“I broke my phone,” she said, once Eileen was close.
“What? How?”
“I threw it across the room.”
Eileen processed this fact. Then she said, “Good for you.”
Because honestly, whatever the reason Claire had for throwing a phone, that was a sign she was partly human and not entirely a YouTube influencer–bot.
Over at the piano Murphy was playing the bass chords of “Heart and Soul” on loop.
“Mozart caliber,” Eileen told her dryly.
“Thanks,” Murphy replied, without looking up.
Weird kid, as always, but there was something in the simple song that gave Eileen’s heart a twist. Something so very Murphy about it—bouncy, and in a major key. Eileen hadn’t noticed that about Murphy until now: how, even when she was whining, she always sounded positive.
Eileen took a seat by the fire, tearing open the box of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts. Wordlessly, she offered one to Claire. Wordlessly, Claire pushed the pastry away. Right. Gluten. Jesus. If Claire wanted to voluntarily starve, so be it. Eileen ate in silence as Murphy ran over the same chords, again and again. As she did, Eileen noticed Claire’s hands, folded across her knees. Polish had chipped off her right thumb, forming a jagged triangle of bare nail.
The Pop-Tart was good. Sweet and carby, and not the least bit stale.
“Remember when Mom took us to the coast?” Claire suddenly said.
Murphy looked up from the piano. “I remember.”
Eileen did too. She hadn’t thought about that day since … the day it had happened, she guessed. It had to have been at least three years ago. Leslie Sullivan had pulled her daughters out of school that day, piled them in the Subaru, and told them she was taking them to a surprise. That long drive northward, Eileen and Claire had sat in the back seat, laughing over a copy of Star magazine. That was back when the two of them would walk to Fred Meyer and spend change on sour gummy worms and tabloids.
The nostalgia hit Eileen punishingly. It ricocheted in her ribcage, and she felt for a moment that she might spit out her food. They’d been close, she and Claire. What the hell had happened? How had it happened? It had been like a breakup, only afterward they kept sharing the same house, same blood.
Murphy kicked Eileen out of her thoughts by saying, “What was Mom on that day?”
“No clue,” said Claire, staring into the fire. “I kept trying to figure it out.”
Eileen had too. From the moment her mom had ordered them into the car, to the moment they’d arrived on the shore and walked along the sand under the late summer sun, to the moment they’d stopped at Arby’s on the way home and Mom had said they could order whatever they wanted—shakes and extra curly fries, anything. Mom had never given an explanation, and she’d never done anything else like that again. The next day she’d gone back to working twelve-hour Walgreens shifts. As though their coastal trip had never happened, but rather been a mass-hallucination, shared only by the Sullivan sisters.
It hadn’t been make-believe though, Eileen knew. She remembered the colors vividly: stark blue sky meeting gray sea in a perfect line. Jagged rocks had stood up from the water, cloaked in algae. The sand had reflected the sun, precious and bright.
“I want you to take it in,” Mom had told them, smiling. “Sink your toes into the sand, enjoy it.”
And they had. Claire had turned cartwheels, perfectly balanced rotations. Murphy had dug their names in the sand—“LEENIE + CLAIRE + MURPH”—and drawn a massive heart around the words. Eileen had walked close to the water, allowing the chilly waves to lap over her toes. She couldn’t remember the name of the beach, or the route they’d taken. She hadn’t known the why of the trip at all.
It was clear to Eileen tonight, though, in a way it hadn’t been at fifteen: Maybe Mom had been saying sorry the only way she knew how. Maybe she’d been trying to make up for being a mom who never attended PTA meetings, who hadn’t counseled them on the best mascara to buy, or warned them about menstrual cramps.
Yes, Mom provided accommodation, utilities, basic needs. She’d never been cruel to them. She hadn’t shouted or fought. She wasn’t bad, she simply wasn’t around.
That day on the coast, though, Leslie Sullivan had been a normal mom. She’d spent time with her kids. She’d been there. It was the normalcy that had made it strange.