this other woman, whoever she is.
“Men,” she echoes.
“Men,” says Addy. “I wish I didn’t love them so goddamn much.”
The captain strolls by and Grady follows. I look away so he can’t catch my eye. Suddenly there are other guests there with luggage, boarding the ferry, taking their seats. Archie, the island dog, goes ambling along with them, tail wagging lazily in all this heat.
Addy’s arms are around my mom and then me. “You take good care of her,” she says in my ear. “And let her take care of you.”
“I will.”
“And be careful with that heart of yours. There’s been enough heartbreak in this family for a while.” And I don’t know if she’s making a general statement or one specifically targeted at Miah, but I want to go, You should warn people about me, not the other way around.
And then she’s hugging my mom again, and when she lets go, I see the tears in Mom’s eyes, and I have to look away from this, too.
We wave as Addy boards the ferry and takes her seat, and we wave again as the ferry goes sailing off. Mom stands there longer than I do, hand in the air, smile on her face. When Addy’s out of sight, Mom turns to me. “It’s hard to see her go.”
I don’t say anything, but I throw my arms around her. “I’m glad it’s just us again.”
She studies my face, but I’m not giving anything away. I go blank and smiling, the dutiful daughter, the one whose heart is still intact. “I was thinking I could help you at the museum today if you want.”
She’s still studying my face, still trying to read me, but finally she says, “I’d like that.”
* * *
—
Mom and I spend the rest of the day together at the museum, sifting through and organizing Claudine’s papers, and I don’t say anything about my dad.
We walk home together and I don’t say anything.
We eat dinner together and I don’t say anything.
We sit on the porch of the inn and watch the lightning bugs flickering in the trees and across the grass. And I don’t say anything. She’s already been through enough and now it’s my job to protect her and buy her honeysuckle perfume and tell her she’s beautiful and make sure she has a floor—as flimsy as it is—to walk on.
The screen door slams and I look up. Wednesday waves at me like, Come here. I look away. I hear footsteps, and of course she’s walking over. She frowns down at me. “I need to talk to you, Mainlander.”
“I’m busy.”
“Claude.” This is from Mom.
“Fine.”
I get up, feet dragging, and follow Wednesday across the porch, inside the inn to the library, which is empty.
She says, “Did Grady hurt you?”
“No.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“No. I was stupid. It was my fault.” I hurt me. Not Grady. Not Miah. Me.
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
“Claude?”
And maybe because she’s using my real name for once, I say, “It started to, but I stopped it.”
“You know he’s a total dirtbag.”
“I know.”
She sighs. “Does Miah know?”
“I told him.”
“Why?”
“I had to.”
“Shit.” She shakes her head, and the braids swing back and forth like pendulums. “So look, when I was sixteen, I started putting myself in a box because I figured it would keep me from getting hurt. I took care of that box like it was my freaking home. At first, the box was good. Small, compact, everything safe inside it. I kept it neat and tidy. I painted it. Painted who I wanted to be. I didn’t let myself be seen or heard. I made my sexuality small and quiet instead of big and bright. But I started not being able to breathe, so that’s when I pushed open the box flaps, one by one. The last was running away from Alabama to live the life I wanted to live. And saying to someone other than myself, This is me. I want to be a singer. I want to change the world with my music. I want to fall in love and get my heart broken. I’m pansexual. I seem tough, but I’m not. At least not always. So yeah. Here I am. Out of the box. And sometimes it sucks. But at least I can breathe.”
After a long moment, I say, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s all I wanted to say.”
And then she walks away. A second later, I go to the doorway and call after her, “Hey, Wednesday?”
She’s by the stairs leading down to the dining room, one