I glance around for Ringo, worried that maybe he decided to leave after all. I’m trying to stand on sea legs and, suddenly, it doesn’t feel like an eighty-year-old woman is going to be enough to keep me upright. The Hightowers have turned their backs on the rituals of their faith. All because of me.
As if by necessity, Mom appears next to me. Before this moment, the thought of her intruding on my space with Penny’s family seemed like it’d be a violation. But at the moment, I don’t think I mind. She has on her usual odd mash-up of clothing that she puts together whenever she’s forced into social situations—an unflattering peplum top six seasons old paired with slacks too baggy in the leg, and kitten heels. “Lake, honey.” She runs her hand over my hair. “Mrs. Adler, I’m so sorry for the loss of your granddaughter. Hamakom y’nachem etchem b’toch sh’ar availai tziyon ee yerushalayim.”
I gawk at her in surprise. “What does that mean?”
It’s Grandma Adler who translates for me. “‘May God comfort you among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.’” She nods. “Thank you.”
“If you’ll excuse us,” my mom says to Grandma Adler and leads me away.
“How do you know—I don’t know—Hebrew?”
Mom’s smile is sweet and sad. “When you’ve experienced tragedy, Lake, you want to help others who are experiencing it in whatever small ways you can.” We weave through the other mourners. “Tessa and Simon are lucky to have a community surrounding them.” Her voice is wistful. I glance up long enough to see a canvas portrait of Penny propped up on an easel. I recognize the photograph. I took it. It’s Penny in our spot. The cliff overlooking the point where the three of us—well, at least Will and I—jump. Penny sits cross-legged on a rock, meditating with her eyes closed. Her pointer finger and thumb are pressed together, the backs of her hands resting on her knees. The pink sunset behind her turns her blond hair into a golden halo.
I swallow hard, surprised that Penny’s family picked this picture to display. The Hightowers are kind people, but they’re very by the book—PTA, expensive Tommy Bahama shirts, that sort of thing. I always got the impression that her parents thought that the free-spirit, whale-saving, yoga thing was just a phase, a stop on Penny’s way to law school as opposed to a monastery in Tibet. I knew better.
“Mom,” I say, careful to keep any anger out of my voice because I’m not—angry, that is. “I didn’t ask you to come.”
“I know,” she says.
I’m about to explain why when I notice a slim girl who I immediately recognize crossing the room toward me. Maya’s long graceful legs carry her to us in a few easy steps, causing me to lose my train of thought entirely. She weaves her fingers together and clasps her hands below her waist. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says to me. Her dark hair is swept back by a shiny gold headband. She offers my mom a close-lipped smile, then dabs at her nose with a crumpled tissue. It could be my imagination, but I think Maya may have been crying.
Mom beams down at her. “I’ll let you girls chat for a minute.” She shrugs and it comes across cutesy and falsely conspiratorial. I want to throw up.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“You’re not the only one broken up about Will’s death…and Penny’s,” she adds, almost as an afterthought. She crosses her arms, tucking the hand with the tissue beneath one armpit, and looks off to the side.
Her comment annoys me for reasons that I can’t quite pinpoint. “You hardly even knew them,” I say.
She sniffles. “I knew Will. Maybe not like you, but I knew him. Both of them, I mean,” she adds. The hairs on the backs of my arms prickle, but before I can reply, her eyes flit skyward and she says, “Relax, I go to Penny’s parents’ synagogue. I’m not here to lay claim to”—she sweeps her hand over the room—“any of this, okay?” Maybe I was being paranoid. “Look, Harrison told me you came to talk to him about that stupid ChatterJaw thread. And I just wanted to say that he means well. Harrison, I mean. Really, he does. He feels like he has to, I don’t know, watch over everyone.” I think of how seriously he’s been taking his lifeguarding duties and how I might have underestimated him. “It can be really sweet. But this wasn’t his place. He should have minded his own business and he certainly shouldn’t have posted about what he read on ChatterJaw.” At this she blows a long stream of air out from her jutted lips.
I narrow my eyes. “He mentioned that you were against me knowing about that thread in the first place,” I say. “Why?”
Maya pins a stray hair back underneath the metallic band. “I told you. He doesn’t have the full story.”
“And you do?” I ask, not quite sure why I’m pushing Maya on this so hard, but feeling my bloodhound senses going ballistic.
“No,” she says. “I don’t. Just like you don’t have the full story about us.” My stomach tightens. I assume she’s referring to Harrison and her, or…is it something more than that?
That’s when I start to notice the uncomfortable amount of scrutiny I’m receiving from onlookers all around, casting furtive glances over plastic cups. Words die on my tongue. People are looking at me. I hear someone whisper, “That’s her best friend.”
Is that what they said?
Maya glances over her shoulder. She seems to sense it too.
My ears prick at the mention of my name. Yep, that’s definitely what they said.
My jaw clenches. Unexpectedly, Maya reaches down and squeezes my hand. “You’d better go find your mom,” she says. I nod mechanically. She lets go of my palm. I push through the crowd, but now snippets of conversation reach me with every step.
“Resurrection…is there a chance?”
“Apparently the girl’s boyfriend was…”
“Any other hope?”
That last one is followed by a sullen silence.
My heart trips faster and faster. Out of a cluster of people, Mom yanks herself free and clasps both of my arms and stares into my eyes. “You doing all right, kiddo? You look a little green.”
A smooth black dress interjects itself in front of me, followed by a charcoal-gray suit.
“Tessa.” My voice cracks. I realize I have never stood in the same room as Mom and the woman who treated me like a daughter when my own mom was too busy with Matt. I wonder if my mom is coming to the same realization too. “Simon,” I say. I’m wishing that I’d come to visit them some other time, when I didn’t have to be here in front of all these people.
“Lake, sweetie.” Tessa wraps her arms around me and pulls me into her breast. Her perfume smells like roses and cinnamon. “Your arm.” She unclasps me and latches onto the cast around my elbow. Her expression is pained. “Does…does it hurt?”
I turn the cast over. The weight of it still rests in her hands. “No, not too bad, really. It’s fine.” I gently extricate it from her grip.
“It’s kind of you to come,” Tessa says to Mom.