Chapter 2 Diane
Diane
Cassie barrels up the porch steps like a stray bullet, nearly colliding with the screen door.
Rolo is right behind her, his paws clattering on the wooden boards in his scramble to catch up.
Cassie flings open the door, tracking a comet-tail of sand across the entryway, then stands there on the runner, hands on hips, grinning through a drift of hair and salt.
In her right hand she clutches a lopsided bouquet of cockle shells and augers, fragments of moon snail, and even a full sand dollar miraculously intact.
“Mom!” she yells, the word echoing off beadboard and old glass. “Look what we got! Can you believe it?”
I spin in my chair, heart leaping the way it always does when her voice is pitched that high, as if every ordinary day might contain its own small catastrophe. But she’s beaming, cheeks chapped, freckles spread across her nose.
I meet her at the threshold, brushing sand from her arm.
“Let’s see,” I say, examining the shells.
I let her guide me to the kitchen where the light is better, the faucet ready for rinsing.
Cassie dumps her haul onto a folded paper towel and begins arranging them by size and species, her tongue poking out in concentration.
“These are so pretty,” I say, holding up the sand dollar between thumb and forefinger. It’s veined with hairline cracks, the whole thing impossibly fragile.
“It was just sitting there, like it was waiting for me. Do you think it means something?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it just means you’re good at noticing things.”
She grins again, but her fingers are already busy, washing grit from a conical shell with exquisite care. “Actually, Rolo saw it first. He’s getting good at finding these things.”
“Maybe we should change his title from ‘house pet’ to ‘professional seashell detective.” I fill a small bowl with tepid water and set it beside Cassie, handing her the soft-bristled toothbrush we keep for just this purpose. She scrubs the shells, narrating the adventure as if I hadn’t been watching the entire time—how the gulls led her to the wrack line, how she found a jellyfish shaped like a melted ice cube, how the wind almost stole her hat.
I listen, a little awed by the density of her memory.
At thirteen, Cassie has an archivist’s sense of detail.
Her discoveries are cataloged, cross-referenced, stored in the permanent record of her mind.
She can remember the exact pattern of stars from a single night in third grade, the names of every dog she’s ever met, the taste of last summer’s wild blueberries.
The contrast with my own daily amnesia is embarrassing.
I can barely remember what I did last Tuesday.
She finishes cleaning the shells and lines them up on the towel. I reach for another, a whelk, and roll it in my palm. The ridges are worn smooth, the colors faded almost to bone. Still, there is something beautiful about its ruined symmetry.
I wonder what Cassie will remember about this season of our lives.
This borrowed house, this stretch of sand, these mornings when the world feels suspended and incomplete.
I want her to remember joy, or at least a kind of possibility, but I know memory doesn’t work that way.
It’s less about narrative, more about accidents of weather and smell.
Besides, she’s at that age where the world expands in boundless dimensions, more than any mother can contain.
Soon, her eyes will begin to turn outward, peering at the horizon, yearning for what lies beyond these sun-drenched days.
She'll start to carve out her own path, molding the world to fit her dreams and desires.
I swallow back a sudden lump in my throat as I watch her, this beautiful girl of mine who’s no longer a child, yet not quite a woman.
She tugs my sleeve. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. “Just thinking.”
“You always say that.” She leans against my side, a little damp and shivery but solid. “Is it a grown-up thing?”
I laugh, surprised. “Yes, it’s a grown-up thing. But you can do it too.”
She considers this, then shrugs and starts stacking the shells in an old peanut butter jar, her favorite storage system.
The morning has a momentum I can’t quite match.
I busy myself wiping down the counter, arranging the stray shells that didn’t make the cut, rinsing out the toothbrush.
It feels almost ceremonial, this small act of order.
Cassie’s voice floats up again, softer this time. “I checked the rain catcher before I came in. It seems to be filling up pretty quickly. The garden will be happy.”
“That’s good,” I reply, glancing out the window where our little vegetable garden basks in the early morning sun. “It’ll need plenty of watering as the days get hotter.”
She hums in agreement, her attention still on the shells she’s meticulously arranging inside the jar. “Good thing Sara taught us how to build one. Now, we won’t have to worry about wasting water from the tap.”
“Indeed,” I say, remembering Sara’s lessons on environmental conservation. “Every bit helps, doesn’t it?”
She nods, and there’s a seriousness in her gaze that makes me feel both proud and a little sad.
It’s strange to see my own concern for the world reflected in her younger eyes, as if she’s taken up the mantle far too early.
I want to tell her that there’s time, that she doesn’t have to shoulder the world’s worries just yet, not while there are still shells to discover and stars to count.
“Do you think she’s lonely?” she asks, breaking the tempo of our conversation.
“Who, sweetheart?”
“Miss Sara.”
“Oh, I don’t know… Why do you ask?”
“She’s always staring at the water. Even when she’s talking to us, her eyes kind of…go past.” Cassie demonstrates, gazing out the window with exaggerated vacancy.
“She’s lived here a long time,” I say. “Maybe it’s just habit.”
“Or maybe she misses Andrew.” Cassie’s attention is already drifting back to the jar, where she’s arranging her favorites in concentric circles. “The way you miss Dad.”
The mention of Kyle steals the rhythm from my heart and throws a shadow over our otherwise bright morning. “I suppose,” I finally manage. “Maybe we all miss something.”
She nods, serious in the way only a teenager can be, then turns her attention back to her treasures. “I wish we could stay here forever.”
The words hit me with the force of a sudden current. I want to say, Me too, but I don’t want to lie. Cassie has adapted to Kitty Hawk as if she’d always belonged to the place, while I feel like a sand crab awkwardly transplanted, skittering sideways, never quite able to dig in.
A knock on the front door startles us both. Cassie bolts upright, the jar nearly tipping, and races to the entryway, shouting, “Sara! You’re back!”
Sara Hastings stands in the doorway, cheeks windburned, hair pulled into a haphazard knot.
She carries a paper sack in one hand and a thermos in the other.
For a moment, I see the outline of her old self.
The sharp, angular elegance of her posture, the mischief still alive in the corner of her smile.
Then her left hand trembles, the thermos rattling, and she steadies it against the frame with a practiced, almost invisible motion.
“Delivery for the young scientist,” she calls, stepping over the threshold. Cassie nearly tackles her, burying her face in the crook of Sara’s elbow. Sara wraps an arm around her, balancing the thermos expertly despite the tremor.
“What’d you bring?” Cassie demands.
“Guess.” Sara holds up a paper sack, as if auctioning it.
Cassie inhales. “Cookies?”
“Not just any cookies. Chocolate chip with pecans. And there’s a treat in there for Rolo, too.” Sara hands over the bag, then glances at me. “And you, Diane, look like you need caffeine.”
I smile, trying to ignore the queasy relief that always comes when Sara’s symptoms are mild enough to be easily disguised. “You know me too well.”
She crosses to the kitchen, her gait steady but measured.
As she sets down the thermos and mugs, I notice the subtle pauses in her movement, tiny hesitations where her muscles don’t quite fire right, little gaps the untrained eye would miss.
She pours tea into the mugs with a steady hand, then grins at Cassie, who’s already inhaled two cookies and has crumbs dotting her chin.
“Don’t tell your mother I’m corrupting you with sugar before lunch,” Sara says, winking.
We settle at the small kitchen table, which Sara wipes compulsively with a damp cloth before sitting.
Her hands are more still when occupied. Cassie bounces on her chair, talking through a mouthful of pecan cookie about the morning’s adventures and the relative merits of different shell shapes.
I watch Sara as she listens, her head tilted, a slight smile softening her features.
I take a sip of the tea. It’s black and unsweetened, sharp enough to make my tongue curl. “You went all the way to Manteo for these?” I ask, gesturing at the bag.
Sara shrugs. “The drive’s not bad early. More pelicans than people.”
Cassie beams. “Pelicans are my favorite.”
“They always look like they’re thinking deep thoughts,” Sara says, and Cassie immediately imitates a pelican, folding her arms and sticking out her chin in dramatic contemplation.
Sara laughs. For a moment, she seems lighter, untethered. But when she reaches for her tea, her fingers spasm, and a few drops slosh onto the table. She dabs at them with a napkin, face impassive.
Cassie doesn’t seem to notice, but I do.
I notice everything now. The careful way Sara moves, the way she holds her wrists close to her body, the way she swallows twice before drinking.
There’s an awkwardness to it, but it’s also fierce, a refusal to be limited by her condition.
She’s still herself, even as the perimeter closes in, inch by inch.
Sara looks at me, and for a moment I think she knows exactly what I’m thinking. “You’re quiet today.”
I shrug, embarrassed by how easily she can read me. “Just frustrated. The novel is going nowhere.”
“It’s going somewhere,” she says. “You just can’t see the path yet.”
Cassie, still fixated on her cookies, pipes up. “Mom says writing is like searching for shells. Sometimes you have to get your feet wet.”
“Wise words. You’ve got a real philosopher here.”
“I keep telling her,” I say, and Cassie rolls her eyes.
The three of us linger at the table, the sunlight shifting through the kitchen window, pooling in honey-colored patches on the wooden floor.
For a while, the conversation drifts. Cassie discusses her favorite birds and the upcoming science project, while Sara tells us stories about time spent on the lake in her younger years.
Each anecdote comes with a punchline, a little wink, as if Sara is gently reminding us that every story, every life, is a kind of performance.
The more time I spend with Sara, the more I realize how much she is teaching me about the art of the present tense. Not the grammatical kind, but the lived kind, the ability to hold a moment without demanding it add up to something later.
At one point, as Cassie disappears to wash her hands and feed Rolo, I catch Sara’s gaze lingering on the edge of her mug.
She rubs her thumb along a crack in the glaze.
I want to ask her if she’s scared, or angry, or both.
I want to ask if she regrets letting us stay here, if she finds our company a comfort or an annoyance or just a distraction. But I don’t.
Instead, I say, “Thanks for this.”
Sara’s eyes brighten, as if she’s been startled out of her reverie. “You’re welcome, dear. I’m glad you’re here. Both of you.” She glances at the kitchen window, where the wind is picking up again. “Life is better when it’s shared.”
I nod, not trusting myself to answer. My chest is tight, the words I want to say compressed into something small and sharp.
Cassie returns, her hands still wet. Sara pretends not to notice as she reaches for another cookie, and the moment passes.
Later, when Sara gets up to refill the mugs, she sways slightly, just enough for me to notice the edge of her hand gripping the back of the chair.
The tremor is a flicker, a warning shot.
She waits, then straightens, smiling as if nothing is out of place.
Cassie is oblivious, but I feel the gravity of it all the way down.
We finish our tea, the kitchen heavy with the smell of cookies and ocean air. Cassie asks if she and Rolo can go back to the beach, and I say yes, watching as she bolts out the door, peanut butter jar in tow.
Sara and I stand in the empty kitchen, the residue of our conversation settling around us.
I reach for the thermos, pouring the last of the tea into my mug.
The steam rises, curling into the space between us.
For a moment, I imagine us years from now, older, maybe braver, the past less urgent.
I imagine Sara still here, still herself, and Cassie grown and strong.
But for now, it’s enough to stand in this kitchen, the shells on the counter, the air tinged with salt and sugar, the present holding steady.