Chapter 7
SEVEN
Scarlett sits on one of the balcony chairs, knees drawn to her chest, toes gripping the edge of the seat.
The sliding door to my and Gabriel’s bedroom is open behind us, the curtains breathing in and out with the sea air.
Even from out here, I can hear the faint rustle of papers. Gabriel is working in the library.
The sky has darkened to that deep coastal blue, the kind that makes the ocean disappear into itself. Somewhere below, waves slap against the rocks, steady and indifferent.
“I just don’t get it. If there’s even a chance she’s alive…” My voice drifts off.
Scarlett exhales through her nose. She’s holding her glass of grapefruit juice but hasn’t taken a sip in a long time. When she finally sets it down on the small table between us, her hand shakes just enough for me to notice.
“I know.” Her shoulders sag as if the words weigh more than they should.
“I hate that I’m saying this, Judy. I really do.
But if Gabriel’s contact is right, if the image was altered…
” She trails off, lips pressing together, jaw tightening.
She looks away, out toward the water, as if she can’t bear to see my face when she finishes the thought.
“Then what?” I throw my arms in the air. “We just accept it? We scatter flowers in the sea, pack up, and go home, to just accept that she’s… gone? It’s only been six months, Scarlett, not years. There’s still a possibility…” A sob stifles my words.
Scarlett doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she rubs her thumb over the glass, polishing it again and again without realizing.
“I don’t want to give up,” she admits finally. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”
That does it. Something sharp flares in my chest.
“Hurt? Scarlett, there’s nothing worse that could ever happen to me.”
She turns back to me then, really looks at me. Her eyes are glassy, rimmed red, and for a moment the mask slips. I see it. The fear and the grief she carries as tightly as I carry mine.
“I need you with me, Scarlett. I can’t do this alone. Not again.”
She nods, once. It’s small, but it’s decisive. “I’m not going anywhere, Judy. I promise.”
The folded sticky note burns against my thigh, hidden in the pocket of my shorts. I almost reach for it, almost tell her about the message. What it said about Gabriel.
But something holds me back. A quiet instinct. A warning I can’t quite name.
If I say it out loud, everything changes.
Later, the apartment goes quiet. Gabriel eventually comes to bed beside me. We lie next to each other but miles apart, both staring at the ceiling, neither of us sleeping.
The space between us feels crowded with everything we’re not saying.
I finally fall asleep and when I wake up at around eleven, I don’t find him next to me. When I go looking for him, I don’t find him. I just hope he hasn’t started drinking again and is at some local bar.
When I emerge from the bedroom the next morning, Scarlett is already up, standing barefoot in the kitchen, wrapped in one of the soft white robes from the bathroom. Coco is sleeping on her cushioned bed in one corner of the kitchen.
Gabriel is working in the library again. I know he came home close to one in the morning, but I didn’t ask him where he went because I didn’t have the energy. Or perhaps I was afraid of the answer.
Scarlett pours coffee with careful precision, as if concentration might keep her hands steady.
“I’ve been thinking.” Her fingers tighten around the mug. Just for a second. “I might try as well. To get into the camp, I mean. To find out if they know anything.”
“You?”
She shrugs and finally meets my eyes. “Why not? Maybe they’ll let me in, talk to me. I don’t have… history with them. Not like you.”
“What do you mean, history?”
“I mean, they might be more guarded knowing you are Sadie’s mother.”
“Yes, that’s true. Thank you.” Relief loosens something in my chest.
She lifts her mug, then pauses. “Judy, whatever happens… we don’t stop. We can talk later if you like. I’m here for you, always, like you were there for me when I lost my baby.”
After she leaves the apartment, taking Coco with her, I go back into the bedroom and suddenly can’t breathe. The space feels smaller, the air heavy, and every breath is hard.
I just want some air and peace. Somewhere without grief, where my husband and I aren’t moving around each other like ghosts.
I don’t tell Gabriel I’m leaving face to face. Instead, I scribble a note and place it on the kitchen island.
Going into town for a bit. Be back soon. J
With my keys jingling in my hand and my bag over my shoulder, I slip out. I know where I need to be at this moment, the one place in town that has always felt like a sanctuary, where I felt closest to Sadie.
Twenty minutes later, I’m at the Saltspray Cove Public Library, known locally as the Pelican Room.
Sadie and I used to come here together whenever we were in town, especially if things felt tense at the apartment after an argument.
This was where we could reconnect. When things got heated, sometimes just a few minutes or hours later, one of us would casually ask if the other wanted to go read for a bit.
That was our way of saying: Can we make up?
At the library, we would sit at a table or on the comfy sofas and not say much, just reading next to each other. It was one of the few places where we didn’t argue.
Right now I can’t think of anywhere else to go, and maybe being in a place Sadie used to love will help me feel if she’s out there. If she’s really alive.
Just off the palm-lined avenue stands the proud building, its white-washed walls shining in the sun. Most of the building is made up of tall windows. Some let people on the street see straight through to the ocean on the other side.
It’s soothing to stand inside, surrounded by tall arched windows where sunlight pours in and makes the marble floors shine. Shelves stretch up to the ceiling, and some books can only be reached by climbing the rolling ladders on metal rails.
I’ve always been drawn to libraries; even as a kid. The scent of old paper, new paper, and faint coffee calms something restless inside my chest. This place feels like a pause button. It gives me the same peace I feel when walking into a chapel.
Instead of just sitting here, wallowing in my thoughts, I walk among the shelves and find a mystery novel and a book on generalized anxiety disorders in children.
I scan the table of contents. Being a child psychologist, I’m familiar with most of the information, but the way other clinicians phrase things can be refreshing.
But after settling at a table overlooking the ocean, I find myself reaching for my phone instead of the books. My thumb moves automatically to the camp’s Instagram account. The screen fills with carefully curated images. But my scrolling is interrupted by a call from Gabriel.
I close my eyes briefly and answer.
“Sweetheart, are you okay? Where did you go?”
“I’m fine. I left a note. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Yeah, I saw it, but you didn’t exactly say where in the center you were going, so I was just wondering.”
“I’m at the library. Just needed to get out of the apartment for a bit.”
“Okay.” He pauses. “Enjoy yourself and I’ll see you soon. Maybe before we go back home, you and I can do something in town together. We haven’t had a date night in… a while.”
“That would be nice.” I allow a bittersweet smile to touch my lips as I remember our last date night, right here in town, before everything tainted it.
I tap the screen to end the call, but my thumb lingers for a second before taking me back to the camp’s Instagram profile.
When the images appear again on my screen, they are exactly as beautiful, polished, and serene as the ones in the brochures, some of which are displayed at the library welcome desk at this moment.
I stop when I come across a photo of teenagers sitting cross-legged in a circle underneath a cream pergola. Their eyes are closed, hands resting gently on their thighs.
Breathwork and mindfulness, the caption reads.
The next photo shows a group of pastel-colored boats lining the camp’s private cove. They look like they are staged for a magazine.
I move on to a group of girls jogging along the beach at sunrise with smiles on their faces, their hair floating in the breeze behind them.
The camp gives off a vibe of safety and serenity, the kind of place a parent would send their child hoping she might come back calmer, resilient and more connected to themselves.
Exactly the reason why many wealthy families send their kids every year and make huge donations to keep the camp flourishing.
I’m not interested in any of the recent photos, so I keep scrolling and scrolling until I come across posts from six months ago, the ones posted the week Sadie arrived and ultimately disappeared.
There are photos of grinning teenagers standing on the dock wearing branded T-Shirts, or more mindfulness and yoga sessions on the beach. Many of them are of kids with equally branded notebooks on their laps as they journal their thoughts in a room filled with greenery.
I don’t see my daughter in any of them, even though she was there at the same time. Has she been erased, so her supposed death wouldn’t taint the camp’s image? I’m sure some families might not like their child’s name being paired with tragedy.
My heart aches at the thought. I hope she’s only absent from the pictures because she didn’t participate in any of the activities that have been captured on camera.
The last photo posted from that week is of a bonfire at late sunset that has been set up but not lit yet.
The caption reads: last bonfire in paradise.
I study every face around the circle and notice that some of the kids in the photo have been tagged.
I hesitate before tapping the first name.
I’m a grown woman sitting alone and scrolling through teenagers’ profiles. It makes me uncomfortable but not enough to stop.
But these kids were there at the same time as Sadie. They might have spoken to her.