know what I can do for you. I’m not just here for your mom.”
“Thank you.” And suddenly I have to go, because if I don’t, I will start crying, and I won’t stop until I have melted into an enormous puddle on the floor. I say, “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
Then I tell Addy I need the bathroom, and I go in and shut the door and throw up my entire dinner. Afterward I sit on the closed toilet for a period of time that could be minutes or hours. And then I rinse my mouth out and reapply lipstick and smooth my hair until I look just like me again.
Back on the porch, my mom and Addy sit drinking lemonade and chatting in light, cheerful voices. Seeing Addy always does my mom good, and my mom needs this right now.
My mom looks up as I sit down next to her, and her face is happier than I’ve seen it in a while.
“Are you okay?” she says.
“Fine.” I smile. I’m good at smiling because I can hide too. I say, “Just thirsty.” I drink. My hand doesn’t shake.
She loves him, and he doesn’t deserve her. He doesn’t deserve either of us.
I want to lean into my mom and have her put her arm around me, have her shield me from everything. I want Addy out of our house, which is her house. I want us out of her house. I want to go back home, but not to Ohio home, because my dad lives there and it isn’t my home anymore. I want some unseen home where I will be safe and my mom and I will be happy and I won’t ever have to think about my dad again.
DAY 24
(PART TWO)
I am sitting on the bed, staring into space as if it’s a movie screen, faces flashing across it. There are three women who work directly with my father. Michelle, Fiona, and Pamela, the executive assistant. I’ve known all of them for years. They’ve come to the house for dinner. They came to my parents’ twentieth-anniversary party. They came to my graduation. Hovering like ghosts in the shadows. Like Tillie in the carriage-house window. Watching from the wings. Waiting. All of them have brown hair.
I’m not sure where to go, but I need to get out of the house. I tell my mom I’m supposed to meet Miah. I hug Addy and say I’ll see her later, even though I don’t plan to come home until they’re asleep or until she leaves the island.
I walk out.
I can barely feel my legs.
But I somehow manage to walk.
No more floor.
The words play in my head like a skipping record.
No more floor.
No more floor.
No more floor.
This is the second time in my life that the floor has disappeared from under me, and now I realize that you can never count on the floor because it’s a movable, changeable thing that anyone can take away at any moment. Same with the ground. Same with love.
I follow the drive to the sandy lane that circles in front of the inn. I walk the loop three times, and then I go back to the house and grab my bicycle and fly down Main Road.
* * *
—
I go past the horses that are grazing like it’s just another dusky evening. Knock on the door of the bright blue shotgun shack. Wait for him to appear. I’m not sure what I’ll do if he doesn’t. I don’t know where else to go. I wait and I wait, but he doesn’t answer.
* * *
—
I ride to the general store, as fast as my legs will take me. I push myself and the bike as hard as I can, trying to go faster, even though there’s nowhere to go because this is an island.
When I get to the store, I ditch the bike and run for the door. I pound on it, over and over until my fist hurts, even though—big surprise—it isn’t open because it’s late and Terri’s long gone. I dig out my phone, but of course there’s no service.
* * *
—
Back on the bicycle, I fly toward the Dip, hitting every bump in the road, holding on for dear life so that I don’t go soaring over the handlebars. I hear the music before I see the house, and then there are lights and people, and I drop the bike and go running.