Girl Out of Water(54)

The immense power of the ash, the power to stick and unstick time and place—if I could harness that kind of power, I could do anything. If I wanted to, the next time my mom drops in town, I could bury her in it. Preserve her in powdered glass, mold her by our sides so she could never leave again.

My own little fossilized Santa Cruz family.

? ? ?

The air feels cooler outside as I settle at one of the large, wood-planked picnic tables. Lincoln runs back to the car for our bags of food, promising not to peek at mine until we’re together. I glance at the rhino barn and think how odd it is that a few feet and some aluminum siding separates me from twelve million years ago, like if I blinked I could slip back to another time entirely. Did my mom know about this place? Probably not. If so, she probably would’ve tried to free the bones from their eternal homes.

Lincoln returns and places the brown paper bags on the table. “You okay?” he asks.

“Um, yeah,” I lie and then pause. I’m not okay. I was okay. At the beginning of the summer, I was great, but now I’m here in Nebraska, without my friends and in a place that constantly pulls my thoughts to my mom like a cruel geographical magnet. “Actually, no—I’m kind of…”

“What is it?”

It’s weird. I’ve never had to tell this story to anyone. Everyone in my life knows about my mom, how she left and came back and left and came back, how each time I was more upset and less interested in talking about it. I mean, I didn’t even tell Tess about the postcard.

But Lincoln knows nothing about my mom and all she’s done to me and all she hasn’t done for me. I don’t know if it’s the centuries old animal bones or the way I feel when Lincoln locks eyes with me, but suddenly I want to tell him.

So I do.

I tell him about her many disappearances. The hurt, the disappointment, the anger. I tell him things I don’t even like to admit to myself—the way I still let her back in every time, the way I hate myself for doing so. How much I hate being here because an invisible piece of her hides around every corner. I tell him about the postcard, how my stomach tightens each time I get home from the park because there’s the slight chance I could find her watching TV in the living room.

“I’m sorry, Anise,” Lincoln says when I finish.

The three simple words make me want to cry, but I force those tears away. I’m a lucky person. I live in the most wonderful place in the world. Dad loves me. I have everything I need. I don’t need her.

“I wonder what’s harder,” Lincoln says.

I look at him. “What?”

“I wonder what’s harder,” he repeats, thoughtfully. “Having a biological mom I’ll never know or having a mom who comes and goes without warning, like yours.”

I chew my lip. I’m not sure which is harder either. I guess it’s impossible to know unless you’ve experienced both. All I know is how bad I feel for the woman, who for whatever reasons, never got to experience what a wonderful person Lincoln is.

We sit in silence with our thoughts for a few minutes. I let the wind calm me, listening to the way it whistles through the dry grass. Then my stomach growls and completely evaporates the intense mood. Lincoln laughs, his dimple popping out. “Are you ready for our challenge?” he asks.

“I’m always ready to win.”

“Losers first.” He coughs. “I mean, you first.”

I’m so confident in my food choices that I don’t even argue. I open my bag and place five items on the table—a baguette, cilantro, jalape?o, some chili sauce packets I may or may not have stolen from the fresh-made deli section, and though it makes my stomach churn—

“SPAM!” Lincoln snatches the can from the table and stares at it and then the rest of the ingredients. “Bánh mì Spam! Okay, you won. You definitely won. How did you—”

The only thing I love more than Lincoln’s smile is being the cause of Lincoln’s smile. “Well, obviously I didn’t have enough money for all the ingredients, but I saw the Spam and remembered your road trip story and figured I might as well give it a shot.”

Lincoln glances at his bag and looks a bit deflated. “Now I’m ashamed of my purchase. Let’s just eat bánh mì Spam sandwiches for the rest of forever.”

“I don’t think so.” I grab for his bag. “Let’s see… Oh my god.” I look up at him. “How did you—”

“Your cousins shared your particularly eclectic taste in breakfast cereal combinations. Our mom was horrified when she found Austin eating it last week.”

Inside the bag I find boxes of Cap’n Crunch, Lucky Charms, and Cocoa Puffs. My heart flutters like it does when I see a good wave forecast, and I can’t pull the smile from my face. I open the Lucky Charms and lift the box toward him. “Cheers, Lincoln.”

He lifts his can of Spam and taps it with my cereal. “Cheers, Anise.”

? ? ?

It’s not until we’ve been back on the road for a few miles that I remember it’s been hours since I’ve checked my phone. I push aside my bag of souvenirs (fake animal bones made out of white chocolate for the family, postcards for my friends, and a little plush rhino for myself) and grab my tote. I pull out my phone. My mouth goes dry and my stomach churns.

Ten missed calls.