What Happens to Goodbye(92)

I opened my browser, clicking over to Ume.com and typing my e-mail into the search box. Within ten seconds, the same list they’d seen was in front of me: Liz Sweet, the newest and most sparse, on top, all the way down to Mclean, the one I’d had back home in Tyler all those years ago. I was just clicking on it when I heard the chime of a doorbell from behind me.
I got up, walking over to the stairs. “Mom?” I called, but there was no answer, which, in a house this big, was not exactly surprising.

The doorbell sounded again, so I went down and peered out the window to see a tall, pretty, blonde woman in jeans and a cable-knit sweater standing on the welcome mat, carrying a shopping bag. A toddler around Maddie and Connor’s age, with brown curly hair, was on her hip. When I opened the door, she smiled.
“You must be Mclean. I’m Heidi,” she said, sticking out her free hand. Once we shook, she handed me the bag. “This is for you.”
I raised my eyebrows, opening it. “Bathing suits,” she explained. Sure enough, I saw a swatch of black, and another of pink. “I wasn’t sure what you wold like, so I just pulled a couple. If you hate them all, we have tons more at the store.”
“Store? ”
“Clementine’s?” she said as the little girl leaned her head on her shoulder, looking at me. “It’s my boutique, on the boardwalk.”
“Oh,” I said, “right. We were there earlier.”
“So I heard.” She smiled, looking down at the baby. “Thisbe here and I can’t stand the idea of anyone being in the vicinity of a heated pool and hot tub with no bathing suit. It just goes against everything we believe in.”
“Right,” I said. “Well . . . thanks.”
“Sure.” She leaned a bit to the right, looking past me. “Plus . . . it was an excuse to get over here and see Katherine, and not have to wait until the party tomorrow. I mean, it’s been ages! Is she around?”
Party? I thought. Out loud I said, “She’s upstairs. Giving the twins a bath.”
“Great. I’ll just run up super-quick and say hello, okay?” I stepped back as she came in, bouncing the baby and making her laugh as she ran up the stairs. I heard her take the next flight, followed by a burst of shrieking and laughing as she and my mom were reunited.
I went back over to the computer, sliding into my seat again. Above me, I could hear my mom and Heidi chattering, their voices quick and light, and as I scanned all my alter egos I realized that my mom had one now, too. Katie Sweet was gone, but Katherine Hamilton was a queen in a palace by the sea, with new friends and new paint on the walls, a new life. The only things out of place were that car, covered up and buried deep, and me.
My phone rang, and I glanced down, seeing my dad’s number. As soon as I picked up, he started talking.
“You don’t walk away from me like that,” he began. No hello, no niceties. “And you answer when I call you. Do you know how worried I’ve been?”
“I’m fine,” I said, surprised at the little flame of irritation, so new, I felt hearing his voice. “You know I’m with Mom.”
“I know that you and I have things to discuss, and that I wanted them discussed before you left,” he said.
“What’s to discuss? ” I asked him. “We’re moving to Hawaii, apparently.”
“I may have a job opportunity in Hawaii,” he corrected me. “No one is talking about you having to come as well.”
“What’s the alternative? Moving back to Tyler? You know I can’t do that.”
He was quiet for a moment. In the background, I could hear voices, Leo and Jason most likely, shouting orders to each other. “I just want us to talk about this. Without arguing. When I’m not up to my ears in the dinner rush.”
“You called me,” I pointed out.
“Watch it,” he said, his voice a warning.
I got quiet fast.
“I’m going to call you first thing tomorrow, when we’ve both had a night to clear our heads. No decisions until then. Okay? ”
“Okay.” I looked out at the ocean. “No decisions.” We hung up, and I closed my browser, folding all those Sweet girls back away. Then I walked up the stairs, following the sound of my mom’s and Heidi’s voices. I passed one bedroom after another, it seemed, the new-smelling carpet plush beneath my feet, before finally coming up on them, behind a half-closed door.
“. . . to be honest, I really didn’t think it through,” my mom was saying. “And with Peter not here, it’s that much more complicated. I think it was too much to take on, even though I thought it was what I really wanted to do.”
“You’ll be fine,” Heidi told my mom. “The house is finished, you survived the trip. Now all you have to do is just sit back and try to relax.”
“Easier said than done,” my mom said. Then she was quiet for a moment. All I could hear was splashing, the kids babbling. Then she said, “It was always a lot of fun in the past. But we’ve only been here a couple of hours and I’m already . . . I don’t know. Not feeling good about the whole thing.”
“Things will look better tomorrow, after you get some sleep,” Heidi said.
“Probably,” my mom agreed, although she hardly sounded convinced. “I just hope it wasn’t a mistake.”
“Why would it be a mistake?”
“Just because I didn’t realize . . .” she trailed off again. “Everything’s different now. I didn’t think it would be. But it is.”