Toward closing, the door opens, and Nora’s head bobs up and her eyes light, but it’s not Omar. It’s a face no one’s ever seen in here before.
River.
At first only his head and shoulders come in. His legs and torso remain outside. But the cold air is earning him dirty looks—that’s not the only reason maybe, but it’s the one he can address—so he comes all the way in and lets the door close behind him.
But before it even meets the jamb, Nora’s pointing back out. “You can’t be in here.”
He raises his hands. “I know. I’m sorry. I know. I just wanted to talk to her.”
Me. He’s pointing at me.
“No.” Nora shakes her head. “No way. You’re not twenty-one. Get out of here.”
If River were a hundred and eight, she still wouldn’t let him in this bar. But the rest of it’s not her decision. He turns, cowed and embarrassed, and walks back out the door. And I start after him.
“Mirabel!” Nora gasps. The Get back here young lady! she’d roar if she could is all over her face, but she can’t say that to me. That’s not how it works between us, but more importantly, she and I have fought so long and so hard to make it possible for me to flout my mother’s wishes and storm away from her in a fit of pique to follow a boy she disapproves of. However much it looks like heartbreak, this is a moment of triumph. Also a moment of triumph. “No,” she says, but it sounds more like Please.
I don’t ignore her. I meet her eyes. And I tell them the truth of it with mine: I have to. I have to go.
A small sound escapes from deep inside her, but she can’t utter the words she longs to any more than I can.
I press the wall switch to open the door and follow River out into the night.
Outside it’s cold, dry and windless and star-scattered, but I am warm, deep in the bones warm, deep in my muscles even. He’s come to find me. He’s come to me.
The first thing he says is “Thank you, Mirabel.”
I shiver and nod.
“Thank you for meeting me. Thank you for talking to me.”
I start down the sidewalk, away from the bar. He follows.
“I know my dad came to your house. I’m sorry.”
“For what?” my Voice asks, and he nods. Yes. That’s the right question.
“I’m sorry I told him. I didn’t mean to.”
We don’t really know each other very well, but even still, River can read the skepticism on my face. How does something like that happen accidentally?
“Yeah, okay. I guess I mean I didn’t plan to. I know I promised not to tell, but deep down my father’s a good guy. I knew he’d find out eventually, so I just thought I could, I don’t know, spare everyone the suspense.”
I close my eyes then open them to type, “We wanted the suspense.”
“I know.” He looks away from me to explain, “My parents were fighting all the time. My grandfather kept screaming at my dad about how no one can know this big, stupid secret I know they already know. I just…”
He trails off, so I don’t get to hear exactly how he was planning to finish that sentence, but I know the sentiment: I just picked my father over your sister. I just put my feelings over your needs. I just chose what’s easy right now instead of what’s right and two decades in the making. I’m just sixteen, far from home, with sense enough to see I’m in over my head but not very much else. I’m just sixteen and have no idea what it means to love someone, and anyone who thinks I do is deluding herself.
“I didn’t know what to do.” He looks up and meets my eyes again. “I’m sorry for everything, Mirabel.”
He should not be sorry for everything. It’s not all his fault. It’s not all Mab’s fault certainly. It’s not all his father’s fault or even all his father’s fault. It’s not all Omar’s fault for believing them all those years ago or all the Groves’ fault for selling them the land. It’s not the barflies’ fault for dropping the suit or Russell’s for keeping his distance. It’s not the river’s fault for being so easily diverted or the dam’s for holding so much back.
There are so many people who have sinned a little and a lot. There are so many people who deserve some of the blame. But that means there is never anyone whose responsibility it is to take responsibility. There is no one who must make it right, no one who must make amends. There is so much, therefore, that stays wrong and unmended.
River should not be sorry for everything. But he should be sorry for some things.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he says.
“Me neither,” my Voice admits.
“I don’t know what can happen next.”
I nod and wait. Shiver and wait.
“I didn’t betray her,” he says. “Not really. You know it’s not that simple.”
I do not know that. But I know what he means.
There’s a pause, and then he says, very quietly, “You’re all I have here.” He does not mean me. He means us. He means Mab. “I’m worried I ruined everything.”
For whom? I wonder, but my Voice replies, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
* * *
At Norma’s door I find Omar taking deep breaths, psyching himself up to go in.
“Mirabel!” He looks surprised to see me—must wonder what I’m doing on this side of the door as much as I’m wondering what he is—but asks like it’s the most everyday of pleasantries, “Headed in?”
I nod, and he taps the push plate to open the door and follows me in.
Nora’s head snaps up. Her face washes white with relief to see me, edged with confused gratitude to find me with Omar instead of with River.
She turns to him first. “Thanks for bringing her home.” She gives him the smile they’ve been exchanging this week—tentative, possible—and tables for the moment the clamoring teeming swarms of questions.
“Anytime,” he says.
And then me. She exercises restraint. “You okay?” She looks me all over.
My eyes assure her I’m fine.
“We closed three and a half minutes ago.” Her exactness makes her sound like her middle daughter, and she pretends she’s admonishing Omar, the lone customer in the bar, but I know this is directed at me: You were gone a long time.
“Is it too late to get a soda?” Omar asks.
She pours it for him, and he stirs it with a swizzle stick. She starts cleaning up, glancing at him, glancing at me, holding her tongue, doing her job.
“Listen, Nora.” She stops drying the glass in her hand and turns to him. Me too, I’m alarmed at once. It’s his tone. His eyes too: sorry, bated. How can this night be about to get more strange? “Nathan Templeton came to see me.”
She exhales. Already? “Me too.”
He nods. He knew this. “He showed me the test results. Did he show you?”
“Well he gave them to me.” A laugh small and dry as an almond. “He told me what they said,” she adds. “Not that I … you know.”
Omar nods again. He does know. He takes a breath. “He’s not his father, Nora.”