Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Grace doesn’t even bother pretending she’s surprised when she turns onto Surf Street and spots him on the steps. At this point, Sea Drift seems set on scripting out her life like a bad stage play—same setting, rotating cast, new emotional unraveling at every beat.
“I’m starting to associate these stairs with existential crises,” she says when she pulls up to the house. “Either I’m sitting on them completely mortified with myself or someone else is waiting there ready to tell me the world is falling apart.”
Caleb shrugs. “At least, unlike you, I’m not soaking wet,” he points out.
Grace wheels the bike past the For Sale sign and up the driveway.
“You know, per your rental agreement, you’re technically only allowed two visitors whose names aren’t listed on the lease,” he deadpans. “You’ve hit your quota.”
“Don’t tell the landlord.” Grace balances the cruiser against the side of the house.
“I’m sorry if I was rude last night.” Caleb meets her gaze. “To be honest, I’d gotten used to seeing you out here by yourself all week.” His mouth lifts right before he looks down at his feet. “If I’m honest, it sort of threw me when I saw you out here with someone else.”
“Adam,” Grace says, his name somehow heavy on her tongue. “My almost ex.” She sighs. “I think.” She grabs the pharmacy bag from the 224cruiser’s basket. “He just showed up here out of the blue last night. I’m still trying to figure out why.”
Caleb nods, like he’s already been privy to the full story. “So I heard.” He folds his hands over his thighs. “Jenny told me.”
Grace’s eyebrows lift, a silent question.
“She was heading out when I knocked on the door,” Caleb explains. “Told me she forgot wine and was running out to pick some up, then managed to explain your entire life to me in the time it took her to walk to her car.” He smirks. “She has a lot of opinions on Adam, huh?”
Grace closes her eyes, the weight of it all feeling like too much right now. “He kind of announced that he didn’t want to be married any longer at literally the worst moment of my life.”
Behind Grace, a car hums down the block, windows down, music drifting out.
“So did you mean it?” Grace asks and turns to look at the sign stabbed into the crushed seashells. “Someone’s already interested in buying it?”
“Seems that way,” Caleb admits. “If things go the way I hope they do, it should be a quick sale.” He twists to look back at the house, like he’s checking to make sure it’s still there, at least for now.
When he turns back to Grace, he waits a minute before speaking again.
“Kelly,” he states, plain and simple. “That was my sister’s name.
She was a few years younger than me. She lived in Delaware, a runner.
At least six miles every morning.” Caleb shakes his head at this, half somber and half laughing.
“One of those ‘I run a marathon every year’ nuts.” He looks up at the sky, not a cloud in it, everything bright and clear.
“It was her heart. Incredibly sudden. None of us had a chance to say goodbye.”
Quiet falls between them, a soft kind that fills the space between two people who have more than they maybe initially realized in common.
“This house reminds you of her,” Grace says, not as a question but a fact.
“It does,” Caleb admits. “Two weeks every July. We shared the bed in the front room. Ate dinner barefoot out back every night.” He rubs 225his thumbs over each other. “Funny how a place you only ever stayed in for a few days every year can feel so much like home.”
At the end of the block, the faint sound of a song fills the air as the ice cream truck turns onto Surf Street. Like clockwork, a sea of children swarm it from every direction.
“Can I ask you something?” Grace poses and watches the kids, so happy to receive something so small. “Are you able to view past rental records? See if someone named Elizabeth Porter stayed in the house this same week last year?”
“No need to check,” he responds. “House was empty. My parents canceled all reservations for the remainder of August after Kelly passed, paid everyone back. They didn’t want to deal with any landlord emergencies in the wake of everything.
” Caleb’s gaze narrows, like he’s thinking about something. “Why do you ask?”
Grace shifts the pharmacy bag to her other hand. “Just trying to figure something out.”
Caleb nods, then stands. “Anyway, I won’t keep you.
” A small, teasing smile forms on his face.
“Seeing as you have so many unauthorized visitors and all.” He makes it a few steps toward the street before he turns back.
“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how much loss changes a person.
” He holds his palm to his forehead, squints.
“If I was the old me—the one I was before I lost Kelly—I’d be pretty jealous of Adam.
You seem like someone I’d be very interested in. ”
“And now?”
“Right now,” Caleb tells her, “I’m still trying to figure out which version of myself I am.”
Back inside the house, Grace puts the pharmacy bag in the bathroom, then sits on the couch to wait for Jenny to return. While she does, she adds the Madame Mermaid coupon to her pile of strange souvenirs, the growing museum exhibit of all her past selves right there on display.
226
She sinks into the couch, kicks off her sandals, and grabs Birdie’s old Summer Memories album, which still rests on a cushion from the other day.
She flips, past photos of her and her mother from every era of her life, now viewing each picture a little differently than she did just a few nights ago.
Grace holds the album close to her face, examining the images, like maybe the answer she’s looking for will appear, as if Birdie’s expression is a Magic Eye illustration: If she just stares at it long enough, some secret will be revealed.
“Why did you come here?” Grace asks the air, the first time she’s spoken aloud to her mother in days. “What were you doing or looking for that you couldn’t tell me about?”
The phone rings, the intrusion of it enough to make Grace jump. She drops the album, fumbles in her pocket for her phone, and quickly presses it to her ear.
“Grace,” the voice says through the line. “Hi. I’m just checking in to see if you’re okay. It’s Dr. Anne. You missed your weekly appointment yesterday.”
“Shoot,” Grace says through a sigh. “Dr. Anne. I’m so sorry.
” She rubs her forehead, embarrassed to have stood up her therapist. “I’m fine.
Honestly, I just completely forgot to call and cancel.
” For a moment, Grace thinks back to last week, sitting in Dr. Anne’s office, talking about breath work and breakthroughs.
How much has changed—not just her location but so many things—since then.
“I ended up taking a very last-minute trip down to the beach,” she explains.
“I’ve been here since Saturday and am still sort of wrapping my mind around the fact that I’m even here at all. I’m sorry that I flaked.”
“It’s okay,” Dr. Anne assures her in her typical kind and professional way. “I just wanted to be sure you were all right. It was out of character for you.” She lets her comment sit there, like they’re in session, giving Grace a minute to process and then reply.
“It’s the place my mom and I used to come every August,” Grace says. “Our old rental house became available at the last minute. I hesitated, but then gave in.”
227
“That’s . . . interesting,” Dr. Anne states, always leaving a syntactical door open.
Grace lets a few long seconds pass, deciding whether she wants to proceed with the questions running through her mind. “Do you remember that session we had earlier this summer?” she finally asks. “The one where you told me to try to remember what I was like when I was younger?”
“I do,” Dr. Anne says, willing to listen even though this isn’t their scheduled time slot.
At the time of that meeting, Grace had been seeing Dr. Anne for a few months, mostly to help her work through Birdie’s loss.
But by that session in June, so many other parts of her life had started to crack.
Trying to think about the past felt like purposefully placing her hands on hot coals, an excruciating pain that did nothing but make her hurt.
“I’ve been . . . seeing myself,” Grace says, cautious to phrase things in a metaphorical—not a literal—sense.
“Past versions of me, all over this island.” She glances at the photo album, the one full of images of them.
“Everywhere I go, it’s like there’s a new one waiting for me, like my memories are staging an intervention or something. ”
Dr. Anne doesn’t laugh. She never laughs. “What have they all been like?”
Grace looks down at the assorted objects on the coffee table and runs through a mental roster of them all. “Happy. Determined. Messy. Full of doubt. Thoughtful. Confused.”
“And how did you feel toward each of them?”
Grace exhales softly. “Tender, I think.”
“Interesting,” Dr. Anne states again. “Well, maybe you ought to turn that observation into a question,” she suggests. “How do you think a future version of yourself might view present-day Grace, the one you’ve been awfully hard on the last few months?”
Grace picks up the sand dollar, turning it in her fingers. “The same way, I hope.”
228
Grace is half asleep on the couch when Jenny bursts through the door, wearing a wide-brim hat and holding a bottle of wine in each hand.
“I’ve got good news and bad news!” she announces and steps into the living room. “Also, are you asleep?”
“Not anymore,” Grace jokes.
“Perfect. Because the good news is that I found this amazing hat at the five-and-dime on the boulevard, and it’s possible that it’s now my entire identity.”
Grace can’t help it. She snorts. “Is that also the bad news?”
“Very funny.” Jenny moves into the kitchen, sets her car keys and the wine bottles on the table. “How was your morning, birthday girl? Did you take a little time for yourself?”
Grace pulls herself up on the cushion. “I found out my mother was down here last August and never told me.” She massages her fingers over her face. “Apparently, the entire Murphy family knew, and I didn’t.”
Jenny nods, the hat’s wide brim shaking with her movements. Without a word, she picks her car keys back up and heads toward the door.
“What are you doing?” Grace asks. “You haven’t even told me the bad news.”
“It’s on the counter.” She points toward the kitchen. “Adam stopped by earlier and dropped off a birthday card, then made me promise I’d tell you he’s hoping you’ll meet him for dinner tonight at the hotel where he’s staying.” She adjusts her hat. “Apparently, all the details are written down.”
Grace lets herself melt into the cushions, frowning. “I don’t understand. Where are you going?”
Jenny pushes open the screen door. “I think wine might have been the wrong choice.” She looks at Grace, then the counter, then back at her friend.
“I’m going back to the store. I thought Adam’s card would be the bomb, though after your news, I’m thinking we might need something stronger on deck instead. ”