*
The next morning, Sydney Waverley-Hopkins sat at the kitchen table while Bay ate Cocoa Puffs and reread her worn copy of Romeo and Juliet. She was already dressed for school, wearing a T-shirt that said, COME TO THE DARK SIDE. WE HAVE COOKIES.
Sydney looked at Bay pointedly, but Bay didn’t look back.
“Ahem.” Sydney cleared her throat and lowered her head, trying to meet Bay’s eyes over the book.
Nope.
Sydney sighed and got up to refill her coffee cup. She didn’t have to be at work until ten, but she didn’t want to miss this opportunity to be with Bay. She was determined to be around when her daughter finally decided to confide in her about what was bothering her, about what was making her so distant and miserable lately.
Whatever it was, it was making Bay want to spend more and more time with her aunt Claire. But Sydney wasn’t going to give up these mornings. She would just sit and wait. One day, Bay was going to need her advice. Sydney could remember her teenage years here in Bascom with a clarity she wished she didn’t have. Sometimes it made her lose her breath, remembering how those years had felt like drowning. She knew what her daughter was going through, even if Bay didn’t believe it.
It was just before daybreak and the window over the kitchen sink was dark. Sydney could see Bay’s reflection behind her in it. She tied her red kimono robe tightly around her, feeling a hollow in her stomach every time she realized that her only child would be an adult in just a few short years. She had an unnerving suspicion that there was a void Bay was standing in front of, and as soon as Bay moved, Sydney would get sucked into the blackness. Sydney had always assumed she would have more children by now. She tried not to think of it every month. She thought if she acted like she wasn’t watching the calendar, that maybe fate would laugh and surprise her. But it didn’t. Sydney had been almost frantic about it these past few weeks, taking her lunch hour and surprising her husband, Henry, in his office, and jumping on him the minute she got in bed at night.
She’d had no experience in mothering before she had Bay, and she’d not always made the right decisions. She wanted another chance. She’d stayed with Bay’s father, David, far longer than she should have. It was one of those things women simply assume about themselves—that they weren’t the kind to stay after the first hit, that they would never let their child live in that kind of environment. But a woman’s ability to surprise herself is far stronger than her ability to surprise others. Sydney had stayed, not knowing where else to go. She’d left her hometown of Bascom when she was eighteen, burning bridges with the fire of her resentment, never intending to return. She’d hated her Waverley reputation, hated all of her teenage peers who had rejected her, hated that she was never who she really wanted to be here. But the person she’d been with David hadn’t been who she’d wanted to be, either. She’d fled Seattle and David when Bay was five. She’d finally realized, if she’d been so wrong about life outside of Bascom, maybe she’d been wrong about leaving Bascom in the first place.
There were times when she would still wake up in the middle of the night and feel a remembered fear, aches like bruises along her sides and cheekbones, thinking that David was still alive, that he was going to find her and Bay here. But he was long gone, she would remind herself. Ten years now. The Year Everything Changed, Claire called it. He’d died suddenly in prison after Sydney had finally pressed charges.
Yes, she’d made a lot of mistakes. And she so desperately wanted to get it right this time.
Maybe then she would feel like she was finally forgiven.
She was startled out of her thoughts when she heard Bay’s spoon clatter against the bowl. She saw Bay’s reflection stand up from the table.
“The last Halloween dance decorating committee meeting is this afternoon, isn’t it?” Sydney asked as Bay came up beside her and put her cereal bowl in the sink.
“Yes. But I’ll be done in time to baby-sit Mariah while you and Claire go on your double date.”
That made Sydney laugh. “You make it sound so distasteful. Dating. Bleh. What a horrible thing to do. You should try it sometime. You’d like it.”
“No one has asked me,” Bay said, zipping up her hoodie. “Can I spend the night at the Waverley house tonight, since I’ll be there anyway, baby-sitting Mariah?”
“If Claire says it’s okay. You know, you could do the asking. I mean, you could ask a boy out.”
Bay rolled her eyes. “Right.”
“No, really,” Sydney said, pulling Bay’s long hair out from under the hoodie and smoothing it down around her shoulders. “Ask Phin. I see you two talking at the bus stop all the time.”
“We’re fellow outcasts. That’s all.”
“You are not an outcast. The more you say it, the more it becomes true in people’s minds.” Sydney looked her daughter in the eye. “I wish I could make you see yourself the way I see you.”
“Five years old with an apple tree for a best friend?” Bay asked, putting her copy of Romeo and Juliet in her back pocket.
“No.” Although it was true. Sydney would always see Bay as a black-haired, blue-eyed little girl, the summer they’d moved back and lived with Claire. Bay would lie under the tree in the Waverleys’ backyard for hours, daydreaming.
“Fifteen years old with an apple tree for a best friend?” Bay asked.
“Bay, stop it,” Sydney said, following her through the farmhouse to the living room. “That apple tree is not your friend. Phin is your friend. Riva Alexander is your friend. She asked you to be on the decorating committee, didn’t she?”
“Riva is … decent, I guess. But she’s not my friend. She only put me on the committee because she saw how teachers kept asking me to rearrange the desks in their classrooms to where they made the most sense,” Bay said. “You know what some kids call me? Feng Shui Bay. Riva put me on the committee. She didn’t ask me.”
“Because you’re so good at that kind of thing. Interior design is in your future. I’m sure of it. That’s what you should study when you go to college,” Sydney said encouragingly, letting her know that this misery didn’t last forever.
Bay shrugged as she picked up her backpack from where it was sitting on the large beige couch facing the fireplace. When Sydney had married Henry, putting down roots here in a way she’d never imagined when she’d left town at eighteen, the farmhouse had been decorated in Early Man. Henry and his late grandfather had lived here alone for years and had never minded the dark walls and the rugs with worn paths in them: front door to living room; living room to bedroom; bedroom to bathroom; bathroom to kitchen, kitchen to back door. Henry had followed his grandfather every day of his life. When Bay and Sydney had moved in, they had infused the place with light-colored furniture and curtains, new rugs and yellow paint that sparkled in the sunlight. A few years ago, they’d even renovated the kitchen with glass-front cabinets and an apron sink and golden floorboards. The decor might have changed, but Henry’s route never did. He still made the same trail through the house every day. But, unlike his grandfather, he didn’t have a son or grandson to follow him.
That made Sydney put her hand to her stomach.
Bay walked to the front door. “I don’t want to argue with you, Mom. I’m doing my best. I really am. No matter how hard you try, you can’t make it easier for me. I know you want to. But you can’t. I love you.”
That was where she was wrong. Bay was drowning. She just didn’t know it yet. And Sydney’s job was to keep her head above water.
Sydney followed her to the front door and watched Bay walk down the front steps. The sun was beginning to rise. “I love you, too, baby girl,” she said.