Fifteen #2
Later that month, the week of Grace’s thirty-seventh birthday, while Birdie stayed home in Pennsylvania—their annual trips to Sea Drift a thing of the past—Grace and Adam sat outside having lunch at a coastal restaurant in Bar Harbor, Maine—a trip they’d planned late that spring, hoping it would serve as an early babymoon.
Nearby, fishing boats with clever names bobbed in the marina, just like in that silly movie Grace and her mother had watched.
Before the meal was over, Adam told Grace he wasn’t ready—that he might not ever be ready—to try again.
146His heart wasn’t invested in it the same way anymore.
At that point—all the losses they’d experienced together stacked up like a precarious tower of blocks—he wasn’t sure if he even wanted a kid.
Now, back in Birdie’s old bedroom in the beach house, it’s light outside.
After a long, solitary night spent trying to untangle a dozen unsolvable riddles, the first beams of sun stretch through the window, painting long yellow strips across the seashell comforter.
Somewhere outside, a gull shrieks, a signal that the morning is officially underway.
Tired of being horizontal, Grace sits up.
A wave of nausea washes over her, her body still processing last night’s meal, the most food and alcohol she’s consumed in ages.
She clutches the comforter, steadying the feeling, sets the ring on the wobbly nightstand, then looks through the window, privately hoping that this new day will manage to shed light on things.
Beyond the glass, the other houses that separate hers from the beach sit like toys.
At the end of them is the pink house—Caleb’s rental—right next to the dune.
Is that where he was when he called her on Friday?
Sitting on the deck, casually poking around on his computer, when he told her that Number 116—a house that, for years, was steadily booked every week of the summer—was newly available and free for the taking?
A thought enters Grace’s mind, one she hadn’t once considered all night.
Other than Jenny, Caleb is the only person in Grace’s life—the only one on the planet—who had any knowledge that she planned to return here, to this setting, this house, and on a last-minute whim.
Was it possible he and Ray knew each other?
That this whole week was some elaborate game?
“Just go talk to him, Grace,” she says aloud. “Throw on some clothes, walk over there, knock on the door, and ask.”
However, she instantly shuts herself down.
What would she even say? Hello, attractive and charming neighbor whom I’ve already embarrassed myself in front of multiple times.
By chance, do you know my teenage crush, and if so, are you two in cahoots to make me think my mother is communicating with him from the afterlife?
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“Sure,” she tells herself. “That’d go over great.”
She needs to tell someone. This information all feels too heavy for her to hold alone. It’s early—too early to contact most people—though Grace knows one person who, like her, though for completely different reasons, will be wide awake.
I saw him, Grace types, and hits send. It takes a minute of battling the Wi-Fi for it to go through. Technically, twice, she types as a follow-up. He said he talked to Birdie. That she told him I’d be back on the island this week.
Three dots quickly appear on the screen.
What does that mean? Jenny responds. Like . . . through a medium or something?
I have no idea, Grace replies. I’m not even sure he knows that she’s gone. He just showed up at the house last night, dropped that bomb, and left.
A moment passes before another message comes through.
Whether it’s because of a weak connection or Jenny’s hesitation is hard to say.
Jenny knew about Ray. For years, she’d seen the way Grace’s face lit up whenever she spoke about him.
Still, when Grace fell headfirst into a relationship with Adam—the steadier, more grown-up choice—Jenny never pressed her.
It was clear Grace had already made her decision.
Sometimes being a good friend meant giving someone the grace to rewrite their story, even though they still held the first draft of it close to their heart.
So, Jenny types, am I allowed to ask the obvious? She follows her message up with a half dozen winky-face emojis.
Grace hesitates, pushes away a strand of hair, then picks a flake of sunburned skin from her shoulder. She turns, quickly glances at the ring again, then swings her feet to the sandy floor.
He looked great, she admits.
Grace rinses off in the outdoor shower, then throws on fresh clothes, hoping these simple rituals—rise, lather, dress—might help inspire a feeling of 148normalcy.
In the bedroom, she rubs lotion on her sunburned shoulders, combs her strawberry-scented hair, and slides on her sandals—the splinter and its dull ache still annoyingly present, much like the one in her head, compliments of her ongoing fatigue.
After a half-hearted attempt to make the bed—no sheet tucking, just smoothing the comforter a bit—Grace pauses in front of the room’s sole dresser and looks in the scratched-up seashell-framed mirror above it.
Why did she really come back here? To this island?
This house? Was it to sit in the sun and photosynthesize?
To heal and find perspective on the parts of her life that felt unclear?
To write a story she has no real experience with—a narrative that once felt like a blueprint but that she’s no longer sure she believes in?
No, Grace thinks. She grabs her journal and purse, as well as the neon bracelet from Cece to add to the pile of other objects—sand dollar, arcade tickets—out on the coffee table, then slides on her sunglasses and hat.
That’s not really why I’m here. What she came for was answers.
The kind that might get her to stop spiraling and remember how to put one foot in front of the other.
The sort that eventually might help her remember how to be Grace.
Before she steps into the hallway, Grace moves to the window—the same one she was looking out earlier while still in bed.
“Mom?”
It’s the first time she’s tried to talk to her—this person she can no longer see or hear or touch or smell and yet still feels everywhere she goes—since yesterday on the beach.
“I need to know if you told him I’d be here.
” Her fingers trail along the chipped white trim work.
“And if so, how. And why. And when.” She waits for a sign, but there aren’t any.
“Why did you really send me down here?” Grace leans forward.
“Was it to find me again?” The tip of her nose presses against the glass, her mind swirling with more questions than she has time to pose. “Or was it to find him?”
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A little while later, Grace stands at the counter of the local coffee shop, where a chipped-away coastal mural hangs on the wall beside her.
It took her ten minutes to bicycle up here, then another ten as she waited on the curb for the sleepy-eyed teenage employees to arrive twenty minutes past opening.
While they slowly eased into their routine, Grace looked around.
Even in her pre-coffee-drinking days, she often came here, always on the hunt for a tropical early-morning or post-beach smoothie (mango, pineapple, and banana every time) or some other vacation-worthy treat.
“Iced coconut-milk coffee,” a shaggy-haired staffer mumbles, and slides Grace her drink. He looks at her, his whole demeanor groggy, and tilts his head. “Didn’t I make you a smoothie yesterday?”
Only half listening, Grace grabs her beverage and investigates the creamer-to-coffee ratio, which leans too heavily white. “Sorry.” She moves to the garbage can, dumps a bit out. “Not me.”
“Yes, it was,” he insists, his tone perking up. “Remember? Right when we opened. I had to go in the back and cut up the pineapple because we didn’t have any prepped yet.”
Grace freezes mid-action, while drips of her beverage continue to spill out into the trash bin. “Remind me. What was the order, exactly?”
“It was that one.” He points at a handwritten sign. “Mango. Pineapple. And—”
“Cece,” Grace says sharply under her breath.
“What?” he poses, still gazing at the sign. “No. No seeds-seeds. Just fruit.”
“Dude, what are you talking about?” Another boy, still wearing sunglasses, steps through a swinging wooden door in the back. “That girl yesterday was, like, our age.”
“Was she?” boy number one states, then bursts out laughing. “I don’t know, man. Beach bonfire last night, you know? I was up suuuper late.” He turns, gives Grace another once-over. “You definitely look like her, though. Honestly, you could be her mom or something.”
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Finally, Grace swivels and levels off her cup—now half empty. “Might I ask why this young girl who somehow resembled me was so memorable?”
“Because she ran off without paying me!” he exclaims, or as close to an exclamation as his chill-guy demeanor allows.
“Said she didn’t realize till after she took a sip that all she had were coins and she needed them for the Skee-Ball machines.
” He shakes hair out of his face. “Swore she’d swing by today to pay me before my boss gets here and realizes my register is off.
” He stops, stares at the mural. “Gotta be honest, I sort of respect her commitment to the game.”
Grace gnaws her lip. No amount of caffeine will wake her up enough for whatever this day has in store. She pulls a ten from her wallet. “That cover what she owes you?”
The boy nods. “Sweet.”
Ready to walk away and determine where to go from here, Grace heads for the door and finally takes a sip of her drink.
Instantly, her mouth turns sour. She spits it out, forcing it back down into the cup through her straw, her face twisted into a sickened expression.
“Oh my God!” She dashes for the trash, tosses it.
“Check your coconut milk! That one went bad!”
“What? No way! It was brand new. I just opened it.”
“Well, look again.” She pulls a water bottle from a cooler. “Because something about it sure isn’t right.”
Just like the rest of the island this week, she thinks.