“Oh my God…” Emma whispered.

“What?” I asked, looking back and forth. “Who is that?”

A long, disbelieving pause. “That’s my mom.”

CHAPTER 9 EMMA

I watched in disbelief as the yacht docked.

Maddy was already off the pontoon and running toward me across the beach. She skidded to a halt in front of me, still catching her breath from the sprint. “This bitch,” she managed.

Justin stood next to me. “You didn’t invite her?”

“No the fuck we did not,” Maddy said, glaring over her shoulder at Mom getting off the boat.

Amber was in a flowing white-and-peach chiffon summer dress with a slit up the thigh. Her long brown hair was down, she had on a floppy wide-brimmed hat and huge sunglasses. She was carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand and her sandals in the other, dangling off the tips of her fingers. She was beaming, running toward us across the beach, kicking up sand. “Emma!” She laughed.

Despite my shock and the lasers I could feel coming out of Maddy’s eyes, I smiled. Mom…

That old thrill ran through me. The one I always got when she showed up again unexpectedly, to rescue me, or surprise me, or finally take me home. I ran toward her. And when I met her in the middle of the lawn and she hugged me, I was so overwhelmed with relief, I started to cry.

I was a little girl again. Catapulted back to eight years old, in the arms of my mother. She smelled the way she always did during good times. Like roses. The smell was strong and fresh and I felt myself reset back to zero.

That scent was a barometer. When she stopped putting it on, it meant she was getting closer to disappearing again. When she started losing interest in self-care, she’d start losing interest in everything. Her job, her responsibilities.

Me.

It was strange how I realized I knew this, without ever consciously knowing it. The fading scent of roses would make me brace. Make me hyperaware of her comings and goings. Make me try harder to be less of a burden so maybe she wouldn’t feel the need to put me down again and go.

Do well in school. Do my own laundry. Make my own food. Don’t ask for anything. Don’t need anything. Clean up after myself. Then after her. Be helpful. Be invisible. Be small.

She broke away from me and smiled.

I wiped under my eyes and her hat blew off and she laughed with a hand to her hair as it tumbled toward the water. The man who’d been driving the yacht was coming up the beach. He leaned over and grabbed it on his way.

He was good looking. Maybe early fifties. Strong jaw, a full head of gray hair, chin dimple, tall. He wore a pink polo and white shorts. Mom gave him one of her dazzling grins as he came up next to her.

“Emma, you won’t believe my day,” she said, looking back at me. “So I wanted to surprise you. I flew all the way over here on a red-eye, got an Uber, and came out to the address you gave me, but when I knocked on the door this handsome man answered instead.”

The handsome man put a hand out. “Neil.”

I shook it, realizing I was meeting our landlord. Maddy must have realized it too, because she came over with Justin following right behind her.

“This is Maddy,” I said. “And that’s Justin.”

Mom smiled at Maddy, who gave her a stiff “hey.” My date extended a hand to Neil. “Nice to meet you.” They shook and Justin tipped his head at Mom, who was putting her hat back on.

“What a day,” Neil said, looking at Mom. “Here I thought it was going to be just another boring Tuesday and then there’s a beautiful woman standing on my porch.”

She peered up at him with stars in her eyes, and he grinned.

She talked to me but looked at him. “After a minute or two we realized that you’re renting his cottage.” She turned back to me. “It was still early and I didn’t want to call you and wake you up, so he invited me in for a coffee and we just couldn’t stop talking. Then he got the idea to drive me out to the island and drop me off, so we got on the boat, and we just ended up cruising around instead. We spent the whole day on the water. We stopped at Lord Fletcher’s and had drinks—”

“Thanks for taking care of her,” Maddy said flatly.

“We were going to grill some lobsters,” Neil said, putting a thumb over his shoulder toward the pool. “Would you like to join us?”

Mom gasped happily. “Yes! You should all join us! I was going to make a Bloody Mary bar!”

Maddy started shaking her head. “We’re still unpacking—”

“Oh, you can do that later,” Mom said, waving her off. “What’s one more hour? Neil’s having Maine lobsters delivered!”

“It’s settled then,” Neil said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll get some appetizers started.”

Mom smiled up at him. “If you aren’t the best host I’ve ever met.”

He beamed and nodded to the back of the house. “Let’s all head to the pool and find some shade.” Then he and Mom left us standing there while they laughed and chatted on their way to the outdoor bar.

I turned stiffly back to Maddy and Justin.

“Are you kidding me with this?” Maddy hissed as soon as they were out of earshot. “She’s here for what? Six hours? And she’s already hypnotized our landlord?”

I chewed my lip. “We don’t know that.” I watched Maddy scowl at something over my shoulder and when I turned around Neil had a palm on Mom’s lower back. She leaned into him in a way that definitely didn’t look like this was the first time he’d touched her.

Shit.

“That woman scorches the earth,” Maddy whispered. “This is so fucked.”

“She’ll probably only stay a few days,” I said, my voice low. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

She scoffed. “Come on. You know exactly why she’s here. You gave her the address, she googled it, she saw this big-ass house, and she caught the very next plane to get in on whatever you had going on. And now she’s boning that guy and it’s gonna be alllll the drama.”

“What is she going to do?” Justin asked, looking back and forth between us.

Maddy crossed her arms. “What she always does? Show up and leave a path of destruction in her wake? She’s not staying with us,” she said in her end-of-discussion voice.

But it was pretty clear Mom had her eyes on a much more comfortable house than ours.

“You need to tell her to leave,” Maddy said.

My head jerked back. “No!”

“What the hell do you mean no?”

“I haven’t seen her in almost two years, Maddy.”

“So?” She threw up a hand. “See her. But make her get a hotel room. We don’t need to burn bridges with the man we’re renting from. It’s going to be a shitshow.”