“He’s American,” she said. “His parents are from Sudan.”
He shrugged. She hated how casual he seemed, how freely he commented on her life when they hadn’t spoken in years. Anything he knew, he’d learned from Aubrey, and she felt betrayed, imagining the two of them in bed together, chatting about her. He stepped inside the room, leaning on a wooden cane, and she looked away as he hobbled past her, plopping on a bed that squeaked under his weight.
“You wanna know something?” he said.
“What?”
“I used to steal shit from church,” he said. “When I was little.”
“Liar.”
“Dead ass.”
“Like what, then?”
“Anything. Just to see if I could.”
To prove it, he reached under the bed and pulled out a maroon prayer book with a cracked leather cover. He’d stolen it from Mother Betty’s piano bench in the sixth grade. Sister Willis had sentenced him to thirty minutes of prayer in the sanctuary for talking in class, and he’d explored the church instead, lying on his belly to peek under pews, toeing at the fringes in the carpet, stomping around the altar. The piano bench had fascinated him—a seat that stored things? There must be something important and secretive inside, like the fake books where movie villains stored guns. Instead of the weapon arsenal he’d hoped for, there were only loose sheets of music, ballpoint pens, and the prayer book.
“That’s my mother’s,” she stammered.
She hadn’t seen the book in years. Her mother used to keep it on her nightstand, but one day, it’d gone missing. She’d searched for it all over the house for weeks.
“I know,” Luke said.
“She thought she lost it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Why the fuck didn’t you give it back?”
“I felt bad.”
“So you just kept it?”
“I forgot all about it,” he said. “I found it when I was moving. I had to get it to you.”
He handed the book to her. She sat next to him, flipping through the silvery, thin pages. Hymn names floated past her eyes and when she leaned closer, the book smelled like dust and leather and, faintly, her mother’s perfume. She felt her eyes water, and Luke’s hand, warm on her back.
—
THE WEEKEND BEFORE THE WEDDING, a reply from Aubrey’s mother finally arrived, written on the back of the invitation she’d sent: We can’t make it. But congratulations! She stood in front of the mailbox, reading the message once, twice, then three times, before she slid the card back into the envelope and threw it in the trash can. When she stepped inside, her sister was sitting on the couch, watching the news. Aubrey slipped off her shoes and climbed on the couch beside her, laying her head in Monique’s lap.
“She’s not coming,” she said.
“Okay.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.” She chewed her lip, watching as a blonde reporter interviewed a firefighter in front of a smoldering house. “Is it so stupid that I wanted her at my wedding?”
“No,” her sister said. “Who wants to say they hate their mother?”
She closed her eyes, feeling her sister brush her hair back from her forehead. The summer before her senior year of high school, Aubrey had visited her sister in Oceanside for the first time. At the airport, Mo had met her at the baggage claim, waving wildly as if Aubrey wouldn’t recognize her otherwise. She looked the same—petite, her hair cut short the way their mother hated—but she’d beamed as she pulled Aubrey in close and said, “Look at you. You’re all grown up now.” Behind Mo, a white woman stood with her hands in her pockets. Late twenties, dirty-blonde hair that looked wet, a smile that looked too much like a smirk. She wore a gray tank top and baggy jeans cuffed at the ankles and she stepped forward, jutting out her hand.
“Great to finally meet you,” she’d said. “Hope your flight was good.”
Aubrey said that it was, thank you, and they’d all stood there awkwardly until Mo said, shouldn’t they be going now? She grabbed the rolling suitcase and Kasey lifted the duffel bag off Aubrey’s shoulder. She pretended to struggle under the weight.
“Oof,” she told Mo. “She is your sister.”
She seemed like the type who tried to be funny when she felt uncomfortable, and Aubrey vaguely felt like she should laugh, just to relieve everyone. On the drive to their house, they asked her harmless questions about school and her friends, and she offered soft, monosyllabic answers. From the backseat, she could see them exchanging worried glances and at a stoplight, she heard Mo say quietly, “She’s just sleepy.” Like when they were younger and she’d always speak to their mother on Aubrey’s behalf, as if she weren’t actually there.
She wasn’t, not really. All week, she’d wandered around her sister’s house like a ghost. She felt like she’d left her body behind in her bedroom, under Paul’s hands, his breath hot against her neck, and she was floating around outside of it, always feeling its pull. Her last day in town, her sister had taken her to the beach, where they’d fallen behind a tour group. A bespectacled old man with a fanny pack strapped around his waist told the small crowd about the glory of the Oceanside pier, the longest wooden pier on the West Coast, which had been rebuilt six different times. A storm destroyed the first pier over two hundred years ago, and during low tide, you could still see the remnant woodpiles under the water. The second and third piers were damaged by storms, and when the fourth pier opened in the 1920s, the town threw a three-day-long celebration. Twenty years later, it was leveled by another rainstorm.
“This pier,” he had said, stomping his foot, “this very pier was dedicated in 1987. A few blinks ago! And in your lifetimes, there’ll be another pier and maybe even another. The storms will come and we’ll keep on building.”