“No, you won’t,” Hannah said.
“Please,” Renee said. “Look at me. I run from conflict. I panic in an emergency. I make dumb choices...”
“All true,” Maya said calmly, then seemed to notice them gaping at her. “What? It is. Not the part about being like her mother, obviously, but I mean, of course she’s going to screw the kid up.” She uncapped her water bottle and took a long, slow sip, unfazed by the continuing looks they were all giving her. “Everyone screws their kid up. It’s a fact of life. Fortunately there will be other screwed-up kids. Like we were. Who Renee’s screwed-up kid can be screwed-up friends with. And they’ll have good times and bad times. And the cycle continues.”
“But I don’t want to screw anyone up,” Renee said.
“Then don’t be a mother,” Maya said.
“Anyway, I thought we were talking about me and my mistakes,” Blue said.
“Actually, we were talking about me first and then you interrupted,” Renee said.
“Enough about anyone’s mistakes!” Maya said. She jumped to her feet, startling all three of them. “Seriously, look where we are.” She thrust her arms wide.
Behind her the horizon was slowly resolving back into slender white beaches and bursts of plush, tree-lined coast, the sun on its slow dip to the west.
“I wonder if we can see Nana’s house from here,” Hannah said.
They all moved to the rails, squinted toward the shore.
“Is that...Blue’s dignity floating over there?” Maya asked. “Oh, never mind, it’s just a buoy.”
Blue whacked her on the shoulder.
“Let’s take a picture,” Hannah said.
“Okay,” Maya said, “everyone move closer. Hannah, take off the hat.”
Blue and the others smooshed in beside Maya, and Maya flipped the phone camera so they could see themselves in it. Immediately Blue looked away, unable to bear her own image. It was impossible not to imagine how differently this day would have gone if she’d handled herself better the night before. Maybe Jack would even be with them on the boat. Or she’d be meeting him afterward for a walk on the beach, holding hands by the shoreline as the afternoon lowered behind the cliffs. If only she could have at least kissed him. Just once. Just to know again, just to remember that sweet, blissful aliveness. She would’ve been okay with that. One kiss.
“Okay everyone, smile,” Maya said.
Blue forced a smile over the ache. After all, she was with her best friends, her first responders. And if life was going to hurt, then at least there was this, there was sunshine, there was love. She looked at Maya with her disarming smile and warm eyes, at Hannah with her big sunglasses and red curls, at Renee leaning tentatively in beside her. Couldn’t it be enough that she had this? Why did the heart always want more?
HANNAH
It was half past five as they left the docks, the hour turned golden and baked to softness. Hannah was drowsy, her body relaxed in a way it usually was not, like she was stoned on so much sunlight.
“Anyone up for a late-day swim?” Maya asked.
“I might be up for that,” Hannah said.
Their eyes caught in the rearview and she saw the surprise and delight in Maya’s face, and it made her want to do that more often, say yes.
The parking lot was in transition, the all-day surfers strapping their boards to their cars, unhurried and happy, the postwork evening shift pulling up in their trucks and Jeeps, jumping out to check the waves.
Hannah approached the sand, the Ditch Witch closed for the day, the old wooden bench beside it empty, the seagrass waving in the onshore breeze. The lifeguards had retired. Only a scattering of families remained, a scrappy wet terrier chasing a stick, a girl packing up the tie-dyed shirts she’d been hawking out of her beach bag. Hannah watched two kids running toward the water with their bright boogie boards. It made her wistful to think of how their lives would be filled with many things, love and heartbreak, loss and joy, laughter and regret. This, she understood now, was all that could be predicted. It could be predicted of every life. Every one.
The sun was tiring now, creating a deeper blue to the ocean, a September-like chill blowing onshore. The air smelled slightly turned, a hint of rot in the sea. A reminder that everything ended. She saw a flash of herself returning to her apartment. Saw her life close and lock. She shivered. Remembered Maya talking about choices.
“Can’t believe we have to leave tomorrow,” Renee said.
“Let’s just stay,” Maya said as she and Blue joined them. “What’s another day or ten? I hear the weather will be beautiful.”
“Say the word and I’ll cancel work,” Blue said.
Hannah would love to stay on but of course she thought of Henry. Even a few more days would feel like an indulgence. Instinctively she glanced at her phone. Saw a missed call from Vivian. Her nervous heart flinched.
“Last one in buys dinner,” Maya shouted, throwing off her cover-up. She turned and looked at Hannah and her face changed. “What?”
Hannah shook her head, hit Return Call and began pacing. Something was wrong. She could feel it. Dread rising, pouring in. She could sink to her knees, be swallowed by life like it was quicksand. She swore it could happen.
Vivian’s phone went to voice mail. Hannah was panicking now, in need of her Xanax, in need of Vivian to answer the damn phone.
She called again as the girls stood silently watching.
“Hello?” Vivian finally answered.
Hannah headed toward the ocean. Her instincts drove her there, to its monotonous, heaving efforts, its break and rebuild. It goes on, she remembered someone once saying about life. It goes on. She took a breath in order to brace against a moment that might rob her will to do so.
“Hannah,” Vivian said.
It was in the way Vivian said her name that Hannah knew for sure the news was bad, and there was a shock in this even as she’d anticipated it. She gripped a rock on the jetty, lowering herself onto it, her body heavy and arthritic with impending sorrow, with resistance to it. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out what was coming.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt your vacation again,” Vivian said.
Shrieking erupted out of two small children chasing each other in the sand, an absentminded mother beside them gazing past the sea to something beyond it.
“What is it?” she heard herself say. She was suddenly two Hannahs at once, the Hannah living this moment and the Hannah observing herself in it, aware that something enormous, dark, nuclear was about to crash into her life, drastically change it, change her, that nothing would be the same after. Oh, it was so awful—that awareness—watching your heart lunge for hope, that last desperate clutch on the life you knew.