Vivie’s breath caught, and she rolled over to Evelyn. “Where’ve you been?” she mumbled drowsily.
“Just talking to Bernie,” Evelyn whispered.
“’S everything okay?”
Evelyn stroked her sister’s hair, then kissed her forehead. “Yes, darling. Go back to sleep.”
Vivie rolled back over and nestled into her sister, who hugged her gently and wished, as she fell asleep, that her beloved sister would never have to deal with such complications in love.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
My first thought the following morning was that the sheets felt wrong. So did the pillow. And the mattress. I opened my eyes, and it took me a minute to realize where I was. Light peeked around the edges of curtains, which fluttered gently where I had left the window cracked the night before. Hereford, I thought sleepily.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes, got out of bed, and pulled back the curtains to see what was outside. Through the trees, the ocean sparkled in the morning sunlight. I opened the window as wide as it would go and inhaled. There was no trace of the underlying fishy smell that had permeated the town. Out here there was just the salt of the ocean and the sharp, clean scent of the pitch pines that grew along the craggy coast.
For a moment, the first in half a year, there was no divorce. No loss. No sense of failure. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Grandma was right about it being in my blood. This was the smell of home.
Grandma.
The claustrophobia of the past months crashed over me. I wasn’t here to be home. I was here to run away. Because I had no home. And no one to miss me.
I sank back onto the unmade bed, my head in my hands, focusing on my breathing to steady myself. When I finally felt under control, I checked my phone. There were no messages except emails from companies, most of whose products I could no longer afford. A metaphor for what was left of my perfect life. It was early still, only seven. My room faced due east, so the sun had woken me.
But working myself into a panic attack wasn’t going to help. After a trip to the bathroom, I pulled on a sports bra, top, and leggings before going downstairs. If Grandma was up, I’d see what she wanted to do about breakfast. If not, I’d go for a run to clear away the anxiety. It usually came right back, but if I pushed hard enough, I could buy myself a little time when I could just be, not think.
There was no sign of her, so I made a cup of coffee, grateful that the owner had supplied a Keurig and a stock of K-Cups, and wrote my grandmother a note while I drank it.
I didn’t need to consult a map. The road dead-ended at the empty lot just past the other cottage, which, according to my grandmother, had been her brother Bernie’s. She said they lost this one when Sam’s “wretched wife” sold it. When I asked about Bernie’s, she changed the subject.
I jogged down the road to where it ended. It was less than half a mile from the cottage to the Hereford Inn, which bordered the beach. I went through the Inn’s parking lot and over a dune path to enter the beach, which, except for a couple of other joggers in the distance, was empty. Away from the threat of cars, I slipped my headphones in, turned my music on, and made my way to the firmer sand by the water’s edge. A small island jutted out of the ocean just offshore.
The beach spanned about a mile and a half, just a cove really, ending in a rock jetty that I stopped to stare at. These were the rocks I remembered from my childhood visit. I was sure of it. I looked for a way to climb up, but the tide was in, and there was water all around them. There were tiny snails, though, and I smiled, remembering Grandma taking my shovel and gently placing snails in my blue bucket with the yellow handle. Helen’s funeral, I thought, trying to remember if she had been sad. She must have been. But all I remembered was the feeling of being with her on the beach because she was the sun. And when she shone her full force on you, nothing could be wrong.
Or at least that’s how it felt when I was four. Thirty years later? Not so much. There was plenty wrong. And the only thing she was shining on me lately was a whole lot of crazy. She would have been fifty-eight then. Younger than my mom is now. Would my mother ever get a chance to play on the beach with my children? Now that I was almost thirty-five and suddenly single, it was looking less and less likely.
Ugh. The run wasn’t working.
I turned around, wishing I was back in my childhood bedroom, where, yes, I was in a horrible rut, but it was my familiar rut. Not these new feelings of inadequacy.
Halfway back down the beach, another jogger approached, running with a black dog. I dodged closer to the surf to avoid them, but the dog came right at me, forcing me to stop to avoid the water.