Chapter Six
Six
It’s a little after four o’clock by the time Grace finally turns the Jeep onto Surf Street—two whole hours past her official check-in time. A crime, or so Birdie would have said.
She grips the steering wheel tighter than necessary as the car bumps over the familiar divot in the asphalt—the one that floods every time it so much as spits rain.
Humid air, thick with salt and sunscreen, blows through the open windows as Grace takes in the view.
Every detail of the oceanside block remains fully intact.
Squat bungalows, some slightly updated but most untouched, their porches draped with towels.
Surfboards leaning haphazardly against sheds.
Barefoot kids, feet probably burning, racing toward the dune—the one that once looked mountain-size to Grace. It’s all exactly as she left it.
Except, of course, that it isn’t.
After her run-in at Smitty’s, Grace sat at a picnic table—miraculously snagging a free seat—and picked at her food, her appetite gone.
A few bites in, she tossed the rest, then drove the length of the boulevard twice.
The whole time, the information Meg revealed sat in her chest like an unopened text message she couldn’t quite bring herself to read.
Now, as she pulls up to the third bungalow in from the beach, she tells herself to mentally delete it. Not important. Not now. For the moment, her only focus is on surviving what lies straight ahead.
The house.
50
It feels more like a photograph than a real place. Chipped turquoise door. Cedar shingles. Blue hydrangeas flanking the steps. A white shutter that hangs slightly askew, as if the home is offering Grace a conspiratorial wink.
“Take a breath.” Grace shifts the car into Park. “You can do this.” She inhales deeply, steadying herself. “It’s only a house. Wood. Concrete. Brick.” She exhales, slow and measured. “It’s not like it’s a person. It’s just a place.”
She pulls Birdie’s key chain from the ignition, drops it in her bag.
She was freshly thirty-two the last time she sat here, two months from her autumn wedding in Manhattan, her debut set for publication the following June.
The starting line of what she’d believed was her real life.
She forces the memories away, then lets her eyes drift closed while a different set of recollections pours in.
If she listens closely, she can almost hear her mother’s voice in the breeze.
Asking Grace to run around back to get the key.
Rattling off a list of leisurely ways for them to fill the day.
What do you think, Cece? Bike ride to the lighthouse?
Straight to the beach? Midafternoon ice cream?
The sound of it is so clear—so achingly familiar—that for half a second, she believes Birdie is there, dropping her woven tote near the door.
Grace’s lids dart open. She unclicks her seat belt and twists toward the passenger seat to gather her things.
Her hand hovers over the photo album. With a sigh, she gives in and opens it.
The plastic sleeves are warped from age, but not enough to tarnish the memories they preserve.
Elementary-aged Grace and Birdie, eating Popsicles on the lopsided front steps.
Teenage Grace and Birdie, cracking through a bushel of blue crabs at the patio table.
Early-thirties Grace and Birdie that final summer, standing at the end of the flooded street after a storm, their arms thrown up toward a rainbow, like they could catch the whole season in their hands.
She snaps the album shut.
With a quiet sigh, she gathers her things, pushes open the car door, and steps onto the pea gravel driveway, the stones shifting beneath her flip-flops.
She sets her belongings down on the warped stairs, then takes off around the side of the lot.
Despite modern advancements, according 51to Caleb, the home’s antiquated security features have—like everything else—remained in place.
Out back, past the patio and threadbare hammock, Grace swings open the splintered door of the outdoor shower and reaches for the bottle of Suave strawberry-scented shampoo—the one the owners replace every season from the five-and-dime—revealing a single silver key.
The metal is cool against her palm. It feels like a gift meant exclusively for her, rather than an object set here for different renters every week.
She nearly yells “Got it!” like she used to do before she stops herself and runs back out front.
Grace slides the key into the lock. The door sticks—years of salt air having eaten away at the hardware—but then, with a quiet creak, it gives way. Her heart thuds harder, nothing but cardiovascular somersaults. She takes a reluctant step.
And just like that, she’s inside.
There’s no grandiose entryway, only a rectangle of cracked tiles where Grace slides off her sandals.
The interior, although small, is bright with sunlight, like always, thanks to the fact that the brick fireplace and wood-paneled walls are all painted a crisp white.
The couches are new—a practical beige microfiber, a minor upgrade—though the many beach tchotchkes are not.
Everything—everything—has a seashell on it.
Art. Throw pillows. Side tables cluttered with decorative trinkets.
When it comes to coastal vibes, subtlety has never been the home’s strength.
Barefoot, Grace takes a step, tries to wipe the inevitable graininess from her feet.
She moves into the living room, clicks on the window air-conditioning unit, then heads for the kitchen, where she notes the same blue drinking cups and speckled coffee mugs in the glass cabinets.
On the scratched wood table—a petite round thing with only two chairs—sits a basket that contains beach badges, a map, a printout of emergency contacts and restaurant recommendations, a tube of complimentary sunscreen, and a handwritten note from Caleb.
Welcome to 116 Surf Street—a classic slice of the Jersey Shore!
Everything you need should be in the basket.
Quick reminder 52that trash goes out on Tuesday night.
Oh, and you probably remember this from your past stays, but the indoor plumbing is .
. . fickle. Best to use the outdoor shower when you can. Hope you catch a sunny week!—Caleb
Grace sets the letter back in the basket—one more reminder that she’s merely another guest here—then pulls out a glass and fills it at the tap, the island’s questionable water quality the least of her concerns.
She gulps it down too fast, instantly making herself queasy, then presses her hands against the scuffed butcher-block counter, giving herself a minute.
After a second, the seasick feeling passes—a ship finally steadying in port.
Grace stays in place anyway, peering out the window, trying to decide what to do next.
Her focus lands on an old pair of wooden Adirondack chairs out back.
So many summer nights, Grace lounged in one of them, writing her heart out in a marbled notebook, her dreams for her words as vast as the sky.
“It’s perfect, darling,” Birdie said the night she sat out there with Grace, reading the final chapters of what ultimately became The Tides.
“The setting is completely picturesque, and the love story is so real. So beautifully composed.” She pulled away her candy-colored readers, set them on the chair’s arm.
“But are you sure you’re ready to send this out into the world?
” she asked, knowing Grace planned to query literary agents that fall.
“I know,” Grace said, self-conscious. She was twenty-eight, her birthday two days away. “It still needs work. I plan to fill in a few plot gaps and do another round of line edits before I—”
“I don’t mean in terms of editing,” Birdie clarified, the air around them beginning to cool. “I mean that, well, it’s obviously not all fiction.” She bit her red-tinted lip. “Right?”
Grace tugged her sundress around her knees. “Certain parts, I guess.”
Birdie’s mouth curled into a knowing grin. “Kind of interesting that you chose to name your protagonist Cece, no?”
Grace picked at her cuticle. “Maybe.”
53
Birdie was the one who came up with the nickname “Cece”—the only person who ever actually called Grace that.
Looking back, Grace didn’t remember when it started, only that it’d always been there, stitched like a fine thread into their shared history.
According to Birdie, Grace had been a relentlessly curious child.
Always pointing. Always noticing. “See! See!” she’d shout at every small wonder.
A shiny stone. A feather on the sand. At some point, “see-see” turned into Cece, which Birdie said made sense, the nickname rooted in the letters of Grace’s name.
“Grace,” Birdie said, her voice—and the name she used—a touch more serious.
“Not now, Mom,” Grace said, knowing the direction their conversation was heading.
“It’s okay to admit that you made a mistake, sweetheart.”
“Is that what you think?” Grace asked. Not urgent. Not begging. Just wanting to know. “That it was a mistake? That I should have—”
Birdie sighed. “It’s not about what I think, darling.”
Grace sank back in her chair. A question rose to the surface of her mind, but she was hesitant to pose it. “Did you ever think we were going to end up together?” she asked anyway, knowing there was no need for her to state a specific name. “For real, I mean.”
Birdie inhaled, long and slow. “I did,” she admitted. “Maybe not in the beginning when you were younger. But later, there was a long period when I thought maybe . . .” One side of her mouth lifted. “It became hard to ignore the way you used to light up when you were with him.”
Grace swallowed. “Why didn’t you ever come out and tell me that back then?”
“Because, love,” Birdie said, wrapping up, “before you could really find him, I knew you needed to find yourself first instead.”
Back in the kitchen, Grace winces at the memory, right as her phone dings inside her pocket. She pulls it out and sees a message from Jenny.
54
Holding up okay? Any dramatic crying jags on the beach yet?
Grace releases a hushed laugh. Though she’s hours away, Jenny’s voice is a comfort.
At the house, Grace types. The lifeguards haven’t started doling out free therapy . . . yet.
She tries to send the text, but it’s caught by a dreaded green line. Finally, the signal catches. Grace begins to draft a second message about her encounter with Meg, then backpedals, deletes it, and types out a different follow-up instead.
Anyway, going to change in a minute and go look at the water, Grace writes. Will likely bring a box of tissues just in case. Stubborn, the message fails to go through.
Grace sets the phone on the counter, grabs her bag, and moves down the single-story home’s only hallway, walking past the small bathroom until she’s faced by two open bedroom doors.
Usually, she’d walk into the one on the left—her room—but moves into the one on the right instead.
The space is simple. A queen-size bed with a beach-motif comforter.
A rattan nightstand. One dresser that’s at least as old as Grace.
Before she roots through her duffel bag for her bathing suit, she sits on the edge of the mattress.
“I’m here, Mom,” she whispers. “I made it to the house.” Her sight falls on the window, her fingers fumbling with her necklace. “Now what? Any plans in place for me this afternoon?”
She waits for a sign, but her request is met with only silence.
Grace pulls herself up and clicks on the window AC unit, not only to cool the too-warm space but also to fill it with noise. It’s so quiet. No kitchen cabinets smacking shut. No screen door slapping closed. No voice calling out with promises of a joy-filled day. No anything.
“Oh, another thing,” Grace adds. “It might have been nice if you’d found a clever way to give me a heads-up before I drove down.
” She presses her fingers against the glass.
“You know, something to prepare me.” Her reflection blends with the light.
“Anything so I had some knowledge that Ray was also back.”