throat, I feel bad for complaining about anything. I say, “I’m sorry you drowned. I’m so sorry you died so young.”
* * *
—
The refrigerator and cabinets are stocked with juice and milk and cereal and fruit, and every other food we could possibly want, courtesy of Addy. The clock above the stove says it’s 6:34. I grab a pear and walk around that lofty, open room, looking at every photograph, every souvenir. Addy is everywhere, and as nice as it is to see a familiar face, it’s clear that we are in someone else’s home, someone else’s life.
My mom appears, Dandelion in her arms. “It seems nice.”
“It does.”
“There are a lot of boys running around.”
I ignore this because the only boy I’m interested in is back in Ohio.
I say, “So the Blackwoods are family and we’re like the poor, down-on-our-luck relations?”
“Something like that. Your great-grandmother Eva was Sam Jr.’s oldest child, Claudine’s big sister. Eva was already off at boarding school when Claudine was born. After their mother died, she never lived on the island again….” She rattles off names and dates.
Even though I want to know more, I’m not about to let on. I interrupt her. “I’ll just take your word for it.”
It turns out that Samuel Blackwood Sr., my great-something-grandfather, was a famous railroad tycoon. One of the railroad tycoons. As in American royalty, which feels like one more secret I never knew.
“So basically all those years I was babysitting and working at the bookstore and Dad was buying all his shirts on eBay and you were driving your ten-year-old Volkswagen, we could have been living the high life?”
“The Blackwood fortune disappeared years ago.”
Too bad, I think. I could use that money right now to get myself home, or, even better, to New York or Los Angeles, somewhere I can start over, where there aren’t people I love who will keep letting me down.
“Did you let Dad know we got here?” Not that he cares.
“I did.”
“Was he like, ‘Oh, thank God. I’m so glad you all are far, far away’?”
“No, Claude. He misses you.”
I stare at the floor.
She says, “I was thinking we could explore a little. Maybe go to the inn for dinner.”
“I don’t care. Whatever.” I wonder what my dad is doing back home, if he’s lying around eating thumbprint cookies or running miles and miles. If he’s making an elaborate meal for himself and Bradbury, or maybe wishing he hadn’t sent us away.
Mom sets Dandelion down, and he slinks off, running here and there and all around, sniffing everything, ducking under chairs and tables.
“Addy once told me, ‘Don’t lose today.’ As in don’t hide behind yesterday or hold back from tomorrow. We’re going to make this an adventure, Claude. If any two people can, it’s us.”
And then she hugs me and I breathe her in, my mom who smells like roses—only she doesn’t smell like roses anymore, she smells like honeysuckle, and for a second my world tilts. It was my dad who gave her the rose perfume every Christmas, and from now on she will smell like honeysuckle instead.
Even though I don’t want to, I say, “Fine. Let’s go explore.”
And when she pulls away, she gives me a smile that says, I know this is hard for you, and I appreciate your meeting me halfway, or at least partway. My smile in return says, I’m trying, and as usual we’re talking without words, a conversation my dad has never been able to join in.
* * *
—
The live oaks on the left side of the path and the live oaks on the right side of the path reach for each other, limbs entwining overhead, creating a tunnel. The path rises and we follow, climbing over a row of dunes, long grass toothpicking out of them like feathers. After this is a meadow, and then dunes again. The sand is as thick and deep as a plush carpet. It suction-cups to my feet, which sink with each step so that it’s like walking through mud. And then, suddenly, the sky opens up.
Even behind my sunglasses, I’m blinded by white and blue. The white is the beach, stretching as far as the eye can see. The blue is the water, lapping against the sand. Mom grabs my arm for balance, pulling off one shoe and then the other. She gathers her hair, blowing wild in the wind, and ties it back into a messy knot. She is beautiful—as bright and vivid as a field