Chapter 3 #2
The night of their third date, Grace explained her fixation with signs to Adam.
They’d just left a restaurant in the West Village and were stopped at a corner, the neighborhood’s cafés spilling light onto the sidewalk as they waited to cross.
That was the moment Adam abruptly interrupted their conversation, took Grace’s face in his hands, and kissed her for the first time.
“We should keep doing this.” He pulled back. The rest of the city kept moving, even though to Grace it felt as if everything had stopped. “Spending time together, I mean.”
The light changed. They took a step. And that’s when Grace saw it: a shiny penny, planted at her feet. Her heart did a somersault as she instinctively bent and picked it up. Adam looked at her like maybe she was a little crazy, which prompted her to explain the practice.
“I’m guessing this is a deal-breaker?” she said, half joking.
“Not at all.” Around them, the autumn breeze picked up. “I’m not sure I believe in that stuff.” He smiled. “But it’s romantic that you do.” Adam buried his hands in his coat pockets. “So what’s that penny a sign of? Anything good?”
Grace squirted hand sanitizer into her palm. “I hope so.”
Back in the living room, Jenny’s voice chimes through the phone. “Look, you can’t beat yourself up. Birdie knew you had your own life.” She stops. “You know what I think she’d say if she were here?”
“Probably something maddeningly optimistic.”
“Exactly. She’d tell you to stop being so hard on yourself. Clean yourself up. Go outside. Get some sun, and—” The baby wails. “Shoot. I’m sorry. I’ve got to call you—”
“It’s fine,” Grace assures her. “Really.” She bites an unpolished nail, thinking. “Before you go, can I ask you something?”
“The secret to perfect pancakes is a smidge of ricotta and—”
“Cute,” Grace notes, picking up the Magic 8 Ball again. “Granted, your kids are young, but out of curiosity, have you started to put boxes like these together for them yet?”
31
“There is currently a plastic bag in my underwear drawer filled with locks of hair and baby teeth,” Jenny admits. “I’m like a sentimental serial killer when it comes to my kids.”
“What do you plan to do with it? Other than store it with your underpants for eternity?”
“Hard to say.” She consoles the baby with hushed Shhh sounds. “I just can’t get rid of it.”
Grace shakes the toy. Will life get easier? Will I ever get through all this? She turns it, watches the purple triangle float to the viewer’s surface. Reply hazy, it reads. Try again.
“When will I feel like myself again, Jenny?” she asks, sounding newly desperate. “Like the old me. The one who had life figured out.” Tears sting her eyes. “Tell me. Give me a date.”
Jenny exhales. “I don’t know, Grace. I wish I could.”
“Nothing’s helping. Not therapy. Not my silly keeled-over plants. Not time.”
“Things will get better.” Jenny’s tone is soft and motherly, but firm. “You’ll see. You’ll find your way. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. Or next week. But eventually, you will.”
Grace lets out a heavy breath.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Grace wipes her cheek. “It’s just that Birdie used to say that, too.”
Grace wakes to the sound of her phone ringing—a sharp, electronic trill.
She jolts, tugged mercilessly from a dream she feels but doesn’t totally recall.
Pulling herself up from the couch cushions, she rolls out her neck.
It comes to her in pieces. Warm air. Golden sunlight refracting on the water.
A sense of weightlessness, as if she’s floating.
The sound of a voice that feels familiar—comforting—but which, in her present state, she can’t quite place.
32
Ring, ring.
The device beeps and vibrates on the coffee table, exactly where Grace left it after she and Jenny ended their call.
Groggy, she tries to gauge the time based on the way the light hits the room.
How long has she been asleep? Minutes? Hours?
A whole day? Until recently, Grace wasn’t a napper.
Now? She finds herself nodding off constantly, like a tuckered-out toddler.
Too much emotion or activity in one sitting and she zonks out. Just one more consequence of grief.
Who’s even calling? she wonders. Not Adam (who rarely calls, typically texts). Maybe Jenny (prepared with a list of additional reasons why Grace should come stay). Not Mollie (likely already embarked on her own getaway).
Birdie used to call at the same times every day.
7:00 a.m. (Morning, love! What’s on the agenda?) 3:30 p.m. (Just left the high school and going for groceries.
Should I pick up those cookies you like for when I visit this weekend?) 8:00 p.m. (Just checking in, my girl.
What’d you have for dinner? Tell me about the chapters you wrote this afternoon.) Birdie wasn’t the sort to text.
She preferred a real conversation—to hear the emotions in a person’s voice and to talk.
Ring, ring.
Grace wipes a line of drool from her chin, glances at the clock on her phone—4:16 p.m.—then finally answers the call before it goes to voicemail.
“Hello?” Her words are scratchy. She clears her throat, tries to sound like a person who wasn’t just drooling on a throw pillow in the middle of the day. “Hi.”
“Oh, hi there.” A male voice she doesn’t recognize. “I was getting ready to leave you a message. I’m glad you picked up.” The person’s tone is bright, cheerful—too personable to be spam. “Did I get you at a bad time?”
Is there such a thing as not a bad time these days? Grace privately ponders.
“N-no. It’s fine.” She quickly peers at the screen, noting the unfamiliar number, then presses it back to her head. “I-I’m sorry. Who is this?”
“Caleb. From Beach Coast Rentals.” A pause. “How are you doing today?”
33
“I-I’m good,” Grace lies. “Wh-where did you say you’re calling from?”
“Beach Coast Rentals.” He waits for his comment to land. “We handle most of the rental homes down on Sea Drift.” Another pause, as if he’s giving her time to catch up. “The island. Down the shore?”
Grace straightens, then looks around, like she’s being pranked. “I-I’m confused.”
“Right. So this is out of left field, but based on our website history, it looks like you may have been in the market to rent one of our properties this week.” He stops, gauging the situation.
“I apologize. Maybe I have the wrong number.” Through the line, the sound of fingers tapping a keyboard. “Am I speaking with Grace Whittaker?”
“Y-yes.” Her pulse picks up. “That’s me.”
“Oh. Okay. That’s great.” Caleb’s intonation lifts. “In that case, and this is obviously spur-of-the-moment, but we have some last-minute availability for a listing you were browsing earlier: 116 Surf Street. Ring a bell?”
Her stomach flips. This morning. Her desk. Had that only been a few hours ago, when she’d mindlessly browsed the page? “I’m familiar.” Whatever dreamlike feelings previously blurred her thoughts are gone, everything suddenly in razor-sharp focus. “I know the address.”
“Well, it’s a bit of a long story, but things fell through with the original renter for this week. Since you plugged in the dates earlier, I thought I’d give you a ring, see if it’d be of interest. Saturday-to-Saturday rental. Check-in’s tomorrow at two.”
Grace blinks. Her heart flutters. Already, she’s shaking her head. Going back to Sea Drift now—at any point—is an awful idea. “No.” Her pulse drums in her ears. “I—I can’t.”
“Oh,” Caleb says, dejected, as if he’d been banking on this. “All right.”
“I appreciate the call,” Grace adds, trying to buff away some of her rudeness.
“But to be honest, I was only poking around for . . . fun.” A knot forms in her throat, dry and burning.
“My mom used to rent that property for us every year.” She swallows hard, but the feeling stays.
“I haven’t been down to the island in a long time. ”
34
“Well, the good news is that nothing’s changed,” he teases. “Unless that’s bad news.”
She exhales a quiet, reluctant laugh.
“Water’s warm right now,” Caleb continues, waiting to see if he’s hooked her, like bait to a fish. “No jellyfish. Tide pools have been gorgeous every afternoon.”
Grace glances at her open laptop, still on the coffee table from earlier. With a fast swipe, she summons the blank page, praying the story has magically appeared.
“I wish I could, but I . . .” She stumbles, reaching for a reason, knowing there are several options. The boxes. Her deadline. “I’m just . . .” Her palms sweat. “I’m really busy and bogged down with work at the moment. I’m tied up all weekend—”
“I can give you a decent discount,” Caleb interjects. “I hate to see the house sit empty. It’s older, a bit rough around the edges. Even so, it’s always been one of my favorites.”
She sighs. Lets down her guard. “Mine, too.”
As soon as the words fall from her lips, Grace hears it.
A sound at the front window. She swivels her head.
And there it is, looking back at her through the glass: a bright-red cardinal, perched on a branch amid a canvas of vibrant green leaves, its head tilted as if in question.
Her chest tightens, some invisible force pulling it from both ends.
“Well, if that’s the case, and you plan on staying there again, now’s probably your chance,” Caleb explains. “Seeing as it might not be an option much longer.”
“What?” Grace squints at the glass, half expecting that the bird is a trick of the light. But it’s not. It’s there. Its feathers as bright as Birdie’s favorite lipstick. “What do you mean?”
“The sign,” Caleb continues. “It’ll be up by mid-September,” he adds, making her breath hitch. “The house goes up for sale this fall.”
The sign.
A sign.
And that’s what finally gets her.