“To new beginnings,” Gran repeats.
A little rush of guilt rolls through me, and I can’t quite say the words; but I do manage to raise my glass, and between the soft crystal clink it makes against theirs, and the evening light slanting in through the kitchen window, there is something comforting and hopeful about those words. I take a small sip before I set down the glass.
Gran smacks me on the butt. “Now go get washed up for dinner. I don’t want to get in trouble with your mom. She already blames me for the way this one turned out.”
Ryan just smiles and takes another sip of her wine like it’s an everyday thing for her.
“Fine,” I say, trying to sound exasperated, but they make me happy, these two together. “Where is Mom anyway?”
“She dropped me off and then went to that hipster organic market to pay three times the amount she would at the grocery store for grass-fed, massaged, blessed, heart-healthy meat to feed us all.”
Ryan and I catch each other’s eye—Gran just said hipster.
“Trendy hipster markets,” Ryan says with a smirk as she puts the salad in the fridge.
“What a racket,” Gran agrees.
I finish husking the last ear of corn, put it on a tray, and look around for another dinner task that’ll stretch out my time here in the kitchen with the two of them, because I realize right now in this moment how much I love my gran, and how much I’ve missed my sister. Having Ryan back is like having a whole different level of energy in the house.
“Go on,” Gran shoos me. “I need to talk to your sister about her liberation from the angry pixie trope.” She gives me a smack on the butt, and I turn to head upstairs, knowing she wants a few moments alone with Ryan.
For all of the bravado each of them has, I know exactly how it’s going to go. Gran will want to make sure Ryan’s really all right, and she’ll make her give it to her straight. Ryan will let herself be upset with Gran if she needs to be, and then they’ll build their strong front back up together. It’s been their thing since Gramps died when I was seven and Ryan was nine.
Neither one of us had ever seen Gran so completely distraught before, let alone rendered paralyzed and silent. She was—and still is—always moving, always busy, always doing something. But when my grandpa died, she just stopped. I didn’t understand it then, but now I’ve known the feeling for too long.
When it happened to Gran, I had skirted the edges of whatever room she was in while Mom took care of necessary details day in and day out. I didn’t know what else to do. But after a few weeks, Ryan had marched right up to Gran one day as she sat in the chair she seemingly hadn’t moved from since the service. Ryan put her hands on her hips and gave Gran an order. “Get up.”
Somehow those words had snapped Gran out of her grief-induced paralysis, and ever since, the two of them have had this understanding and this toughness with each other that I wish they’d try with me too. Instead, when Trent died, everybody had tiptoed around, and doted on me, and acted like I was made of glass. They didn’t need to worry about breaking me though. I was already shattered all over the floor into tiny slivers—the kind that escape the cleanup and come out of nowhere, invisible little things that surprise you when you least expect them.
I step gingerly up the first few stairs, hoping to catch a few of the words that pass between Ryan and Gran, but their voices are hushed now, so I give up and head to the bathroom to shower. With the door closed and the shower on, I pull my sundress over my head so I’m in my bikini, and I look at myself in the mirror that’s already fogged up around the edge. I look for what my grandma was talking about, and I almost think I can see it—something different, courtesy of the fresh air, and the ocean, and . . . and maybe Colton Thomas too.
My dark hair falls wavy and wild over my shoulders and chest, which are both a deep red that I know will fade to tan tomorrow. I lean in closer and can see, just barely, that there’s a new sprinkling of tiny freckles across the tops of my cheeks and nose. I smile at my reflection before it fades behind swirls of steam. I had a good day. For the first time in a very long time, I really did, which is why I almost don’t want to wash it away tonight. I like the feel of the salt and the sand on my skin, like a reminder that there is a whole world that’s alive and continuing on out there.
And that today I was a part of it again.
“The hand cannot execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“SO WHAT ABOUT that kayak lesson you took today,” Ryan says brightly as she passes me a platter piled high with foil-wrapped corn. I feel Mom’s ears prick up, and I shoot Ryan a look.
“What?” she asks innocently. But there’s a tiny flicker behind her eyes that asks me to go along with it. “I think it’s awesome that you did that.”
And you don’t want to talk about Ethan or your trip or why you’re here right now, I think.
“What was that now?” Mom asks like she didn’t hear Ryan quite right. “You took a kayak lesson today?” She looks at me, confused. And rightly so. This is out of left field for me. “Was this with you?” she asks, looking at Gran. “A Red Hat thing?” Gran shakes her head, and Mom looks back at me, even more confused. “Who did you go with?”
I pass her the corn platter and take the plate of hipster-market steak from Ryan, trying to sound casual about it. “It was just me, by myself. Gran and I talked yesterday about doing something like that, and so today I just—I just did it. On a whim,” I add, trying to say it like Ryan would—with enough resolve and confidence that no one questions it, never mind the fact that kayaking isn’t something I’ve ever shown any interest in. Ever. Mom used to catch all those details, but since Dad’s stroke scare, she’s been a little less astute with that kind of thing.