“I have to go,” she said again. “I’m sorry, but I need to get back home.”
Annette
Annette woke to the sounds of Ruby sliding the curtains open on their metal rods. Bright sunshine poured into the room, along with the sound of kids in the parking lot. “Daddy, will you teach me to ride the waves?” Annette heard a boy ask. Through the window, she saw a toddler, in a pink-and-white-striped bathing suit, sitting in a backpack on her father’s shoulders, as an older sibling glided in circles on a push-bike.
“Coffee?” she asked. Ruby gave her a bleak smile.
“Sure. And then we’d better go back and face the music.”
“Should you call them?” Annette asked.
Ruby looked shamefaced. “I don’t have my phone.”
Annette felt a trill of alarm. “You didn’t tell anyone you were leaving?”
Ruby shook her head. “I left Gabe a note. Then I just took off.” She sounded almost proud as she said, “It’s the most irresponsible thing I’ve done in my entire life.” Smoothing her curls, she considered, then added, “Maybe it’s the only irresponsible thing I’ve done in my life.”
“Don’t worry,” Annette said. “I’ve done enough irresponsible things for both of us.”
Ruby restored her neat bun. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at her mother. “This is terrible to say, but I feel like I dodged a bullet. It’s not Gabe,” she added quickly. “He’s not a bad guy. And he loved me. Loves me,” she quickly corrected. “I guess I’m just not ready.” Ruby smiled bleakly. “I guess it’s better to figure it out now, before anything irrevocable happens.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Annette. She tried to keep her tone light, but she felt, in the room, the ghost of something dark and woeful, the specter of Ruby’s nonexistence. “I love you,” she said, because it was true. “And I’m not sorry, if that’s what you’re wondering. I didn’t want to have children, and I was crap at being a mother.” She paused. “But I do love you. And I know your dad loves you, and Sarah does, too. And I want to be here for you now. As best I can.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have been sorry.” Ruby’s voice was low and musing. “Maybe I would have been happy, married to Gabe.”
Annette took her daughter’s hand. “What do you want? Not your stepmother or your father or your grandmother or Gabe. Or me, for that matter. Just you. Close your eyes and ask yourself: What do I want?”
Ruby shut her eyes and sat quietly for a moment. Then she gave Annette a smile of surpassing sweetness. “I want coffee and a malasada. And then, I think, I want to go home.”
Sam
Sam drove Gabe and his mother to Provincetown, parking in the same lot where he’d left the car the night before. He paid a different evening attendant ten dollars—a third of what the price had been, he noted with amusement.
“Maybe we should start at the center of town, and then I’ll head east and you two”—he nodded at Gabe and Rosa—“can head west?” He wanted to walk with Gabe—there were still a number of things that needed saying and, now that they were in public, there was less of a chance that they’d end up, as they had that morning, making out for fifteen minutes instead of talking—but of the three of them, only he and Gabe could be guaranteed to recognize Ruby, unlike Rosa, who still hadn’t met her son’s former intended in person.
Sam nodded. Gabe did, too, and then, when his mother’s back was turned, he reached out and squeezed Sam’s hand. “Weirdest second date ever,” Gabe murmured in a voice pitched for Sam’s ears alone. Sam’s heart took a great, joyful leap. He tried, sternly, to tell himself that he was being ridiculous, that this entire situation was impossible, and that, of all the men in the world, he was not, could not, be falling in love with his niece’s jilted suitor. Except, he realized, as he set off along Commercial Street, maybe he already had.
Rosa
Rosa and Gabe had just made it past the Lobster Pot, and were maneuvering through the morning crowd of bright-eyed families pushing strollers and hungover single men gulping coffee, when Rosa said, “Gabriel, I need to tell you something.”
Gabe looked at his mother curiously. Rosa almost never used his full name. “What’s up? Are you okay?”
“Yes. No. I mean, I’m fine—I’m not sick. It’s just—” She paused and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “There’s something I have to say to you.”