smiles and bows, then picks up the phone to order pizza. Orla laughs as Marlow gawks at the piece of buttoned plastic. She gets up to touch its cord.
It gets dark and the boys go out, to wherever they go. When he’s done eating, Kyle excuses himself. He says he has work to do. He means to give them space, but Orla feels panicked as he moves down the hall. When she looks back at Floss and Marlow, she sees them watching wistfully, too. Maybe they all need a break.
Orla shows Marlow how to use the shower. Then she goes into the living room and unfolds the futon near the window. She stands back so Floss can lie down.
Floss’s hair spreads out on the pillow behind her. “I thought you would hate me,” she says, in yet another voice of hers that Orla doesn’t know: older, quiet, but clear as a bell.
“I do hate you,” Orla says. She makes it sound like a joke they have had forever. They are still laughing when Marlow comes in, clean and shining in Orla’s best nightgown, and climbs into bed with her mother. Orla pulls the partition. She goes down the hall, to the room that is hers.
* * *
But none of them can sleep. First Floss, then Marlow, then Orla, who wakes to the suck of the sliding door—they all step out onto the veranda.
The next day, Floss will sigh on the sofa. She should head back to the States, take her punishment like a big girl, she will say with a pout. She will say this every morning for weeks, for months, until she doesn’t bother anymore. An immigration enforcement agent, following up on a tip from someone who saw Floss, will knock on the door just once. Orla will go to her bedroom while the agent sits Floss down at the table, and will hear, in disbelief, how quickly the encounter turns to Floss putting on a show and the agent laughing along. No one will bother them again.
One morning, Floss will come to breakfast in a sheer purple nightie, and Frank and Gary will evacuate for good the same day. One evening, Kyle will snap at Floss, “If you want martinis, maybe pick up some olives. We’re out.” Orla will tire of her, too, of the way Floss’s fabric wall blocks the natural light from the rest of her home. Every day, she will vow to talk to Floss about a timeline for her moving out. And every day—for a year, until the woman across the hall blessedly dies and Floss can be coaxed over there, like a cat—she will end up letting it go. She will turn on the lamps instead.
On the fourth day that Floss fails to leave, Marlow will reach out and take a key from Orla’s hand.
She will sail back out of Atlantis on the restaurant-supply boat, this time meeting a water-skiing operation at the sandbar to return her to Ventnor. From there, she will go to New York, back to the place on Twenty-First Street where Floss and Orla lived. Floss still owns it. When she sees the super who watched her pick the lock, she will call him by the name Orla gave her—Linus—and tell him who she is. He will surprise her greatly by crying when he hears. They will become friends, Marlow and Linus and Linus’s wife, and then they will become family. Marlow will spend dinnertime and holidays with them, the three of them sharing a joint as they wash the dishes after the children go to sleep. The kids are half-grown; the youngest is eight. But they have never had an aunt before, and Marlow is pleased to find that being theirs is more than enough for her.
She will tweak her appearance until no one knows her anymore. This means growing older, and applying a shy dose of makeup, and dyeing her hair darker—thinking, when she picks the color, of the photo Orla showed her, the one of her and Floss in their twenties. But even though she can see the image clearly—their barely grown faces tipped smugly together, like nothing could ever divide them—she will not be able to remember which one of them had it, the shade she wants.
She will wait months to buy a new device, under the name M. Cadden, which she will use to start over. She will follow Jacqueline—just Jacqueline—for a few days. She will watch her throw a party for neon-patterned leggings.