Which is a lie. I won’t. That was my grandmother’s first rule. Never fraternize with the guests. Be social, not friends.
I leave him sitting at his table, and I finish up the other two bungalows. I’m thankful that I’ll have an entirely full house this weekend. It’s rare this time of year, right after the kids all go back to school. Things don’t usually start to pick up now until after Thanksgiving.
When I see Skye rambling down the path waving at me, it startles me for a second. Shouldn’t she be in school? But a quick check of my watch tells me that it’s three thirty already. I’d spent more time cleaning than I thought. Time runs together these days. It’s common for me to lose track of it, snippets and pieces and hours.
“Mom,” Skye shouts, and that word cuts through my chest and impales my heart. I’m no one’s mother now, not really. I don’t correct her, though. She’s called me that for years.
“Hey, sweetie,” I answer. She’s with Hutch. He was always good to Leah, and God knows he was good to me the night she...drowned. I smile at him now.
“Hi, Hutch.”
Hutch smiles back at me, his eyes kind.
“I wanted to come call on you, Emmy. Skye was kind enough to bring me. I hope we’re not an intrusion.”
Yes, you are.
“Of course not,” I answer aloud. “You’re never an intrusion. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“That would be lovely,” he answers. He and Skye accompany me to the kitchen, and we sit around the table. Skye wraps her arm around my shoulders, and I close my eyes for a minute, as my nose grazes her arm. That smell...of the slightly sweaty teenage girl skin. If I focus hard enough, I can pretend it’s Leah.
“How are you doing?” Hutch asks me, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Is there anything I can help with?”
While it’s nice that everyone cares, I wish they would all stop asking.
“I’m okay,” I answer politely, pouring steaming water into their cups. Skye won’t drink hers, but I pour her a cup anyway. “I’m surviving.”
He nods, and grasps my shoulder in that sympathetic way that people do, as if he’s trying to transfer comfort from his body into mine. Hutch came to Key West as the youth pastor a couple of years ago. His boyish looks, energy and charm had been an instant hit with the young people of the Vineyard Church, and Skye and Leah had rarely missed a meeting. Everyone loved him.
“We’re going to hold a small candlelight memorial tonight at our meeting,” he tells me now. “For Leah. I think...it will give some of the kids closure. It’s been hard on them, too, Emmy.” He pauses, and it takes me a minute to let the words soak in. A memorial. For my daughter. Because she’s gone. My throat is instantly thick, and it’s hard to swallow. Nate and I postponed doing this when he was here—not wanting to make our loss seem so final. I nod without a word.
“You’re invited,” he continues, and his voice is soft and even. “I think it would be good for you to hear how much Leah was loved. How much she affected everyone around her.”
My heart beats desperately now, trying to escape its cage of bones.
“I don’t know,” I manage to say. Of course I can’t go to that.
“Please come,” Skye says softly. “Please. I miss you, Mom.”
My heart breaks a little. She’s been a second daughter to me since she was in preschool. She and Leah bonded the very first day. I’ve baked her cupcakes, gone to her recitals, driven her to volleyball games. She’s been part of my family, too, and I’ve been so busy isolating myself, I forgot about her, about how she must be struggling. She and Leah were closer than most sisters I know.
“Okay,” I find myself agreeing. “I’ll come.”
She hugs me now, and I see the bags under her eyes. I missed them before. She hasn’t been sleeping either.
“I love you,” I murmur, and I cling to her for a second, her blond hair tickling my nose. She nods and a tear rolls down her freckled cheek.
“I love you, too.”
After we pull ourselves together, she turns to me, her green eyes watery. “Leah has a picture of the two of us. On her nightstand. Do you think I can have it?”
She’s expecting me to nod and tell her to go get it, but I can’t. It makes me panicky just to think about someone else being in her room. But...Skye has a right to the picture. I know exactly the one she’s talking about. They had their legs dangling off the pier, each wearing a matching anklet, and the afternoon light surrounded them in a halo.
“I’ll bring it tonight,” I tell her finally. Which means I’ll have to go in and get it. My heart skips a beat.
“The memorial starts at seven,” Hutch tells me on their way out. He hugs me quickly, in the way that pastors do, and I agree to be there. I watch them walk away, and Skye’s shoulders sag, her steps are heavy. She’s definitely suffering, too. I’ve got to make more of an effort to be there for her. She understands my pain in a way that most do not.
At four, the plane from the mainland arrives, so I spend the hour after that checking in guests and handing out mojitos.
“Would you like to check in your phone?” I ask a frazzled man. He looks up from his phone, his eyebrow lifted.
“We do have complimentary Wi-Fi here, but we also offer phone lockers...for those who need a break from technology and the frustrations of the real world.” I smile, and his wife nudges his arm.
“Do it, Jim,” she tells him. “I mean it. No work for the entire weekend.”
He sighs and holds his phone out, and I take it. “I promise I’ll keep it safe for you.”
I place it in a tiny locker and close the door. He watches me, his eyes soulful, like I’m stealing his dog. I have to chuckle.
“You’ll feel refreshed by Sunday.”
He’s not so sure, but he and his wife take their mojitos to stroll on the beach, arm in arm, and I’m left alone.
I glance toward the stairs and I can’t procrastinate any longer.
I climb them, and pause in front of Leah’s open door, not for the first time.
Her bed is rumpled, and I can see an indentation from where she lay on it. The pile of photos is still there.
I breathe in, then out.
I step over the threshold.
I don’t move for several minutes. Instead, I soak in the room. I look at her notebooks, stacked neatly for the first day of sophomore year, and her backpack that she’d carefully prepared. Her first-day-of-school outfit is ready on the chair by the window.
My chest tightens, and I close my eyes, focused on relaxing those muscles.