I reached out and hugged him hard. “Really . . . thank you.”
I pulled away and noticed her sitting outside in a car—both hands up by the dashboard as she leaned forward to stare at me.
Oliver followed my eyes and saw her get out and stand by her car door.
“Oh Jesus,” he said under his breath.
She started to walk toward the open front door, and I turned away.
“Isla,” she called after me.
“No.” It came out as a whisper.
I ran out to the backyard and left through the gated fence. My hands shook as I got inside my car. Oliver came dashing out, my purse in his hands, Marlow trailing him. He handed it to me through the window and I gave him another grateful look as I started the engine. I turned my head so I couldn’t see them, but I caught sight of him blocking her gently as I pulled out of the driveway. I looked up once in the rearview mirror.
She stood in the middle of the street, arms straight down at her sides like a soldier, watching me.
My heart raced. I didn’t stop until I made it back to the farmhouse.
I slammed the door as if to seal off the rest of the world. The quiet. I needed it. I needed a moment without another “I’m so sorry.” Without the smell of coffee and cheap cake. Without the drum of voices that never really got Sawyer the way I did.
Without the sight of her, her eyes watching me through the windshield.
And then I felt it, the sheer solitude. The silent echoes of our house that told me he would never enter again. I had been running away from my mind. I had been staving off the truth with little tricks. Convincing it that once I was alone—once the funeral and well-wishers were all over with and gone—it would return to normal.
He would return to the house we built together.
No, no, no.
He was never coming back. He was never coming home to me. I was alone but it felt unbearably loud all around. There was screaming inside me, an uncontrollable panic taking over. And I hated it. I hated it with everything I had.
How can you be gone? How is this possible?
Something else needed to be there . . . something else needed to wrap around me, or I wouldn’t make it. I was sure of it.
I stripped off the ill-fitting black dress I bought two days ago and turned the faucet on in the big white tub upstairs. I slid in the hot water and let the noises drown out.
There was relief. I sucked in air slowly, and then let it out. I shut my eyes and put my head back.
I floated.
She did this. She did this to you. She did this to you both.
My chest vibrated with silent weeping. A rage so deep and violent it split me in half. My forearm draped over my face, I screamed.
“Marlow!”
The water covered my head as I sank. I screamed her name once more out into the void.
CHAPTER 48
ISLA
2017
A few months after Sawyer’s funeral, I got a call from Ada.
We had kept in touch. I visited her occasionally. She was the only one left who knew Sawyer like I did. The only one who continued to talk about him as if he were still here, as if everything about him hadn’t drifted away with his death. He wasn’t going to be forgotten that easily.
Our meetings were the small lights in my days. I would often bring her something to eat. She loved simple foods, dense in calories—perhaps eating took too much effort and a single meal was enough. A gravy-laden meatloaf with mashed potatoes. A thick macaroni casserole. She was even less mobile now; she’d grown heavier over the years. Her hair thin and white, she had ceased dyeing it. It still surprised me each time I saw her, the lack of vibrant red, its absence even stronger than its presence had been.
She would sit in her recliner and eat her meal while I told her about my day. As repetitive and lackluster as each day was, she seemed to enjoy these dull details. I suppose it was a story she could bear to listen to, as though listening to anything else was too much for her. Another piece of unwelcome news might tip her over, like a glass that had been propped up haphazardly, ready to break.
I picked up the picture of Sawyer’s mother displayed next to her one afternoon. I didn’t remember her being that lovely when I first saw it all those years ago. But she radiated, and I imagined Sawyer back with her. The daughter Ada lost now with the husband I lost.
“Comforts you, doesn’t it?” Ada said from her plate as she rocked the chair a little.
“Yes. It does.” I placed the frame back on the table.
“I look at it each night. I wonder if they’re together somewhere. My little girl finally with her baby.” She paused and studied me. “How you doing lately, hon?”
“Oh, you know, Ada . . .”
“I mean really. I’m okay being like this until it’s my time. I’ve got no complaints. But you’ve got some life ahead of you.”
I nodded to placate her.
“Don’t waste it.” She waved a fork at me, and sauce dripped onto the arm of the recliner.
