The Tenderness of Thieves

by Donna Freitas

  It was my turn to break Handel’s heart.

  Maybe not forever.

  But, at the very least, for now.

  Sometimes love was like that, too. It was violent and it was reckless, and it was tender and soulful. And there were times when love didn’t play fair, not at all, not even a little, and this was one of them.

  “I have to go now,” I told Handel, and then the two of us looked away from each other and didn’t look back.

  I didn’t at least.

  Not me.

  • • •

  Bridget looked up. “Jane?”

  Tammy and Michaela turned to me.

  My girls were waiting there on the steps of the detention center. Waiting for me to come out after my visit.

  Miles had offered to be here, too, just like he’d been offering all sorts of things over this last month of summer. To take me to the movies, to dinner, to get ice cream, to meet his family for a barbecue, to take a drive in his mother’s Mercedes that purred so softly you almost forgot you were in a car. I hadn’t said yes to any of it, not at first, but then I started to.

  But not today.

  “Jane?” Michaela said this time, her arm outstretched.

  I went to them—my girls. They folded me into a hug.

  We stood there for a long while, the four of us. Together.

  When we pulled back, Bridget took my hand. Squeezed it. “Do you think you’ll ever forgive him?”

  I was silent for a long time. My girls seemed to stop breathing as they waited for my answer. “I don’t know,” I said. “But someday I might want to. I still love him,” I added, these last three words lodged tight in my throat like stones.

  “No one is going to judge you for it,” Bridget said, squeezing my hand harder. “Not us, at least.”

  “Not even me,” Michaela said softly.

  “Did you tell Handel you feel that way?” Tammy asked.

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “It’s not the right time. Not yet. Maybe someday.”

  Bridget’s eyes were glassy with tears. “There’s no rush. None at all.”

  I sighed long and heavy, as though by letting out this rush of air I might be letting go of all the heaviness I’d been carrying around these last months.

  “Let’s go down to the beach,” I said eventually.

  Tammy’s smile was sad. “It’s the perfect day for a swim.”

  We started to walk, the four of us, straight into the sun, toward that place I always went when I needed comfort, when I needed to feel better. When I needed to think, and when I needed to stop thinking, too.

  Today it was all of the above.

  On our way there, as the sounds of the surf got closer, the waves crashing in that uneven yet familiar rhythm, I thought about the Jane I’d become these last few months, the many different Janes I’d been this past year. And the Jane I was right now, too, this very minute, which was a different Jane still.

  I was no longer the good girl I used to be. Definitely not her. That girl was gone. I wasn’t sure what Jane I was becoming at this moment, though, as we walked along the sea wall to the wooden stairwell that led down to the beach. Maybe a mixture of all the others, or maybe an entirely new one, a girl who would surprise me. One that was strong enough to handle anything. One that was good, too, but a different kind of good this time, a kind I’d yet to discover and appreciate.

  Or maybe that’s the girl I was already.

  Either way, it was okay. I was willing to wait for that Jane. I knew she was there. I was sure of it. I could feel her stirring, even as I took my flip-flops off, letting them dangle in my hand, and made my way, slowly and carefully, down the steps, one by one, my toes curling around their edges. Hanging on. Making sure I didn’t fall or stumble.

  I reached the bottom, whole and upright and strong.

  I took a deep breath, inhaling the salty tang in the air. Looked into the eyes of my girls. Bridget, Tammy, Michaela. Knowing with my whole heart that, boys or no, with them in my life, I would always be loved.

  Then I set my bare feet onto the sand.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  JILL SANTOPOLO, wonderful editor and friend, believer in this novel’s possibilities and future, I thank you for your guidance, your gentle prodding, and your talent for knowing how to shape this story into what it needed to be. I am grateful to have you as an editor and also just overall in my life! To everyone at Philomel for welcoming me into their publishing home, especially Michael Green and Talia Benamy. To all those at Penguin who have been involved in the production of this book, thank you for the care you’ve taken with it as you send it out into the world.

  Carlene Bauer, Marie Rutkoski, and Daphne Grab all read drafts of this story at different points in its life. I am grateful to you for your feedback, ideas, and, most of all, your continued encouragement and friendship, especially over the last several years.

  I feel confident in saying that Miriam Altshuler is the best agent in the whole wide world. I am so lucky to have you in my corner, Miriam. I think we just passed our tin anniversary. Thank you for your continued encouragement, feedback, and tireless cheerleading of my career, and your friendship most of all. I am grateful, too, to Reiko Davis at MA Literary for her support of this novel, willingness to read, offer feedback, and meet for brunch.

  To Daniel Matus, for everything you are in my life.

  Whenever I start a new novel, I realize that my heart seems to permanently reside along the beaches and towns of Rhode Island, where I grew up. I am grateful to this place and all those people who’ve inspired the various stories I’ve set there.

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