Page 75 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

But I’m trying to give him space. To give us both space. So I throw myself into organizing the New Release shelves, switching anything that’s over six months old into the general fiction section, and unpacking cartons of the latest novels to hit the New York Times’ Best Seller List to put in their place.

When it’s time for my break, I tell Maisie I’m going to take a walk. I can’t sit in the café with Oliver and his Kafka shirt in my field of vision. I need to get out of here.

The sun never came back out after yesterday’s stormy overture, but it hasn’t actually rained yet. The sky’s still foreboding, though, and I don’t want to get too far from Shoreline—it looks like it could downpour at any minute.

I find a bench in front of one of the many creameries that dot Shore Road and pull out my phone. There’s a new text from Laurel.

I’m going to hang around Boston one more night.

I wonder if she’s still mad at me. I can’t imagine why else she would decide to stay at home. I type out, Is everything okay?, but I don’t hit send. My fingers swirl over the delete button. I’m not sure everything is okay. And if she’s choosing to hang out with her parents instead of coming back to Beach Haven, maybe she’s not ready to discuss it with me.

Finally, I opt for a more measured, Sounds good. Hope everything went well with Spillinger.

Oh, it went.

I snort. I can’t wait to hear what that’s all about.

The streets are eerily empty right now. Presumably, most tourists are clinging to the safety of their rentals or hotel rooms. I only saw a few umbrellas out on the beach when I left for work, which is unheard of here on Fridays in July. If I had to guess, I’d bet that the outlets down in Kittery and the tiny movie theater in Wells are packed with tourists anticipating the storms.

I check the time—still 20 minutes left on my break. I have no idea what to do with myself. I had lunch before work, and I’m not particularly hungry right now, or in general lately. The swirling eddy of emotions in my gut has been making it hard to eat.

Suddenly, I’m hit with the urge to talk to my mother. I’m so surprised by the feeling that I actually say “What the hell?” out loud, garnering a glare from an old woman riding by on a motorized scooter.

But things are messy right now, and Mom was always my safe space. Besides, she did ask me to call again soon when we spoke the other day. Even though I’m mad at her, it might help just to have someone to distract me from what’s happening in my head.

My mom has Fridays off from her psychology practice. Her office is situated in downtown Boston, and she mostly sees students, so she works a lot of evenings. Friday was always the day she took for herself, to balance what I think she felt was an overstep into her personal time.

The phone only rings twice before she answers. She sounds cautiously thrilled when she greets me.

“Hey,” I say, trying to seem casual.

“I’m so glad to hear from you, Ivy.”

My eyes well up with tears, the way they always do when you’ve been struggling in silence and you’re finally with the person who makes you feel safe enough to let it all out. The person who will hold you until you heal.

I didn’t have a game plan for this discussion. I don’t actually want to talk about Oliver, just distract myself from thinking too much. Maybe low-key family gossip is a good place to start. “Did you hear that Uncle Peter hurt his hip?”

Mom might see right through this filler conversation, but if she does, she doesn’t say so. “I did,” she replies.

So she must be talking to my dad. That’s interesting. Since she brought it up, sort of, I decide to pry. “Did Dad tell you about it?”

“He did,” she says cautiously. “Why?”

“I didn’t know you two were still in touch.”

She laughs. “Ivy. Your father and I have been together for 35 years. I don’t think there’ll ever come a time when we’re not in touch.”

Warmed by the present tense in her response, I push forward. “So, how’s Dad doing?”

“He’s doing well. You can call him, too, you know.” It sounds like she’s smiling. Maybe amusement at the flagrant Parent Trap I’m trying to pull, or maybe because she likes talking about my father. I’ll take either, frankly. Both feel like a far cry from wanting to divorce him.

“I should. I’ll call him soon.”

“If you haven’t talked to your dad, how did you know about Peter’s hip?”

Oops. Now I have to explain that I was talking to Janie, which definitely is out of the ordinary. I don’t need Mom pulling a Laurel and getting upset with me for trying to reinvigorate decades-old secrets. “I talked with Janie the other day,” I hedge. “I just had a couple of questions for her.”

“Color me intrigued.”