We spent our days either walking on the beach or sunbathing, with breaks for food at Shrimpboats, which, as the only restaurant in North Reddemane, served breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Beside Shrimpboats, there was Gert’s Surfshop, a clapboard shack and gas station that sold bait, cheap souvenirs, and basic groceries. My mom and I, however, were partial to the handmade rope bracelets, decorated with seashells and weird-shaped beads, with GS written in Sharpie marker on the backside. We had no idea who made them, only that they were always on display by the front register and we seemed to be the only ones who ever purchased them, something we did on every trip down. My mom called them Gerts, and there was a time when my wrist never sported fewer than two or three of them, in various stages of wear and tear.
This was my mother as I liked to remember her, hair in a sloppy ponytail, wearing cheap sunglasses and smelling of sunscreen and salt. She read terrible romance novels during the day (her guiltiest of pleasures), and at night, sat with me on the rickety chairs outside our room and pointed out constellations. We ate fried shrimp, watched bad TV, and took long walks, whether it was bitter cold or the perfect summer day. At the end of the weekend, we’d drive back as late as we could, arriving home to find the house pretty much just as we’d left it, my dad having been there only to sleep, shower, and grab a bite to eat now and then. I don’t remember him ever being with us at the Poseidon, and that was okay. It was our thing.
Now, though, like everything else was since the divorce, the beach would be different. And the truth was, those weekends, spontaneous and shabby, were some of the best times I’d had with my mom before everything fell apart. I had enough that was separated into distinct Before and Afters: my home, my name, even the way I looked. I didn’t want all my memories remade, redone, remodeled, like her fancy beach house. I liked them as they were.
My mom, though, clearly had other ideas: by lunch, I had four messages. I got a cheap and soggy grilled cheese and went ell the wall, taking a bite before playing them back.
“Honey, it’s me. Just wondering when you might have a break between classes. I really want to talk to you about the house! Call me back.”
Beep.
“Mclean, it’s me. I’m going to take the kids to the grocery store, so when you call try me on my cell. If I don’t pick up, it just means I’m in that dead spot just before town, so leave a message, and I’ll call you back just as soon as I get it. Can’t wait to make plans! I love you!”
Beep.
“Mclean? Um, hi. This is Opal, from the restaurant? I’m here with your dad. . . . He’s had a little accident.” A pause, at the worst possible time. I heard an intercom, some buzzing. “He’s okay, but we’re at the hospital, and he says his insurance card is at the house, and you’d know where it was. Can you call me back at this number when you get this?”
Beep.
“Hi, honey, me again. I’m back from the grocery, saw you didn’t call yet, so when you do, just try the home—”
I fumbled with the phone, hitting the END button once, twice, trying to clear the screen so I could call out. My heart was suddenly racing, those words filling my head: accident, hospital. And behind them, harder to see: okay. Okay. Okay.
My phone took forever to dial, each beep seeming like an eternity as I looked around the full courtyard in front of me, seeing nothing. Finally, an answer.
“Hello? ”
“Opal,” I said. “It’s Mclean. I just got your message, is my dad okay? What happened? When did he—”
“Whoa, whoa,” she said. “Take a breath. Mclean? It’s all right. He’s just fine. Here.”
Now I could hear that I was breathing hard, almost panting. The sound, primal, filled the phone for the next few seconds and then, like a dream, my dad was suddenly there.
“I told her not to call you,” he said. He sounded bored, like he was waiting in line at the post office. “I knew you’d totally freak.”
“I am not freaking,” I told him, although we both knew I was. I took a breath as instructed, then said, “What happened?”
“Just a little knife slip.”
“Really?” I was surprised.
“Not mine,” he said, sounding offended. “It was one of the prep guys. I was teaching a little fillet class . . . things got out of hand.”
My heart was finally starting to beat normally again as I said, “How out of hand?”
“Just a few stitches,” he replied. “And a puncture of sorts.”
“I’m surprised you even went to the hospital,” I said, which was the truth. My dad’s hands were covered with scars from various accidents and burns, and usually, unless he’d hit a vein or something, he’d wait until after work to deal with it, if he did anything at all.
“It was not my idea,” he grumbled. “Trust m a bront>
“You have to go to the hospital when you cut open your hand!” I heard Opal say in the background. “It is company policy. Not to mention common sense.”
“Anyway,” my dad said, ignoring this, “the upshot is that I need my insurance card. Which I think is at the house . . .”
“It is,” I said. “I’ll get it.”
“But you’re in school. I’ll just send Leo.”
I thought of Leo, big and gangly, banging around in the file box where I kept our important papers. “No,” I said. “I’d better do it. Look, I’ll be there soon.”
“Wait,” he said just as I was about to hang up. “Don’t you need a ride?”
That, I hadn’t thought about. I was about to tell him this when I happened to look across the courtyard to a single bench by the entrance to the gym. There a girl sat, a green floral purse beside her, wearing a green raincoat with matching green earmuffs, sipping a Diet Coke through a straw.