Page 127 of The Circle

She’s all arms and legs, spindly and gawky. Thirteen years of exuberance and excitement bounding our way. She has my hair, but Danny’s eyes. She still has both of them, of course, but they are very much like his back when he still had the two. Her smile—that I can see even in the murkiness of the dusk—makes me smile. I’ve barely seen her all day other than to keep an eye on where she was hanging out with that other kid she made friends with; I’ve been so preoccupied getting things together and thinking about tonight. It makes my heart leap to see her.

“Hey, snickerdoodle,” I say and she makes a ‘gah’ face.

“Mom, come on. You can do better than that.”

I try to come up with a new pet name for her every day. It’s a game we play. Or, I suppose, I play and she humors me because she’s a good kid. “Okay. Hey, kitten…fizzle.”

She makes another face. “That’s worse.”

I decide to let it drop. I’ll have to put some thought into it for tomorrow. “What’d you do all day? Just kick around with that girl?” I ask.

“Yeah, her name’s Laura.”

Danny looks at me and I nod to confirm I know who she’s referring to. “She cool?” I ask.

“Pretty cool. I told her she can come over to the house after everything and spend the night, if it’s okay with you guys.”

“She have parents?” Danny asks automatically, owing to some old tapes he still hasn’t erased in his brain.

“Yeah,” I interject. “I met ’em. They seem okay. Khakis.”

‘Khakis’ is a code word Danny and I have for a certain type of tourist who comes to the islands. It’s pretty self-explanatory.

“They say it’s all right?” Danny asks Lizzy. She nods.

He looks at me again. I shrug. Fine with me if it’s what she wants. She really only has Andra to buddy around with on a regular basis, and Andra is three years older. Probably nice for Lizzy to make a friend her own age even if it is just for a little while.

“Let’s see what your sister says. It’s her night,” Danny suggests.

“Yeah, okay. Where are they?”

“I’m sure they’ll be back soon. They had a lot they wanted to do today.”

And no sooner have the words left his mouth than we see them walking toward us.

No, that’s not quite right. We don’t see them as much as we feel them. We feel them approaching a moment before we turn to see their shapes striding up. We can always feel them, always know where they are. A sixth sense we share. All five of us.

“They’re back,” I say, nodding in the direction from which they’re walking. Danny and Lizzy turn to look, and in the blackened stillness of new night, we see the pretty, yellow sundress lighting up the beach like a thousand fireflies, the shine emanating from it almost as bright as the beaming smile we can also see.

And it makes me smile again too. Because it makes me feel… complete.

I’m so grateful. I know I say that to myself a lot, but I am. I’m so damn grateful for every single day of this incredible, impossible, absurd, fucked-up life I’ve been fortunate enough to live, I can barely take it sometimes.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who wanted a nice office job. Someone’s personal assistant, maybe. I’d have been happy with a cubicle, but a small office would’ve been my dream.

I sure as hell beat that.

I squeeze Danny’s hand even tighter, give him a kiss on the cheek, take Lizzy by her hand as well, and nod in the direction from which they’re walking.

“Come on. Let’s go see what they’ve been up to.”