Chapter 9 #3
Maddy walked over to join her, and her eyes caught on the sign above the entrance. Just below the Birch Aquarium logo was: at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Scripps. They were at Scripps Institute. Maddy dropped her gaze to the entrance. Noa Reyes could be sitting in a lab somewhere inside these doors, right now, dissecting seaweed. Or whatever the hell kelp conservationists did.
Maddy pulled out her phone and opened a new text thread. She typed fast and hit send before she could overthink it.
Maddy: Hey Noa! This is Maddy Sterling. I don’t know if you heard, but I’m back in SD for a few weeks. I’m actually at Birch Aquarium right now—any chance you’re around to say hi? If not, no worries, I’ll be at the Cup this year. Hope you’ve been well.
She stared at the single blue bubble on the screen with her sent message, waiting for a read receipt or text bubbles to appear.
“Hey.” Aspen’s voice startled her. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. Fine.” Maddy locked her phone and put it back in her purse.
Aspen opened her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by Maisie’s excitement.
“Come on! We’re already five minutes behind schedule.” Maisie grabbed Aspen’s hand and dragged her towards the entrance.
Maddy glanced up at the Scripps Institute logo over the entrance doors one more time and then followed them in.
Maisie led the way, sprinting between exhibits. She stopped at each one and spun around, expecting the adults to keep up and not talk as she informed them of exactly what they were looking at.
Maddy briefly scanned the exhibit label of the ecosystem Maisie had just described in great detail and noticed that Maisie’s lecture was almost verbatim. She must have memorized the labels. Jesus, how many times had this kid been here?
As they made their way to the penguin exhibit, Maddy hung back half a step and studied Aspen.
The way she patiently followed Maisie from exhibit to exhibit and listened to every spiel, even though she had clearly heard them a hundred times.
The way she casually draped an arm over Maisie’s shoulders as they waved at the diver doing maintenance inside one of the tanks.
The way she got answers wrong when Maisie quizzed her and handed the correction over to a child like it was nothing.
She knew Aspen was different around Maisie. She knew this version of Aspen was not the smug, smirking, teasing Aspen she was used to. But she could not, for the life of her, figure out which one was the real Aspen and which one was the facade.
At the penguin exhibit, Maisie tilted her head all the way back to look up at Aspen. “Aunt Aspen, if a penguin got hurt, could you fix it? Like you fix Bunny?”
“Sure.” Aspen shrugged. “They waddle around with terrible posture and absolutely nowhere to be. A penguin essentially is Bunny.”
Maisie shrieked with laughter.
Maddy barely caught her own laugh that wanted to escape. She rolled her lips and looked away so Aspen wouldn’t see her losing the fight. It was true; Bunny did look like a penguin right now, the way she slowly hobbled around the house, slightly hunched over from her injury.
“Oh! Oh!” Maisie excitedly pointed at the digital clock on the wall and tugged on Aspen’s arm. “Aunt Aspen! It’s time!”
Maddy turned and checked the clock: 12:55 p.m. She looked around them for any indication of what was about to happen, but Maisie seemed to be the only one excited about something. “Time for what?”
“The Discovery Lab!” Maisie dragged Aspen toward a corridor. “It’s the main reason we’re here. But you can’t come, it’s for kids.”
Maddy raised her brows. “Oh.” She hadn’t planned to be alone with Aspen today. “And how long does this Discovery Lab last?”
“An hour.” At the end of the corridor was a bright orange doorway where a staff member in a Birch polo waited with a clipboard.
Maisie looked up at Maddy. “Aunt Aspen can show you the Living Seas Gallery while you wait for me. But don’t go see the sharks without me.
” She pointed at the two of them sternly.
“We’ll go there after the lab.” She let go of Aspen’s hand and started sprinting forward, then abruptly stopped and turned back.
“Oh! And can you bring me a corn dog when you pick me up?”
Aspen chuckled. “Sure, Mais. Have fun.” Aspen approached the staff member. “Maisie St. Claire.”
Then Maisie was through the door, the staff member was drawing a line through her name, and Maddy’s buffer was gone. Shit.
* * *
For three weeks, Maddy had managed her exposure to Aspen in measured units.
Brief kitchen interactions. Short car rides.
Unresponded texts. Conversations on the front porch that never moved inside.
Even the day at the storage unit had been carefully planned and executed for maximum efficiency and minimal closeness.
Maddy had ensured there was always a Bunny, a steering wheel, a doorframe, a four-foot child, a binder—something parked between Maddy and the full, uninterrupted fact of Aspen St. Claire.
Today’s something was now tucked away inside a classroom while Aspen held the door open to the Adam R.
Scripps Living Seas Gallery and motioned for Maddy to enter first.
As they entered the dark corridor, Maddy briefly pulled out her phone and checked the screen. Still nothing from Noa. She clamped down on the disappointment and tucked her phone away.
The bright public hum of the lobby faded behind them and was replaced with the blue glow of the tanks illuminating the floor, the ceiling, and the side of Aspen’s face.
The air dropped a few degrees the deeper they went, and it was nearly silent except for the low mechanical hum of the building keeping a hundred thousand gallons of water alive.
Throngs of people had been heading to the penguin feeding on their way here. Maddy had thought about proposing they follow the crowd back to the penguin exhibit, but she knew Aspen would see right through her. Again.
So instead, they walked—very slowly—along the dim corridor amongst a handful of other adults silently perusing the tanks.
Adults who were likely also killing time while their kids were at the damn lab, but none of them seemed to be experiencing the same inner crisis about it that Maddy was. Nor did Aspen, for that matter.
At the heart of the hall, a single tank climbed two full stories.
A giant towering forest of kelp stood inside it—she supposed that’s why it was labeled the Giant Kelp Forest—with fronds swaying in a slow current and various types of fish floating about.
Maddy stopped and tilted her head back to take it all in.
She wondered whether Noa had a hand in building this particular exhibit.
Aspen stood beside her. When she spoke, her voice was soft and low. “Kind of magnificent, isn’t it?”
A chill ran through Maddy’s body, raising the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. She had never heard Aspen’s voice sound like that before. It wasn’t her normal voice, or her teasing voice, or even the warmer, more affectionate voice she used with Maisie.
Maddy straightened and kept her eyes on the tank. She felt Aspen’s sidelong gaze on her, and realizing she hadn’t answered, gave a light nod.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Aspen’s mouth lift slightly before she turned back to the tank.
After a moment, Aspen spoke again. “Thanks for coming today.” She kept her eyes forward. “Maisie’s really happy you’re here.”
Maddy tensed, waiting for the tease, the quip, the smirk. She turned her head—just enough to catch a glimpse of Aspen’s expression—and looked for any sign of insincerity. When she didn’t find any, she turned her attention back to the fish.
Maddy weighed her options. She could stay silent for the next hour until her buffer returned, or she could engage and try to figure this woman out. Which was, she reminded herself, the whole reason she was here.
“She’s a great kid,” Maddy said cautiously.
She waited for Aspen’s reaction. When Aspen only gave a small, soft smile—not the teasing one—the moment started to feel a little too intimate, so Maddy quickly added: “She clearly gets it from Chloe. No way a kid turns out that well-adjusted with you being responsible.”
Aspen huffed a laugh. “Fair. I’m a terrible influence. I taught her what ‘plausible deniability’ means last month, and now not one adult in her life is safe.”
Maddy chuckled and shook her head. She could absolutely picture Maisie getting sent to the principal’s office for sharing an inappropriate animal fact, like how sea cucumbers breathe through their butts—a fact Maddy had learned earlier today—and then claiming plausible deniability.
They wordlessly turned and began walking past the Giant Kelp Forest to continue down the tank-lined corridor. A school of something silver darted past them along the length of the tank to their right.
“Is Maisie’s dad in the picture?” The last thing she wanted was to put the topic of dads on the table, but the question had been sitting in Maddy’s mind since Maisie’s tour yesterday.
“No.” Aspen continued her leisurely pace.
“He was a fling in Cabo when Chloe was twenty. Some rich, older guy on vacation, who, it turned out, had a fiancée he left at home. Chloe only learned about her when she called him to tell him she was pregnant with his kid. He pays her a sizable amount of money in child support every month to keep his name out of it and never contact him again.”
Maddy’s steps slowed as she processed everything. She wasn’t even sure if she was processing the information itself or the fact that Aspen was openly sharing something so personal. “Were you living together at the time? You and Chloe?”