her purse. She finds a pair of bills so old and soft, they seem on the verge of crumbling, and prays that these privacy freaks still like American cash. It works. The man holds out his meaty palm and tells her about a bookstore, points her down the boardwalk and says to get off at the third ramp. It almost makes Floss sad, how little money she has to give him. Some people don’t know how to live.
She goes the way he told her, but it has only been a block before she sees them. Both of them. Together. On a bench. It’s so random. The truth is, Floss wasn’t sure that either of them would be here. All she had to go on for Marlow was the idea that had sat in her chest all these years: someday Marlow would figure it out, and then, in an instant, be gone. All she had to go on for Orla was what always came up when Floss searched for her: 404. Not found.
Found you now, Floss thinks, closing in on them. She is pleased to see that Marlow looks different. As beautiful as always, but something else: more awake. Maybe she’s started to use the serums that Floss is always trying to give her.
Orla looks the same, except for the gray hair. We get it, Orla, Floss thinks. You’re different. Then she straightens her spine and reminds herself, as both of them look up and see her: in the minds of her daughter and old friend, she is the agreed-upon asshole. Best not to come in too hot.
She has not been the world’s greatest mom. She can admit that. But she is the mom. Her. She pretends her heel is stuck again, just to buy some time. She says a silent prayer that Marlow and Orla will grade her on a curve. At the very least, she deserves full credit for completion.
* * *
Orla has to stop herself from touching Marlow. She wants to put her mouth on her, to grab her by the scruff and carry her away. Marlow scratches her neck, like she can feel Orla’s thought. Then she shades her eyes and says, “Are you kidding me?”
Orla follows her gaze. It takes her a moment to recognize the woman coming toward them. There is no way around it; Floss is twice the size she used to be. Well, good for her, Orla thinks. She put her time in being thin. Still, it must be a lot to carry around on five-inch heels.
A group of ladies power walking stops when they see Floss. They flap their hands. They remember her, from long ago, before they came here. Floss lights up and dawdles, talking with them longer than she should, considering her runaway daughter is waiting just a few yards away.
Orla looks at Marlow. The girl is frowning, with narrowed eyes, as Floss poses and kisses the air around the walkers’ cheeks. For the first time, Orla sees something of herself in Marlow’s face.
She puts her arm around her. She tries to block out a blinding flash of memory—this same person in her arms. She is so angry for a moment; she has been cheated of this body. Of the smell of its head at three, resting on her shoulder, of the sight of its legs at nine, scrambling after a basketball, of the feel of its waist beneath a wedding dress. She forces herself to breathe, to say what she was going to. What she has to. “Marlow,” she says. “There’s no way of knowing if I would have been any better.”
Marlow softens her jaw. Floss leaves the women and runs toward her daughter, somehow, without falling. Floss grabs Marlow and rubs her back. As if she can’t help herself, she reaches out her other hand and pulls Orla in, too. All three of them are stiff-limbed at first, holding something back. Then Orla feels the air between them loosening, just a little. They pull back and look at each other. They take the same shuddering breath. There is a sudden possibility, if only a small one, that none of them are all bad.
* * *
“I can’t picture you on that pirate boat,” Orla says to Floss. Marlow was about to say the same thing, but in a much brinier tone.
Floss sniffs. “What pirate boat?” she says. “I flew to London and chartered a yacht from Southampton. There was some sort of mess with the coast guard on the