His theory never made any sense. Natasha found another girl to split her rent, and she never looked back—at least not at me. Roommates were easy to replace. Men like Micah, on the other hand . . .
Now I’m not so sure Micah ever found me worthy, either.
The images in those photographs are forever planted in my mind. I suspect I’ll see the smiling faces of those children even when I’m sleeping. Even when I’m dead.
“Small world.” I look up to see my neighbor, still looking like a surfer, holding a rose-colored, frozen concoction with a pineapple garnish. “Small island, anyway. Saw you walk in, past the Monkey. Thought I’d buy you a drink. Welcome you properly to the island.”
“Thank you, but—” I shut up before my standard refusal slips out—I’m a fertility patient. I don’t drink—because he places the glass in front of Elizabella.
Tentatively, she reaches for it. She may not like our neighbor—she likes few people right off the bat—but she can be bribed, and she’s hungry. A split second before she wraps her fingers around the cup, I scoot it just out of her reach. “What’s in it?”
“It’s nonalcoholic. Naturally.”
As if I thought he’d serve her anything else. I’m being ridiculous. I loosen my grip.
“A lot of sugar. She might be wired once it’s down the hatch.”
I let her take a sip anyway.
“Mmmmm!”
“Say thank you to Mr. Renwick,” I remind her.
She shyly glances up at him, a small smile playing on her lips.
“Ellie-Belle.”
“Thank you,” she says.
Christian gives her a wink. “And you? What’s your poison? You like rum?”
So he was responsible for the bottle of coconut rum on the front porch. “Thank you for that. I’m a fertil—” I clear my throat and meet his gaze. I’m not a fertility patient anymore. I can have a drink if I want to, but it’s been so long since I’ve ordered a drink that I don’t even know what I like or how it might affect me. And it would be rude to say I don’t drink rum after he thoughtfully left a bottle for me. “I don’t know.”
“Everyone likes rum, right? You’d better, on this island.”
I look at him. Really look at him. He looks trustworthy, and we’re in a public place. What harm can come of a drink?
And if he’s been feeding Tasha’s cat, he might know something. Not that I can pounce on him and demand information. I have to build trust if I expect him to tell me what he knows. Besides, theoretically, I ought to know more than I do, considering I own the house she was-slash-is renting.
“Would you like to join us?”
“That’s not why I . . . I couldn’t impose.”
“Don’t be silly.” I’m already half out of the booth, ready to slide in on the other side next to Bella. “Have a seat.”
He looks to my daughter, who stops sipping her treat only long enough to whisper, “Stranger danger.”
“He’s not a stranger.” I glance up at him, but he isn’t observing us. He’s politely pretending not to hear. “He’s our neighbor.”
“Like Crew and Fendi?”
“Like Crew and Fendi.”
She eyes him. “Do you have little kids?”
“I don’t even have big kids,” he answers.
My phone buzzes.
Shell! It must be! I left her a message detailing my change of plans; it’s taken forever for her to return the call, and finally . . .
But Claudette Winters spans the screen. I’ll have to call her back. I can’t take a call just after I invited my neighbor to dinner.
Why hasn’t Shell called me back? I know she and Guidry spoke. Maybe she’s angry that I changed our plans for Thanksgiving.
“Bella.” I silence my phone. “Mr. Renwick is going to join us for dinner.”
“Just a drink maybe,” he says.
“Nini says okay.”
“Oh, you know Nini?” Christian suddenly breaks from his firmly rooted statue routine and slides onto the bench across from us.
I trade glances between my daughter and our new neighbor, anxious to hear the exchange. If Nini is a real little girl . . .
Bella doesn’t take her wide-eyed glance from him as he talks about her best friend, and she continues to sip the frothy treat.
“So I don’t really know Nini,” he says, “but she drew me a picture once. On my sidewalk with chalk. Do you like to draw with chalk?”
“Nini did that once.”
“Yes. She did.”
They’re staring at each other across the table, each wearing an amused expression.
“So . . .” I should fill this silence, if only to drown the questions in my mind. “How long have you known Tasha?”
“Few years,” he says, while Bella interjects: “Nini’s seven.”
One corner of his mouth twitches up with a smile. “I guess she is seven, but I met her only a few years ago.”
“Tasha’s daughter . . .” I hedge to see if he fills in the blanks.
He nods. “Good-looking kid.”
“Her name is Nini?”
“Mimi, maybe?” He shrugs. “I don’t . . . the kid . . . I don’t have much occasion to talk with her.” His tongue wets his lips, and he says again, “Good-looking kid.”
It’s apparent to me now that’s all he knows about her. That she’s cute. Why couldn’t someone more observant have been feeding Papa Hemingway, the fattest cat on the planet? Someone who might’ve paid more attention to the children who live—used to live?—at the home I own.
The conversation is a bust if he doesn’t know anything, but I’m in it now. Maybe if I get him talking, he’ll let small details slip, ones he might not realize he knows. I try again: “What do you write?”
“Write?” His hands still. “Oh. Like I said. Not much of anything lately.”
“When you do write, what do you write?”
A waitress approaches with crayons and a paper place mat for Elizabella. “Anything to drink?”
“Rum runner?” Christian asks me.
“Never had one.”
“Or . . .” My neighbor offers me only a split-second glance, as if he can assess my preference simply by looking at me. “Mojito?”
“Never had one of those, either.”
“Really?” His head tilts, as if in sympathy. “Then it’s settled. Two mojitos.”
“Two mojitos,” she repeats. “Ready to order?”
“My daughter will have the three-cheese pasta, but I need a minute.”
“You should try a plate of the conch,” Christian pipes in. “Nothing like the conch fritters in Key West.”
“Okay.” I glance at the menu, but I’m not particularly hungry. Eating has been as much a chore as sleeping lately. A wave of exhaustion hits me full force. My eyes are tired. My feet are tired. Even my little finger is tired. “You know what? The conch sounds good.”
The waitress whisks away, our menus in hand, and a silence lingers in her wake, chewing at the air between us.
I must look tired and haggard, despite the light dusting of powder with which I attempted to hide the bags beneath my eyes before we headed out, despite the quick gloss over my lips. No matter what I do, I can’t hide the fact that I’ve been crying for days, even from someone who doesn’t know what I look like under usual circumstances.
I straighten my wedding band, white gold with channel-set diamonds, and line it up with my engagement ring, which boasts a round diamond just under a carat. I wonder if I should be wearing the set anymore. If I’d stumbled over Micah’s secrets before his plane went down, would I be wearing it still?
I give it a tug again, just to see if it budges, just to see what it feels like to take it off, but it stops at my knuckle. Until I lose the IVF weight, removing my ring is not an option. A thread of relief twines through me. I can’t take it off, and I don’t want to.
Maybe it’s better that he’s gone. I don’t know if I could have divorced someone I love more than life itself.
“How long will you be in town?”
“Oh.” When I invited Christian to join us, I didn’t consider he might want to drag as much information out of me as I hope to pull out of him. “Just until I decide what to do with the house, I guess.”
It isn’t a lie. I do have to decide what to do with it.
“If you’re not careful, this island will swallow you whole.”
“I’m sorry?” In my mind, I see a black hole enveloping Micah and his plane. Wiping him from existence.