The Rattled Bones(45)

“Did she try to walk into the waves then? When I was inside her?”

A look of horror crowds Gram’s features. “Oh, no, child. Nothing like that. She loved ya, Rilla. She never would have hurt ya.”

“But she did hurt me. She left and never came back.”

Gram nods a quiet nod. “Yes, I’m sad to call that the truth. Things got worse for your mother in the years after ya were born. I saw her slipping away, and it was the hardest thing to watch.”

After I was born. While she was pregnant with me. Was I the reason the Water People came to her? Am I to blame? “Sam’s work out on the island, it makes me think how we’re all connected in ways that we might not even know.” In ways we don’t even understand.

“I believe we are.” Gram and her theory about bees pollinating our stories, our connectedness.

I’m about to tell Gram what I’ve learned about the history of Malaga, but how can I bring her any more sorrow? “You’re sure you’ll be okay if I go?”

“I’m an old woman, Rilla. I’ll be fine knowing that you’re living the life ya want to live.” She comes to me and puts her hand to my shoulder, squeezing her love down into my bones.

“I think that means leaving.” I place my hand on hers. “But not in the way she did. I’ll be back, Gram. You know that, right?”

“I want ya to live the best version of your life, Rilla. Nothing could make me prouder.”

I stand, hug my grandmother. We stay connected like that for a long time, neither of us knowing exactly what the future will bring, but each of us willing to take a chance on it anyway.

When Gram disappears to the kitchen, the decision to leave feels too final, like there’s no turning back. Dad used to joke about the loneliness of an empty nest, but he never could’ve expected that Gram would be left alone in our nest. Would he really still want me to go if he knew she’d have no one?

When I hear Reed’s knock at the back door—three quick raps, like always—I jump. I try to see through the blur of time that fogs my days lately. Hadn’t I told him I wanted to be alone tonight? That was only earlier today, wasn’t it?

Then I fear something’s wrong, the way a similar unexpected knock sounded at our front door the day Dad’s boat was found at sea.

I dart to the kitchen, where Reed’s handing Gram a bouquet of wildflowers.

“You staying for dinner?” she asks.

“If you’ll have me.”

“Always a plate for ya at our table, Reed Benner.”

I go to him. “Everything okay?”

“?’Course.” He smiles a sleepy, lazy smile, his cheeks red. Same as his eyes.

Reed turns to Gram as she’s perfecting tonight’s chowder, adding the flaked haddock in last so it stays tender in the creamy broth. He suggests we eat outside, so we carry the place settings to the picnic table on the lawn, where we devour Gram’s soup and watch the sun fade. The air is cool as it carries the breeze from the sea. Malaga sits in the distance, watching us. Sam’s boat is still at its shores, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s there too, the lost girl. I remember the way my mother used to look out at the ocean, as if she wanted to be a part of it. But maybe she was staring at Malaga. Reed catches my gaze, follows it to Sam’s boat, the island. I hate that I haven’t told him everything.

When Gram slides her spoon to the bottom of her empty bowl, she wipes at the sides of her mouth and stands. She gathers up the salt and pepper, their tiny glass bottles tinking as they marry in her grasp. “I’m going to paint and then retire.”

“Good night, Gram,” Reed says. “Dinner was delicious.” He heads to the fire pit just off the deck.

I stand, give her a kiss good night. “Thank you. For everything.”

“Being your gram is the most precious thing in the world, Rilla. Ya keep enough room in that head of yours to never forget that.”

“I promise.”

Gram goes inside and I clear our plates. When I return, Reed has already coaxed a quick, high flame from the dry pine kindling. I sit on the giant log placed fireside by my dad years ago.

“Everything okay?”

Maybe. I don’t know. “Fine, why?”

He shrugs, pokes at the flames with a long branch. “You seem distant.”

“You’re stoned and I’m distant?”

He laughs. “Fair point.” He adds a thick oak log to the flame, and the fire whooshes under the weight of the new, dense wood. “You were quiet at dinner is all.”

“I told you I was tired, that tonight wasn’t a good night to come over.”

“I missed you. Is that so horrible?”

“No. It’s just . . . dinner was hard.”

He sits next to me, his thigh pressing against mine. “How so?”

I lean my head on his sharp shoulder, feel the flame’s heat trapped in his shirt, the smoke already burrowed into the fabric of his tee. Still, there’s ice in the breeze, and I flatten my palms to the smoke of the fire pit, trying to warm my skin from the chill. “There’s a lot I’m going to miss. My gram. Things like this, sitting here with you.”

“Miss?”

“When I leave in August.”

I feel his shoulder tighten, his back straighten. “That again?”