Chapter Thirty-Four
Thirty-Four
The Jeep tires crunch over the pea gravel driveway.
Hours after they left Jenny’s house, Grace finally shifts the gear into Park.
Things take time now. Packing extra bags with diapers and soft clothes.
Folding up the bassinet. Double-checking a half dozen times to be sure she has all the things she’ll need.
The baby’s asleep in the back seat. Careful not to wake him, Grace unclicks his five-point harness and then straps him into the carrier she’s already positioned on her chest. As if by instinct, she walks to the patio and outdoor shower to grab the key, only to remember, just as she opens the door, that the new owner doesn’t keep it there anymore.
“Breaking and entering?” Caleb teases when his face appears in the kitchen window. “See? This is exactly why I didn’t want renters here.” He smirks. “Give me a minute. I’ll meet you around front.”
A moment later, Caleb steps onto the front steps, holding a duffel bag at his side. He sets it down, then moves up the walkway and gives Grace a hug, careful not to disturb the baby.
“Congratulations,” he says.
“On the baby?” Grace asks. “Or on being the only person you’ll actually let rent out your home for a week?”
“A little of Column A, and a little of Column B,” he jokes.
Grace inhales and takes a long look at the house. “Looks the same from the outside.”
“Is that a good thing?”
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“It is.”
Caleb takes a few steps back and grabs his bag.
“The extra-good news is that I gave it a bit of TLC on the inside. New furniture. Fresh paint. A little facelift in the kitchen. Plus, there’s actual insulation in the walls now.
” He pretends to shiver. “Now that was a necessity. The ocean breeze makes winters down here a bit tough.”
Out in the street, a family travels home from the beach, the parents’ shoulders strapped with chairs and coolers and every other imaginable thing.
“So how do you like it?” Grace asks. “Being a full-time islander and all?”
Caleb waves to the passersby, then looks up and down the street, like he’s just now really taking it all in.
“Good,” he states. “Quiet. Familiar. But also sort of new.”
Grace nods. In some ways, this is what her current life feels like, too. The comfort of Jenny’s home. The newness of motherhood.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it,” Caleb says, rolling back on his heels. He digs into his pocket, pulls out a silver key. “She’s all yours.” He hands it over. “Until Saturday at two o’clock, at least.”
“Thanks, Caleb.” Grace gently adjusts the baby’s weight against her body. “I really appreciate you doing this for me.”
“Enjoy it,” Caleb says in his easygoing way. “I hope you catch a good week.” He smiles warmly, like an old friend, or a new one. “And that you and the baby get to make some special new memories.”
The beach is perfect. A wide swath of smooth sand. An endless sheet of gentle waves. The air an ideal mix of warm and cool.
Grace stands at the top of the dune, just as she’s done on countless occasions, the baby secured in the carrier—everything the same and yet vastly different.
As always, she slides off her sandals and then carefully traverses the decline.
The reedy grasses whisper a quiet song as she 297moves.
Up and down the wide stretch of sand, people are switching gears.
A pair of children fly a kite. Families pack up.
The lifeguards blow their whistles, letting everyone know their shift is complete.
Ahead, the ocean sparkles with tide pools and pale sandbars, the sea a shimmering and brilliant blue.
The magic hour.
The best time of day here.
She walks out toward the water—not too close, but just enough to really be able to appreciate the view.
The baby asleep on her chest, Grace sits on the warm sand, briefly closes her eyes, inhales the salty air, and lets herself relax after a long drive.
Although the traffic wasn’t as bad as she expected, it suddenly feels like it took her forever to get here.
To this place. To this moment. To this stage of her life.
And maybe that was part of it. That she’d always been searching. Pushing forward. Always the next step. Trying to get to the next version of herself. Always wanting to arrive. But here, on this calm strip of sand, she could just be present. For one sweet week, she could just be Grace.
“You caught a nice first night,” a familiar voice says from behind her.
Grace reopens her eyes and sees the shadow of a figure.
Ray.
“How was the drive?” he asks, taking a seat beside her in the sand, not enough to crowd her but closer than a stranger would venture.
“Long,” Grace says. “But worth it now that we’ve arrived,” she adds and looks down at her son, knowing that the timing of things—this trip, this moment, everything—feels exactly right.
Ray adjusts his hat, then tilts his face to get a good look at the baby.
“So this is the big guy, huh?” He smiles, then gently touches his small, soft foot.
When he does, Ray’s finger swipes her hand, featherlight but still enough to make her breath briefly catch.
“That’s a good-looking kid right there.”
Grace laughs. “Thank you. He is pretty cute, if I do say so myself.”
Ray slowly drops his hand, cups some sand, lets it fall down on his calves. “So . . . August.” He looks at the baby once again. “It’s a solid name.” He playfully winks. “Even if he was born in March.”
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She shrugs, feeling herself smile. “It felt like the right fit the first time I held him.”
Out in the water, a few kids throw down skim boards in the shallow surf. They run to chase them, jumping on, then gliding as long as they can until they crash right where the waves break.
“So you’re renting Caleb’s place for the next couple days?” Ray asks, even though he already knows—Grace told him a few weeks ago when she called him at the Dive to say she’d be down during her normal week.
“I am,” she says. “It’ll be nice. He said he’s cleaned a few things up inside, which I’m looking forward to seeing.”
“It looks good in there,” Ray says, to which Grace offers him a sideways glance. “I popped over to see it recently after we went fishing.” One side of his mouth rises in a timid grin. “It’s possible your name came up and that I finally filled him in on a couple things.”
Ray is right about one thing: The island is small. A smudge on a map. A tiny dot out in the sea. And yet, tucked among its white-sand shores, weathered houses, and old landmarks is enough space for it to hold a lifetime’s worth of memories.
“Well, I’d better be going. I just wanted to pop by and say hello.
” Ray pulls himself up to standing. “I gave one of my managers the day off, so I’m up for night shift.
” He brushes sand from his legs, delaying a minute while he looks down at his old summer friend.
“Motherhood looks good on you, Grace. You seem happy. Content.”
“Thanks, Ray.” She smiles up at him. “I am.”
He reaches out a hand. She takes it and lets him help pull her up. They stay this way for a beat longer than is necessary, their palms cupped together, their eyes cast in a line.
Nearby, the kids all splash into the water and emerge from it laughing. Their youthful sounds are enough to make Grace and Ray both turn, breaking their gaze, before they both laugh, too.
“Meg says hi, by the way,” Ray says. “I told her you called me at the bar to let me know you were coming down for the week, that we were hoping to get together while you’re here.”
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“How’s she doing?” Grace asks.
“She’s getting there,” Ray assures her. “My folks spent the first half of the summer in Pennsylvania to give her a hand once school let out. After they left, she and the kids came down to stay with me at my place for two weeks.” He lifts his palms toward the sky.
“Uncle Ray equals free vacation house,” he jokes. “Lucky them.”
He leans in then, gives Grace a hug and a soft kiss on her cheek. Time slows. His face lingers next to hers—one second, then two, three—their skin just barely touching. Ray pulls in a long inhalation, like he wants to remember this moment. Breathe it in. Finally, he exhales and pulls back.
“Can I give you two a hand walking up the dune?”
Grace shakes her head, still feeling the heat of him on her neck. “We’re okay,” she tells him. “We’re going to stay down here a bit longer, watch the first part of the sunset.”
Ray stuffs his hands into his pockets. He begins to walk backward. One slow step. Then another. It’s like he knows he needs to go but doesn’t want to leave yet.
She watches his silhouette becoming smaller, a shape she’s known in every season of her life—the pull still there, gentle but certain, like the tide.
Maybe next summer, she hears a voice inside her say.
“I’m glad you came back down, Grace,” he calls out before he makes it too far. “It’s nice knowing you’re here.”
On her chest, the baby starts to wiggle and wake up.
“It’s nice knowing you’re here, too,” she says, the late-day sun like honey on her shoulders. “It’s good to be back.”
Or maybe sooner, she thinks.
The water feels cool but refreshing. It splashes up Grace’s ankles and onto her calves.
The baby carrier in a pile on the sand, she holds her son 300with his face forward so he can see the water, too.
Together, they look out at the horizon—that perfect line full of promise where the sea kisses the sky.
Up above them, the sun has begun to settle, what was earlier a bold orange canvas now a wash of soft, muted pastels.
For a moment, Grace softly closes her eyes and lets herself feel her.
In the air. In the water.
She’s everywhere here.
The memory of her outlines every surface. Her voice is a whisper in the breeze.
Grace bends down. She holds the baby tight and lets him splash his feet through the surf.
“Your grandmother used to love it here,” Grace tells him and thinks of all their memories in this place—all the different women they’d both been while standing on this stretch of coastline.
Birdie, the wide-eyed child. Birdie, the blushing newlywed.
Birdie, the recent widow. Birdie, the young mother.
Birdie, the strong and independent individual she eventually grew to become.
“It was always her favorite place.” Tears form in Grace’s eyes, though they’re not all sad ones.
“I wish she could be here with us this week, though I like to think that maybe she is, just in a different way.”
As she talks, the waves gently ebb forward, then retreat back and push forward again.
Each time, they carry something new with them.
Bits of shells. Tangles of seaweed. Fresh grains of sand.
Although the water here sometimes looks the same, it never stays that way.
The tides change. The currents shift. Each time you lay eyes on the sea’s vastness, what you’re really looking at is something brand new.
It’s getting cooler. Time to head back, finally enter the house, and get settled in.
Grace lifts the baby. She dries his feet off on the front of her T-shirt, then wipes some sand from his chunky legs. Once he’s propped back on her shoulder, Grace turns around in the direction of the dune.
And that’s when she feels it.
The gentle touch of something brushing across her toes.
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When she looks down, her breath catches at the sight.
There, right in front of her—a whole sand dollar.
She crouches, rinses it off, then stands. It’s perfect. A brilliant circle. Not so much as a single crack in it.
Grace looks up at the sky and smiles for so many different reasons.
In her mind, she thinks of all the times in her life that she’s stood on this exact stretch of coastline.
The versions of herself she’s been. The ones that, in the future, she might still become.
But mostly, she just considers this moment.
Right here. Today. And this version that she is, here in the present.
Grace sets the shell in her palm and holds it up so the baby can touch it. His fingers trace its surface and the smooth ridges that have formed on its edges during its long journey to washing up here.
Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe it isn’t.
But for today, just knowing that it’s here and that it’s found her feels like enough.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it, love?” Grace whispers to her son. “Though I don’t think this one is meant for me.” She kisses the top of his head—soft and sweet and perfect. “In my heart, I just have a feeling this one is meant for you.”