My sweet boy,” Tova says, gazing out from her usual bench on the pier next to the aquarium. Under the silver moon, the water sparkles back.
The events of the last two hours hardly seem real, to say nothing of the events of the last two months. Marcellus is gone. Cameron, her grandson, is gone. As of tomorrow, her house will be good as gone. But she won’t be moving up to Charter Village.
Tova will not be gone.
What will she do? She hasn’t a clue, so she sits on her bench, staring at the water for some length of time that’s amorphous, immune to ordinary laws of the world, like a huge octopus reshaping its body to slip through a tiny crack. At some point, she checks her watch. It must be very late by now. Quarter to midnight.
It’s almost a new day. Her first day as a grandmother.
Erik didn’t know he’d fathered a child. How could he end his own life with a child on the way? He couldn’t have. And he didn’t. She clings to this theory, her thin fingers gripping tight on the bench. It had to have been an accident. Drunk kids. Impaired judgment.
He would’ve been a wonderful father. Yes, he was only eighteen, but look at Mary Ann’s granddaughter, Tatum. She did just fine. Erik would’ve loved Cameron to pieces. Everything—every last thing—could have been so different.
“Excuse me? Hello?” A woman’s voice rings out across the pier, startling Tova from her reverie. Who else could be
out here at this hour?
Someone wearing short athletic shorts and a bright pink sweatshirt is running up the pier at an urgent clip. Tova realizes it’s the young woman who owns the paddle shop just down the boardwalk, next to the realtor’s office.
“Hello.” Tova wipes her eyes and adjusts her glasses, then rises from the bench. “Are you all right, dear? It’s quite late to be out for a jog.”
The young woman slows to a trot as she nears the bench, out of breath. “You’re Tova.”
“I am.”
“I’m Avery,” she says, panting. “And I wasn’t out for a jog. I was finishing up paperwork at my shop down the road and I saw lights on, figured someone was at the aquarium.” There’s a quiet desperation in her eyes that Tova recognizes all too well. The look of someone trying to hold it together.
She follows Avery’s gaze back to the aquarium building, where the lights are indeed still on. The yellow mop bucket is back in the closet. Tova had planned to turn everything off and lock up on her way out, whenever that may end up being.
Avery swallows. “Anyway, I was thinking it might be . . .” “Cameron?”
“Yes.” A look of relief washes over her face. “Is he here?” “I’m afraid not.”
“Do you know where he is? I’ve been calling him all afternoon, but he’s not answering his phone.”
Tova shakes her head. “He left. Went back to California.” “What?” Avery’s mouth drops open. “Why?”
“That’s a rather complicated question.” Tova’s tone is measured. She sinks back into her spot on the bench, and the girl sits at the other end, tucking her bare legs underneath her. Tova goes on, “I suppose, in his mind, too many misunderstandings.”
Avery’s eyebrows knit together. “Misunderstandings?”
“His words exactly.” She raises a brow at the young woman. “I’m quite certain he thinks you are . . . oh, how did he put it . . . ghosting him?”
“What?” Avery leaps up. “He stood me up! And then sent me some message saying he needed to talk. When has that ever meant anything good?” She leans on the railing. “I’m the one who should be pissed. I only came over here because I was worried about him.”
Tova recalls Cameron’s diatribe in the hallway at the aquarium, and is poised to tell Avery about it, but hesitates. She ought not to meddle in his business. But, well . . . he’s family, and isn’t this what families do? The thought almost makes her laugh. Perhaps against her better judgment, she finally says, “I believe he did try to let you know he couldn’t make it.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He said he stopped at your shop.” Tova shakes her head. “Another misunderstanding, I suppose.”
Avery leans on the railing and drops her forehead onto her curled fist. She mutters, “Marco.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My son. He’s fifteen. He was in charge of the store while I ran to the bank. I asked if Cameron had called or come by, and he said no. I should’ve known something was up when I caught his cocky smirk out of the corner of my eye.” Avery gives the railing a frustrated smack. “I’m trying my hardest, I swear to God, but my kid’s such a little turd sometimes.”
“All kids are terrible sometimes.” Tova rises and stands next to the young woman. “Maybe your son was trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting.” Avery huffs. “And I should’ve seen through it.”
“Don’t blame yourself, dear. Being a parent is not for the faint of heart.”
After a long pause, Avery says, “So Cameron left for California because of me.”
“Well, it wasn’t just that. There was the big misunderstanding. The one about his so-called father.”
“Oh, crap. That meeting . . . It didn’t go how he thought it would.” She groans again. “I should’ve called him yesterday. The shop got busy, and I was mad . . .” She pulls a cell phone from the pocket of her shorts. “I need to talk to him.”
Tova watches as Avery dials. The call goes straight to voice mail.
“He’s really gone, isn’t he,” Avery says softly. “Maybe so.”
The two women watch the moon-bathed water in silence for what feels like a long while. Finally, Avery says, “It’s peaceful here. I never come down the pier anymore.”
“It’s my favorite place,” Tova says quietly.
Avery drops her gaze to the black water far below. “I talked someone down from this ledge, once. Stopped her from . . . you know.”
“Good heavens.”
In a half-choked voice, Avery goes on. “It was a woman. Right here, in this spot. A few years ago. I was out paddling super early in the morning, and she was sitting on the railing. Talking to someone. Herself, I guess. She looked rough. Like she was on something.”
“I see,” Tova says, her voice faint.
“She kept talking about a horrible night. An accident. A boom.”
A boom.
Tova gives a little nod, finding herself unable to speak, and the girl continues.
“I always assumed she must have been in combat or something. Trauma from an explosion, maybe.”
A boom.
Tova closes her eyes, imagining how easily it could happen. Something knocks the bow off course, and a gust of wind catches the newly slackened sail just the wrong way at
just the wrong moment. The boom swings wildly. Smacks his head. Knocks him overboard.
An accident. It could’ve happened that way, or any number of ways. Captain of the crew team, an accomplished sailor, but there was that stolen beer. There was a girl.
“Sometimes I wonder what ever became of her,” Avery says. “Whether she’s still alive. Whether my saving her mattered.”
With a stiff inhale, Tova looks Avery in the eye. “It mattered. I’m glad you saved her,” she says. And she means it.
