Chapter Forty-Four
They climbed into the Lincoln Continental, the top down, the sky above them wide open and blue. The breeze ruffled their hair like it had missed them and was welcoming them home.
The drive back to Ossining would take a little over an hour.
First stop: Eleanor’s house. They’d ensure everything was in order and that Eleanor had what she needed, with a plan to discuss the next steps.
Then, it would be back to Leanne’s own front door.
Back to the house with the trimmed hedges and perfectly folded towels.
Back to Dean. If he wasn’t avoiding her by burying himself at work. Again.
The highway unspooled before them, black asphalt and trees lining the median familiar but different, the way a place always looks after you’ve seen something new. After you’ve changed.
From the back seat, Nora leaned forward and touched Leanne’s shoulder. “Mom? Would you mind if we went to Orchard Beach before we go home?”
The question made Leanne’s heart catch. It had been years.
She used to take Nora there when she was little, just like her mother had taken her.
They’d go after school or on weekends, get ice cream from the vendor by the boardwalk, dip their toes in the Long Island Sound, and watch the boats drift like ghosts beneath the lighthouse’s steady gaze.
But around the time Nora had entered high school, the visits had become few and far between until they petered out completely.
She turned to Eleanor. “Would you mind?”
Eleanor grinned. “I wouldn’t mind at all. I used to take you there when you were young. You always danced in the sand.”
Leanne smiled. She remembered those days with almost painful clarity. How the wind would whip their sundresses around their legs and her mother laughed like the world hadn’t told her to hush.
And she remembered trying so hard to give that to Nora too. Little borrowed pieces of joy passed down like recipes.
Now Nora wanted to go back. To taste it again. And Leanne realized she did too. There was no telling when they’d get a chance to repeat a trip with the three of them, if ever.
“Orchard Beach it is.” Leanne turned the car toward the shore.
They drove the extra hour past their house, following the coastline until the road curved and the scent of the ocean filled the air.
The day was perfect for the beach—bright sun, a soft breeze coming in off the Sound, and just enough of a crowd to feel alive without being overwhelming. Nothing compared to the madness of Woodstock and the roar of half a million voices.
They didn’t bother changing into bathing suits.
Instead, they kicked off their sandals and ran laughing into the water like kids—like they were racing time itself.
The surf licked at their ankles, cool and refreshing.
Spindrift spraying and tickling their knees.
Eleanor held up the hem of her flowy skirt as she waded in, grinning like someone who had nothing left to prove.
They held hands and kicked at the water, the splash of it catching the light like glitter.
They reminisced about that time Nora had been knocked over by a rogue wave—and how, in a heroic attempt to rescue her, Leanne had gone under too. All limbs and laughter and seaweed in their hair. They’d giggled until their sides ached, hugging each other, wet and sandy and full of joy.
Later, they made their way to the ice cream stand. Nora chose her forever favorite, mint chocolate chip. Eleanor and Leanne each went for chocolate, the same as always.
Leanne stood at the edge of the boardwalk, watching her mother and daughter holding hands and skipping along the shore, their skirts fluttering, their voices carried on the wind like a song, and Roxy chasing behind.
The world doubled. She closed her eyes, picturing Nora little again—toothless smile, sandy knees, arms stretched wide with wonder.
But the illusion flickered. Nora was a young woman now. Beautiful. Grown.
Nearly two decades of mothering, of being needed in a way that filled her completely, and now, in just a few days, her daughter would leave for college.
They would load up the Lincoln and drive to Connecticut and Yale’s vast Gothic buildings, where Nora would begin the next chapter.
And Leanne would wake up in a house that echoed a little more than it used to.
Of course, it wasn’t really goodbye. Nora would call, she’d visit, they’d write. But it was an ending, nonetheless.
And what a wonderful person her daughter had become.
Leanne swiped at a tear before it could fall. This was a strange kind of joy—being proud and also breaking a little inside. To see your child step into the world and realize they don’t need you in quite the same way anymore.
To know she’d finally gotten her daughter back, only to be preparing to let her go.
She was going to miss her. That was the hardest thing of all.
Leanne didn’t know who she was without being a mother.
She didn’t know who she was without being a daughter.
Her identity had always been shaped by her roles in other people’s lives.
And now, with one preparing to leave and the other fading before her eyes, she would have to sort out what all that meant.
Who she was when no one else was asking her to be something.
They wandered the shoreline with their melting ice cream cones, the sweet, chocolatey cream trailing down the sides, sticky and comforting in that summer way.
The ocean breeze tangled their hair, and the scent of brine, sugar, and distant charcoal grills wrapped around them with nostalgic tenderness.
They were doing everything except walking back to the car—lingering, stretching out the magic a little longer, like savoring the last lick of an ice cream cone. That slow, reluctant goodbye.
When they finally sat, it was on a soft stretch of sand worn smooth by a hundred years of tide. They didn’t speak much. Just watched the sun melt into the horizon, casting the sky in molten pinks and oranges. The lighthouse winked to life like a single, solemn eye, and they all knew what it meant.
As children, that beam of light had been the signal that the day was done. The call to pack up their towels, laughter, and bare feet and head home. And it was like that now too. A quiet, unquestionable cue: Time to go.
Leanne had never been one to wallow. Not really. And she wasn’t about to start now, even though her chest squeezed with emotion.
“Time to face the music,” she murmured aloud, a slight, wry smile curling on her lips.
“What’s so funny?” Nora brushed sand from her knee.
“I just said it’s time to face the music,” Leanne replied. “Funny, right? We’ve been chasing music all summer, and yet now it feels like the real meaning of that phrase is what we’ve been avoiding.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure.” Eleanor sat cross-legged beside them, her hand still faintly stained from the fading henna, Roxy snoozing in her lap. “I think maybe we were avoiding everything before. And this summer, we did, in fact, face the music.”
Leanne glanced at the horizon one last time before it darkened. Maybe her mother was right.
Maybe they had already faced the things they were avoiding, though they all still had unfinished business to attend to. And maybe now, they were finally ready for the next verse.
“There’s another idiom that means something similar,” Nora said thoughtfully, twirling the end of her ice cream cone between her fingers. “Pay the piper. Why do you think facing the consequences always ends up tied to musicians or music?”
Eleanor chuckled, the sound weathered and warm. “Because music tells it like it is. It’s memory. Confession. Truth dressed up in melody and metaphor. Music is sharing stories—pain, joy, betrayal. Music is honest…but it can also lie.”
Leanne raised a brow. “Lie?”
Her mother nodded, brushing sand from her skirt, eyes still fixed on the darkening water.
“Oh, sure. Music can make you believe something that isn’t true.
A love that’s not real. A memory that’s rosier than it was.
It romanticizes the ache. Sometimes, it hides the truth in a pretty chorus just to make it easier to swallow. ”
Nora went quiet, taking that in.
And Leanne felt the truth of her mother’s words settle between them like fog rolling in from the sea. She thought about the soundtrack of her own life—lullabies sung beside a crib, old love songs playing in the car while her husband drove in silence, radio jingles while she wiped down countertops.
Now she had new songs. Ones from a summer of rediscovery, long drives, loud guitars, and quiet epiphanies. A new rhythm to live by.
“Maybe,” Leanne said softly, “it’s because when you finally stop dancing around the truth, you have to listen. You have to really hear it.”
Eleanor hummed her agreement. “And when you do? That’s when the real music starts.”