Tumble & Fall (29 page)

But as Sophie leans down to kiss her mother’s cheek, a sense of calm returns. All that matters is that they are together now. With so few guarantees, they at least deserve that.

Caden thinks of Ramona. She may not be perfect, and she may never change. But she’s his family. She and Carly, they’re a part of him.

He lets out a long breath and stands in front of Sophie, reaching for one of her hands. “Sophie,” he says. “I have to go home.”

Sophie’s face scrambles. For a second he’s afraid she might cry.

“I’m sorry,” he rushes. “This has been … amazing. Meeting you, and tonight, but…”

“You have to go home,” Sophie repeats with a quick, binding nod. “I get it.”

“You do?”

Sophie leans in toward him and puts a hand on his chest. “You’ll probably think this is crazy, but I think I was having a dream, just now. I woke up, and you were gone. I looked for you everywhere, but … it was like you were never here. And then I figured it out. Of course. You’re an angel.”

She looks deep into Caden’s eyes and he squirms uncomfortably. He forces a chuckle and rolls his eyes. “I’m no angel,” he jokes. “I can promise you that.”

“I’m serious,” she says. “I think we both ended up in that house for a reason. I needed you. And you needed me.”

Caden feels the warm weight of her hand on his ribs. He covers her fingers with his own. Sophie smiles and brings her lips softly to his, a sweet, lingering kiss goodbye.

“Oh, and Caden?” she asks, as he pulls the front door open.

“Yeah?”

“Remember what your dad said? About the two of you being alike?”

Caden looks out at the night sky, at the clusters of stars blinking from behind the trees. He remembers the way he used to see the same stars from his bedroom window, wondering where his father might be as he wished him a silent good night. His jaw tightens, the corners of his eyes start to burn. He wants to go back, back to when his father was just a blurred memory, a benevolent dragon chasing him through the woods.

Sophie touches the inside of Caden’s forearm with her thumb. “Trust me,” she says, pressing firmly, as if she’s trying to leave a mark. “He’s wrong.”

ZAN

The ferryboats sit, docked in the harbor, hulking and almost surreal. Zan has never seen all of them in one place before. Lined up in an imposing row, they look regal and a little bit scary. As if, in another life, they could have been battleships instead of gentle ushers, carrying countless people to and from the island every day.

Nick is giving her space, keeping busy with tasks on his boat as he prepares to bring them home. Zan sits at the edge of the dock, looking out at the water, the ocean dark and ominous.

She hears a voice, calling her name, from far away, as if in a memory. For a moment, she wonders if it’s him. Leo. What would he say to her now? They’d hardly ever fought. She can’t remember a time when he’d been angry with her. They were in it together, whatever
it
was.

Until now. How could she face him? How could she even begin to apologize for betraying him as she had? He wouldn’t have expected her to grieve forever, she knows that. But his best friend? No matter how open-minded, how forgiving he was, she knows she was wrong. They were wrong. He’d given them nothing but reasons to trust him, and they hadn’t. She and Nick. They’d both let him down.

“Zan!”

This time, Nick hears the voice, too. He turns from the bow of the boat to look back across the parking lot. “Hey, doesn’t that kid live on your road?”

Zan turns to see a shadowy figure stepping out from behind the boarded-up ticket office. “Caden?” she calls, pushing herself to her feet.

Caden jogs the length of the dock. By the time he reaches them, he’s out of breath, his shirt damp with sweat at the collar. “Hey,” he manages. “I can’t believe—what are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here?” Zan asks. “You look…”

“I ran,” Caden heaves. “I was … I got stuck. My dad…”

Caden turns and tosses one arm back behind him, gesturing to the hilly terrain of the mainland. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “It’s a long story,” he says. “I thought I’d make the last boat. They’re not running?”

Nick steps onto the dock, leaning down to untie the rope between his feet. “This one is,” he says. “You need a lift?”

Caden looks from Nick to Zan. His face looks somehow off balance, like he can’t decide if he wants to laugh or cry. The glow from the floodlights catches in his green eyes, and all of a sudden she sees it. The smiling twinkle, the mischievous gleam. The little kid she used to run around the neighborhood with. He’s back.

“Thanks,” Caden says. Nick shakes his head at the boat and Caden helps Zan climb carefully on board. The engine sputters to life and the boat slides back from the dock. Zan tucks her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on her hands, watching as the lights of the harbor recede into the darkness, the pull of home drawing them in and away.

SIENNA

Sienna is sure she’ll find somebody to pick her up, a ride for at least part of the long journey back to her side of the island. And it’s not that the streets are quiet. In fact, it is the opposite. Everybody seems to be outside, in large groups or walking in pairs, as if trying to physically soak up as much as they can of the world around them. Who knew what these trees, those beaches, that perfect blue sky will all look like after tomorrow, Sienna thinks. If anyone is around to see it.

But there isn’t a car in sight. Nobody is in a rush to get anywhere, or do anything, except be together.

As Sienna walks, she stares at the groups of people gathered in the streets. It reminds her of block parties in her old neighborhood, or the summer street fairs Dad used to take them to on the island. She hated all of them. Mom did, too. At the block parties, they’d often sit on their own front stoop with a bag of chips and a jar of store-bought salsa, intended for sharing but usually polished off by just the two of them, alone. At the fairs, they’d duck into a bookstore, or occasionally wait in the car. Eventually Mom stayed home. She never understood the appeal of large groups, and Sienna realizes now that she’s the same way. The last place she wants to be at a time like this, when she’s afraid and confused, is with a bunch of people she barely knows, hearing about how afraid and confused they all are, too.

She knows most people find it comforting. But she’s not most people. Maybe that’s why she’s never had a tribe, she thinks, as she walks on, the soles of her sandals wearing thin. A tribe would have been lost on her.

That’s probably what Mom thought, too. Sienna feels a familiar fog behind her eyes, a sharp tug in the pit of her stomach. There is no getting around it.

Sienna is just like her mother.

Her shins throb, and there are blisters forming at the backs of her heels. It will take her until morning to get home. If only Owen would find her.

She doesn’t know why she’s crying. It’s nobody’s fault but her own. She could have stayed home and been with Dad and Ryan, playing games, being a family. Dad was right. That’s all that matters, now.

Or she could have stayed at the brickyard with Owen, the only person who gave her a chance.

But nothing is enough. She has to keep moving. And now, there is nowhere left to run.

She takes a few ragged breaths, wiping the tears from her cheeks. It is suddenly so dark that she can hardly see her feet. She spots a light in the distance, flickering in front of the supermarket, and hobbles to a bench on the porch, rubbing her feet with her hands.

What’s the point? What does it matter who she’s with tomorrow? Everyone dies alone. What difference does it make if Sienna stays here, on this bench, all by herself until the very end?

She tucks her sweater tighter around her waist and brings her knees up on the bench, burying her face in her forearms. She is alone, as she’s always been. She shouldn’t be so surprised. It is her story, it was her mother’s story, and the ending is always the same.

*   *   *

She wakes to the soft shush of tires. A cool wash of headlights lands on the crooked row of abandoned shopping carts beside her. Sienna sits upright, squinting into the glare. It’s a truck, and the driver, a freckled guy in a T-shirt, leans out the window. “Are you all right?” he asks.

Sienna looks past him to the girl in the front seat. They both look vaguely familiar, but the guy in the back is the only one she really recognizes. Carly’s brother. She hasn’t seen him since they were practically in diapers, but even in the dark she would know that wild red hair anywhere.

“You live on the circle, right?” The guy in the back leans over a dangling fishing rod. “Hop in.”

Sienna hesitates a moment. She knows she was silly to think that Owen might come after her, but she can’t help but feel disappointed. She takes a breath. She’s doing the right thing. It’s time to go home.

“Thanks,” Sienna says, climbing over the tailgate. She sits with her back to the wheel well as the guy bangs twice on the side of the truck.

As they roll out of the parking lot and down the main road, Sienna looks at the dark silhouettes of the three people before her, each of them looking off in a different direction, quietly lost inside themselves. Maybe a tribe isn’t about fitting in, she thinks. Maybe it’s not about the people you’ve known the longest. Maybe, sometimes, it’s just about the right place at the right time, and moving in the same direction, together.

DAY SIX

ZAN

It’s late.

The sky is black and starless through the tilted window over her bed. She stares up at it for a while, disoriented by the sensation of falling asleep before the sun has set and waking up later in darkness.

When Nick dropped her off, the house had been empty and still. She’d found Daniel in his studio, working on his Forgiving Wheel, or heard him out there, first. There was a cycle of low grumbles, a sharp crunching sound, finished off with a sputtering cough. Zan couldn’t imagine what any of those noises might possibly have to do with forgiveness, and there wasn’t any part of her interested in finding out.

She stood for a while outside the studio door, but couldn’t go in. She wasn’t afraid, exactly. She just didn’t feel ready, or whole enough, to explain where she’d been. Daniel would probably understand. He had a way of understanding almost anything, or at least acting like he did. Miranda was the one she should have been nervous about, but Miranda was, as usual, out.

She climbed up the ladder to the loft and lay down on her bed, thinking she’d rest until she heard life in the kitchen. She needed time to work out a story that would make sense. Even now, she knew she couldn’t tell the truth. Miranda had always had a hard time talking to Zan about Leo. It was bad enough when he was alive, but even worse after his death. She wouldn’t say much, but Zan could feel the way her mother felt, the way she wished her daughter could be more like her. Why couldn’t Zan just get a hobby? Or bury herself in schoolwork? Did she have to read his books all the time? So much time on her own, wallowing in her sadness, it couldn’t possibly be healthy.

None of this was ever said out loud. It didn’t need to be. Zan and Miranda were different creatures, made out of different stuff. Zan had long ago stopped worrying about it or wishing things could be different. As far as she knew, Miranda felt the same way.

Zan sits in bed and a fresh wave of guilt crashes over her, head to toe, as if it had been lurking in some dark corner of the room, waiting for her to wake up. She blinks and sees Nick on the Swan Boat, his mouth on hers, his strong hands pressing into her back. Leo’s best friend. Leo, who had spent what turned out to be the final days of his life on a wild goose chase, trying to surprise Zan by doing something nice. No, more than nice. Something extraordinary.

Until the end, he’d been exactly who she’d thought he was. Loyal, dedicated, adventurous, brave. And she’d been weak. She’d doubted him. She deserved an asteroid. She deserved to be wiped out, obliterated, scattered into meaningless dust.

There’s a hollow turning in her stomach. She hasn’t eaten in hours. She wraps her quilt around her shoulders and starts down the rickety ladder. The kitchen is dark and silent, except for the hum of the fridge and a sad, sporadic drip from the faucet. She fills a glass with water and squeezes the tap tight.

“Don’t bother,” a voice says from behind her. “It’s broken.”

Zan jumps and fumbles the glass, spilling water onto her wrist and in a small puddle on the hardwood floor. Miranda is sitting at the kitchen table in her bathrobe, a mug of hot tea clenched between her wiry fingers.

“Mom,” Zan sighs. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” Miranda says softly. “I was wondering if you would wake up.”

Zan leans with her back against the dishwasher. A milky wash of moonlight slips in through the small window over the sink, and Zan can just barely make out the shape of her mother, hunched deeply over her mug, her short black hair frizzing around the long lines of her face. She wonders if she should turn on a light, but something tells her it would be too much.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Zan mutters apologetically. “I was waiting for you to get home…”

“Where were you?” Miranda asks. Her voice sounds strange. Not furious, as Zan had predicted. But not exactly not-furious, either. She sounds, mostly, tired. And uncertain, which is jarring, and almost worse than flat-out pissed. Miranda is never uncertain about anything. Ever.

Zan pulls out another of the straight-backed kitchen chairs, just enough to squeeze in at the table across from her mother. She takes a sip of her water. It’s not cold and tastes vaguely metallic. She should have let it run longer.

“I went to Boston,” she says finally. “With Nick.”

“Nick who?”

Perhaps as a by-product of all of the time Miranda spent organizing events, or at work at the gallery, or sitting on boards and committees, she’s always had a hard time keeping track of Zan’s friends. It took her months to acknowledge Leo by name, and longer to consider the two of them an actual couple.