“I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”
“I’m pretty sure you can’t, but I don’t really have a choice right now,” she said.
“You can probably be there when Thomas comes to, but you’re going to have to stop insulting me to do it.”
Ethan walked back into the living room. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ve got to go now.”
“Fine.” She was flustered, grabbing her purse, her keys. “What does Thomas need for the hospital, Ethan?”
Ethan touched her shoulder. “I’ve got it,” he said.
Rain stayed frozen in place, not sure she was willing to leave. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
Ethan heaved his sloppily packed garbage bag over his shoulder. “What’s the worst thing that could happen? I mean, it’s more ideal than waking the poor kid up and dragging her to the hospital.”
She pointed at him. “You! Don’t talk to me.”
“What did I do?”
“You got Thomas the bike!”
Ethan opened the front door.
“We’ve got to go,” he said.
Rain nodded and started to walk out. Then she turned back. She met my eyes, and I was thrown by it. What I saw there. It was a little bit of concern and a little bit of anger. But beyond that, there was something else. Something that looked like how Danny looked. Like she didn’t know me at all. And maybe she never was going to want to.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she said.
And with that, she was gone.
16
When I woke up in the morning, it took a minute to figure out where I was. I sighed loudly, thinking of Amber, feeling a crick in my neck from sleeping on Rain’s couch. The terrible last few days came screeching back. And I vowed that this was the only night I’d wake up in last night’s clothes, sleeping in my sister’s house.
“Gena isn’t coming,” she said.
Sammy. The sound of her voice surprised me. I looked down to find her sitting on the floor by the head of the sofa. She was fully dressed, in jeans a button-down shirt, reading a book, patiently waiting for me to wake up.
I rubbed my eyes, confused and still exhausted. “You sure?”
She held up her wrist, where she wore a little watch with SAMMY on the band in glitter. “It’s eight A.M. and she isn’t here.”
“Doesn’t mean she won’t be.”
“Actually, statistically, ninety percent of the time someone shows up within a half an hour of a scheduled obligation, or they don’t show up at all. Her half hour was up over an hour ago.”
“How do you know that?”
“Thomas told me.”
“How does he know that?”
She shrugged. “You’re going to have to ask him.”
I tried to will myself the rest of the way awake—to figure out what I was going to do with Sammy now.
“So I guess we should call your mother.”
She shook her head. “My mother called a little while ago and told me that Thomas had a boo-boo and you were going to watch me until Gena arrived. So I told her she already did.”
“You lied to her?”
She shrugged. “She’ll just worry, and there’s no sense in her worrying.”
I tilted my head, took her in. “How old are you?”
“Six.” She paused. “How old are you?”
“Older than that.”
She looked down at her book. “Obviously. Way older.”
Rain and I hadn’t discussed what I should tell her about who I was—or who I was to her. Gena was supposed to be on duty.
“Has your mom mentioned anything about your family?”
“Not a lot, really. Just that I’m named after my grandpa.”
I cringed, not wanting to react in front of her, irritated to think of anyone being named after my father. “Has she told you anything else?”
“Mom told me on the phone that you’re her sister. The one that sends the checks.”
She seemed to have no discernable reaction to this, not needing or wanting any further information.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“The checks.”
She looked confused by my slowness. Which gave me the opportunity to look away, my heart breaking a little at her gratitude.
I threw off my makeshift cover (a throw blanket with the ABCs on it). “You must be hungry,” I said. “What do you want for breakfast?”
“Cinnamon toast.”
Toast. Great. My mind went to Amber and her terrible toasts. She’d recently done a special episode on sweet treats—and made her own version, which had cinnamon and nutmeg on seeded wheat, smothered in olive oil and butter. I had watched that episode, for some reason or other, and remembered her pride at the addition of the nutmeg. Like she had single-handedly reinvented the cinnamon-toast wheel.
I got up, ready to cobble it together for Sammy. But then she stopped me.
“I only get it at John’s. Eight thirty sharp.”
I turned and looked at her. “Would you like to go there with me now?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“No, you said you only go there.”
“Samesies.”
She looked back down at her book, and I bit my lip trying not to laugh at this confusing child, who apparently acted forty-eighty and eight in the same conversation.
“Considering summer traffic, we will have to leave now if we want to arrive on time,” she said.
“I’m ready when you are.”
She looked up, taking in my wrinkled clothes, snug against my body. “Are you sure about that?”
17
The ride to John’s Pancake House, which took five minutes in the winter, was so far taking us five times as long.
And we were less than halfway there.
Sammy sat in the back, reading a book, unbothered. I was very bothered—not only by the traffic, but by what the traffic represented. Over the last few decades, Montauk had stopped being the one place in the Hamptons that was still undeveloped and became the place that prided itself on a different kind of development. It wasn’t quite as showy. It was more quietly fancy, drawing in the kind of wealthy people who thought they were better than their counterparts because instead of spending money on fancy cars, they spent it on their Priuses and perfectly done cottages filled with shabby chic furnishings. They purchased fluffy couches that cost twelve thousand dollars (the Montauk Sofa, that’s actually what they were called) and cast-iron pots that were never used. It was its own cult of obnoxiousness: the show that didn’t look like one, which was a show all in itself.
The village reflected that. On the surface, it was less a glamorous beach town and more a town of yesteryear: surf shops and restaurants, all desperately needing a face-lift. And sprinkled throughout these Montauk evergreens were the fancier new additions: a yoga studio, an overpriced bar, a designer clothing boutique—all hiding their glamour with the same rustic chic exterior, the occasional six-figure sports car giving the whole enterprise away.
And getting in my way.
A Range Rover took a sharp right turn, forcing us to miss another light.