned it, one more part of the itinerary I had barely read.
“That’s fine,” I said. “Leave it on the bill.”
The attendant removed our bikes from the equipment list and handed me a receipt made out to Hannah Reed Mercer. I folded it twice and put it in my pocket.
We were back at the hotel before dinner. I checked flights again. The evening seat was still available. I could pack in ten minutes. The car could be at the entrance by five.
Instead, I showered and put on the blue shirt Hannah had packed.
The final dinner reservation was for six thirty at a restaurant farther down the coast. Lauren offered to stay at the hotel.
“The reservation is for two,” I said.
“That didn’t go well last time.”
“This isn’t the same restaurant.”
She looked as if she might argue, then went to change.
The hostess found my name in the book when we arrived. “Mercer, party of two. And will Hannah be joining you, or should I update the guest name?”
I felt Lauren go still beside me.
“She won’t be joining us,” I said.
“Of course.” The hostess tapped the screen. “Mrs. Mercer requested the window table. We have it ready.”
She led us through the dining room.
I ordered what Hannah had written beside the reservation confirmation: grilled fish, potatoes, the bottle of white wine the restaurant recommended.
Lauren talked about practical things she had to do when she got home—change the utilities, meet with the realtor, find out which furniture her ex planned to take.
I listened and checked my phone under the table.
Nothing from Hannah.
Back at the hotel, Lauren got off the elevator on her floor and said good night. I continued upstairs alone. In my room, I started a message explaining the separate flights, separate rooms, and the photograph I had made the hotel remove. It became four paragraphs before I read it back.
Every sentence proved what I had not done. None explained why I was still there.
I deleted it and sent two lines instead.
Our flight lands Sunday at 4:20. I’ll be at Grace’s game Monday. Please let me know how your dad is.
The message showed as delivered. I left the phone beside me with the sound on and packed for the original flight.
On Sunday morning, I woke early and took the last walk on her itinerary.
The route began behind the hotel and followed the cliffs north.
Lauren stayed in her room. I passed couples carrying coffee and a family trying to keep two children away from the edge.
My phone showed the airline check-in reminder for our original return flight.
I checked in.
At the airport, Lauren and I returned the rental car and went through security separately. She bought a magazine and sat across the gate area from me. On the plane our seats were in different rows because I had purchased hers too late for us to sit together.
I opened the family calendar before takeoff. Grace’s game was Monday, and I wanted to make sure the time had not changed. The event would also tell me whether Hannah planned to pick her up or needed me to do it.
The game was not there.
Neither was Dad’s follow-up appointment, the school schedule, or the grocery list Hannah kept under the all-day events. Only my work calendar and personal appointments remained.
I refreshed the app. A notice appeared at the bottom of the screen.
You no longer have access to Mercer Family.
The flight attendant announced our descent.