“Maggie, for god’s sake. That’s not what I’m doing. But you can’t keep hauling that poor girl all over the cape. It’s not good for her.”
“I know what’s good for my daughter. She’s been fine for seventeen years, and she’ll be fine today, too.”
Her words cut through me like a jagged piece of ice.
I know what’s good for my daughter.
She’s been fine for seventeen years.
She’ll be fine.
Is that really how she sees our existence? Doing me good? Fine? I glance around at all the beautiful decorations, the roses, all of it for Eva, and probably on the right day, too. Eva didn’t tell me. She didn’t tell anyone, most likely. But my mom thinks she can fix it. Make it something memorable and good and maybe even therapeutic.
She’s trying to make sure Eva is fine.
And that’s when it really hits me. I’ve thought it all before, the shadow of a truth I never allowed to really take root. I’ve brushed it off, excused it, said yes to the next duplex, tolerated the next boyfriend, but now it’s glaring. It’s in Pete’s worried expression. It’s in Mom’s overreaction and overconfidence. It’s in every single one of those purple roses.
I am not fine.
Chapter Twenty-Four
WE END UP AT THE LUCKY LOBSTER MOTEL, Cape Katie’s cheapest accommodation for tourists who plan on spending as little time as possible indoors. We’ve stayed here a couple of times before in between one shitty apartment or duplex and the next.
Mom checks us into a room with two double beds. The carpet is a dingy coral color, the wallpaper a faded seagrass motif, and the bedspreads are a dull gray. I’m pretty sure they used to be bright blue. The whole room smells like a mix of cigarette smoke and Comet.
I toss my suitcase onto one of the beds. The rest of my stuff is still at the lighthouse. Mom told Pete we’d come back for everything in the next week, but right now she wanted to get the hell away from your ugly face. Direct quote. I don’t even ask what she’s going to do with all that party stuff. I don’t want to know.
Jay came into my room while I packed some essentials. He didn’t say anything, just handed me my music books and watched me. What the hell was there to say? Again, I had felt the need to apologize. Who knows, maybe that thousand dollars was for Jay’s football equipment come fall. Maybe it was for food or SAT prep courses or something for the lighthouse. And Mom just took it.
When I finished packing, I couldn’t even look at him. But when I went to pass by him, he stopped with a hand on my arm, there and then gone. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I lifted my gaze to his. I wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, but it felt like it was for more than what had happened with our parents.
“Me too,” I said, and I was. Not because that whole Tumblr fiasco was okay. It wasn’t. But because I really was sorry for hurting him. For never asking. For generally not giving a shit.
Now I look around my new home for the unforeseeable future. Again. I feel a sob rise up in my throat, a longing for my room at the lighthouse, that room I hated so much when Mom first tossed me in there. But it’s the room where Eva and I became us. I almost wish I had taken Pete up on his offer and stayed. But Mom needed me. She’s going to spin the hell out because of this thing with Pete. How could I say no? How could I leave her?
How can I leave her?
I sink down onto the bed while Mom flits throughout the room, unpacking her toiletries onto the chipped bathroom counter, humming like nothing even happened. She cracks open a beer, one of several she no doubt lifted from Pete’s fridge on the way out the door.
I’m not fine.
How can I leave her?
I’m not fine.
How can I leave her?
On the scratchy bedspread, I tap out Schumann’s Fantasie.
It seems fitting, this piano piece that probably could’ve landed me a scholarship but won’t. Because Mom will never change. And I’ll never feel okay about leaving her the way she is, so unstable, so lonely and desperate for . . . for what? I don’t even know anymore. The New York trip is just that—?a trip. And then we’ll come back home and go on with our lives.
“I need some air,” I say, standing up.
“Now?” Mom turns, glancing out the window. “It looks like rain.”
“I won’t melt.”
“I’d rather you stayed in today, baby.” She laces her fingers together, wringing them into a knot. “I’m so upset, I don’t know what to do with myself.”
I take a step toward her, because I don’t really know what to do with myself either.
“Oh, shit, Eva’s birthday.” She presses her hands to her cheeks. “I need to call her.” She grabs her ratty pleather purse and digs out her ancient flip phone.
I take a step back.
I’m already out the door by the time I hear her say Eva’s name into the phone.
By the time I reach the pier, the rain has soaked through my black Star Wars T-shirt. It’s one of Luca’s, and I think it used to be Macon’s. It’s so worn and thin, it feels like it might disintegrate against my skin.
I want to call him. I want my best friend with me, right here, right now. But I leave my phone in my pocket, turned off. Because he’ll just say I told you so, and, yeah, while he did tell me so, I don’t want to hear it.
Emmaline bobs on the water between several other boats, a little haven of safety. I step on board and open the compartment next to the steering wheel, finding the keys that open the door leading to the cabin below deck. I walk down the short set of stairs and into the darkened room. A strand of white lights encircles the space, hanging on thumbtacks, and I plug them in under the tiny two-seater table. A soft glow fills the cabin. There’s a set of bunk beds near the back, beds I’ve slept on so many times, I’ve lost count. I drag myself to the top bunk and collapse onto the mattress, still soaking wet. Underneath me, the navy-blue comforter is soft and well-used, and my fingers fly over its surface easily.
Tapping, tapping, tapping.
Tapping out my Fantasie.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE MATTRESS SHAKES AND I JOLT AWAKE, SITTING UP and hitting my head on the low ceiling.
“Ow!” I yell, my hands flying to my head.
“God, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I rub my eyes once, twice, then crack them open to find Eva’s face peering over the edge of the bed. Her feet are propped on the lower bunk, hands holding on to the top mattress.
“Hey,” she says softly.
I release a breath and flop back down onto the bed, my head pounding. Outside the little window, the sky is ink-dark and starless, rain pattering softly on Emmaline’s roof.
“Grace,” Eva says, “I didn’t know about the party.”
“Is today really your birthday?”
A pause. A deep breath. “Yes.”
“Eighteenth?”
“Seventeen. Mom homeschooled me during junior high, and I skipped a grade when I got to high school.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Another beat. “Will you come down here, please?”