This Place of Wonder (5)

I think of his laughter, the big sound of it, and how much I adored that as a child. “I’ll never see him again.”

“No.”

Somewhere in my body there must be some grief, but right this second I can’t find it. I hold my arms across my gut and wait. “Is there more?”

She shakes her head gently. “Do you want to stay in rehab or get out and be with your family?”

“Oh.” I look at my hands. They’re so clean, unlike the days when I worked with dirt and grapes and wine. “I don’t know.”

“How are you feeling about your sobriety?”

Rehab is safe. I’m protected here from temptation, from high emotion, from everything out there that might derail me. Meadow’s face comes to me. This will be hard on her. I think of my sister. Harder still on her. “Good enough, I think. My stepmom and sister will need me.”

She nods. Regards me another long, soft minute. “If you’ll go to ninety meetings in ninety days, I’ll sign the release.”

It feels both aggravating and like a promise of some possible safety. “Okay.”

Slowly walking back toward my room, I wait for emotion to well up, rise, fill my body.

But there’s nothing.





Chapter Four


Norah


Of course Meadow banishes me. The night of Augustus’s death she comforted me, made me tea, tucked me into bed. It was a great kindness.

Two days later she arrives at the back door of Belle l’été at eight in the morning, her wild red hair caught back into a braid, her dog Elvis at her heels. In her hands is a thick ring of keys.

I’ve had only one cup of coffee and haven’t even eaten any toast or a bowl of cereal. Too late, I realize that I’m wearing a pair of Augustus’s boxer briefs. Her eyes flicker over them, showing nothing, but how would she even know they were his? They’re pink plaid. Not exactly what you’d think a man like him would wear. I know I look like hell from crying, and I don’t think I’ve had a shower since I heard the news. “Meadow,” I say, and swing the door open to let her in. She breezes by, smelling of grass and oranges. “What’s up?”

She takes possession of the center of the kitchen, swinging around with an assessing eye. “I’m afraid I’ve come to ask you to leave.”

I was never going to be able to stay. I have no claim on the house or anything in it, now that my lover of barely nine months has kicked the bucket. I mean, obviously.

The trouble is, I have absolutely nowhere else to go and barely $200 to my name, more if I pawn some of the jewelry I’ve been carting around since my failed engagement back in Boston. Not even that will get me enough for a plane ticket home. Honestly, even if I fly back to the East Coast, I have nowhere to go there, either.

But this isn’t the first time I’ve faced homelessness. I was shuffled around the foster-care system from the age of two, and aged out dramatically just a few months before high school graduation, whereupon my foster mother kicked me out because she thought her husband was looking at me too much. I’d landed a scholarship to University of Pennsylvania and tried desperately to convince her to let me stay, but she was just done. One of my teachers found me a place to live until I could get to the dorms in the fall, or I’d have been on the street then.

I tuck my hair behind my ears. “Right, of course. I’ll be out this afternoon.”

She raises her chin. A hard glint lights her eye. “I’m sorry, no. You need to go now.”

“Now?”

One eyebrow lifts. “My daughter Maya has inherited the house, and she’s coming home from rehab tomorrow. I need to get things ready for her.”

“Will she want to come here? I mean, her dad just died. Maybe that’s a bit harsh for a newly recovering addict?”

“You’re so well informed,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “But it’s none of your business.”

“Sorry. I was trying to be helpful.”

“She has nowhere else to go.”

We have that much in common. “Can I at least get a shower?”

For a moment I think she will refuse, but Elvis has always liked me, and he heaves a big sigh and leans on my leg right that second. Whenever Meadow comes by, which is way more often than I want to see her, Elvis greets me like his long-lost sister, a behavior I admit I’ve encouraged. She measures him, then says, “Of course. I’m just going to start stripping beds and get some laundry going.”

As if I’m a guest at a B&B and the new guests are coming. I pick up my coffee cup, drain it, and rinse it out. Last coffee in this house. It feels like my ribs are breaking. “Okay.”

I head upstairs, bare feet on the cool tiles, feeling something dense start sucking me in, a black hole in the middle of my diaphragm. I look at each step, at the colorful Spanish tiles on the risers, my hand on the carved banister that has known the hands of hundreds of people over the years. My heart sends me a memory of Augustus walking backward, one hand in mine, another on the railing. Tears start gushing out. Again.

All I’ve done for two solid days is cry.

The primary bedroom sits by itself to the right of the stairs, a big room with french doors that open onto a balcony overlooking the ocean. It’s a dull day, but the water is still hypnotically beautiful, moving endlessly. I walk outside, smelling jasmine and sea air, and stand there a long time, knowing I’ll always remember it. Remember this view, this house, the man, the whole strange season.