“I miss you,” he said without preamble. “I love you.”
The words felt good, like warm bathwater on cold skin. “Hi, Flynn.”
“You know the box you keep your paints in?”
Surprised, Pree said yes. The box was too small and the lid always flew off because one of the hinges was broken. She kept the extra oils, the colors she didn’t use as often, in a brown paper bag next to the box.
“I built you a new one.”
“You did?”
“I’ve been working on it for a few months now. For your birthday.”
“You forgot my birthday.”
“I know. I forgot the actual day itself, but I’ve been thinking about it coming up, I swear to god. I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you because I wanted to finish it and give it to you in person.”
“Which you’re not doing now.” Pree flicked a shell into the ice plant.
“I know. I just thought you should know about it. It’s big. It’ll hold a lot. It’s built like a toolbox because you said you liked that one case at Blick, but it’s metal and wood instead of plastic, and it’ll last your whole life.”
Pree smiled. He’d never made her anything before—not because he didn’t want to, but because whenever he started to, he freaked out, thinking it wasn’t good enough. He’d melted down earrings that were “almost there” and he’d thrown out a clunky brass bracelet that he didn’t think was as pretty as she deserved. “That’s sweet. You sure you’re going to give it to me, though?”
“It’s wrapped and on your side of the bed.”
Pree heard him breathe. She wanted his arms around her, she wanted to sleep against his chest. “I’m sorry. I should have called you.”
“As long as you’re okay.”
Pree watched Kate, still climbing, halfway up now.
“I’m good.”
“Come home soon, okay?” Flynn said. “I mean, no hurry, but hurry anyway.”
Pree hugged the phone against her chest after she hung up. Kate was almost to her now. Pree wasn’t sure why the anger at Kate still roiled beneath her skin, despite all her efforts to rid herself of it. Kate had obviously done the right thing. She hadn’t been ready to be a mother as a child, for whatever reason that Pree would probably never know. Kate had chosen a loving family for her. Pree was the one who had profited most—she’d gotten great parents, a loving home, and a wonderful education. A great start.
A great start that she’d already blown. Anger, quick and hot, moved from being directed at Kate to slicing through her own veins. This was her own fault.
She turned her face to the wind and closed her eyes. Pree’s cheeks stung and burned; they were used to neither this sun nor the chilled breeze. She fingered the zipper on her backpack, suddenly desperate to slap a sticker someplace, but where? The cypress trees behind her wouldn’t hold one. They would curl up on the gravel of the path. She saw a bench occupied by a guy and his big red dog farther down the path, and got a sticker ready inside her bag, peeling the corner back.
Was it silly, to still be so addicted to her slaps? Was it childish, something like mac ’n’ cheese from the box, not good for her, but too hard to give up? Sometimes Pree suspected it might be. The stickers reminded her of late nights in high school, hiding in underpasses, cars angled out so that if CHP rolled past they could be out and gone before the cop flipped a bitch. They reminded her of the fumes of her friends’ paint on the wind and the way the sun crept up over pieces that were gorgeous and monstrous at the same time and the calls that went with tagging: Run, stop, fuck, GO, GO, fuck, do it, GO!
While Pree watched Kate climb, she reminded herself again that Kate was the one who’d put her on this road. She should be grateful. She was who she was because of where and with whom she’d grown up, right? If Marta hadn’t loved her so hard in junior high when she’d honestly thought there was no one uglier or more pathetic than she was, when she thought the acne would never go away and that she’d be a social pariah forever, who knows which way she might have turned? And if Isi hadn’t told her, over and over again, that she had talent as an artist, that it was something she should pursue, she might have thought she had no ability when in reality she just hadn’t had enough practice. She might have given up on the one thing she loved more than anything except them. She might work in retail, taking credit card payments for thin Mongolian cashmere sweaters in some store in LA instead of being a working artist. She got paid to doodle on a computer. All thanks to Kate, right?
Kate, who looked so small. She was working hard at making it all the way up. “You’re almost there!” Pree finally called to her. Kate smiled at her, and from there, looking down at her, Pree could see the crooked part in Kate’s hair, the way she had a thick cowlick at the crown of her head. She reached up and felt her own matching one.
Or maybe, without the moms, if she’d been raised in some Republican heartland family in Iowa, she would still have had the acne and would have brought herself out of depression on her own. She still would have been drawing, watching the shapes grow under her pen. She would have fallen in love with street art even if the roads nearby were narrower and cleaner. She would still have been Pree, because of the genes she carried.
She would still have fallen in love with Flynn. She would still have fucked up, getting herself pregnant too young, too early.
Kate dropped to the sand next to her, as out of breath as Pree had been.
“I always regret going down there right at the halfway mark coming up.” She coughed, clearing her throat. “I tell myself I’ll never do it again.” She raised her fingers to her lips, as if she’d been going to say more.
“It’s been a long time since you were here.”
Kate nodded.
“Since before Robin died.” Pree didn’t phrase it as a question.
“Yes.”
“Are you glad? Now?” Pree regretted the longing in her voice, but it was too late—it was already out there, the stupid emotion mingling with the wind.
Kate clapped her hands together, smacking the sand off them. For one terrible moment Pree wondered if she wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t respond. Then she turned slightly and took Pree’s salt-sticky hands in hers.
“I have never been more glad of anything in all my life.”
Pree felt warmed, as if Kate had draped a blanket over her shoulders. She heard one quiet lemon-colored word in her head. Yes.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Thursday, May 15, 2014
10:45 a.m.
When Kate and Pree started walking again, Pree turned to the right, back the way they came instead of keeping going around the inner loop. That was fine—anything Pree wanted was fine. Their togetherness seemed thin and fragile, and while Pree probably didn’t know it, Kate knew, if asked, she’d let her have anything she desired. Money—she’d write a check without hesitation. Her Saab—link to Robin be damned, she’d hand Pree the keys without hesitation. The house—Pree could move in, bring her boyfriend and all her favorite artists, every stoner she knew, and they could turn the living room into a rave space and rip out the backyard to build a clay studio, and Kate would help.
Pree could ask Kate to leave her alone (forever, even), and Kate would do it.
So turning right instead of left on the trail was easy.
A big, ugly orange dog tore past them and doubled back, knocking the back of Kate’s right knee with a hefty head butt. “Hey!”
The dog took no notice, racing past Pree and then around her again. Pree laughed as he leaped onto a fallen eucalyptus trunk, climbed to the end, and brayed into the wind.
“Fred Weasley!”
Nolan’s voice. It was Nolan’s voice, blue as the sky, raised in a shout.
And there, impossibly, standing on the trail in front of her, his chest stuck out the way it did when he felt defensive or scared, was Nolan.
“Holy shit,” said Kate.
“Fred!” Nolan yelled, making Kate jump. “Come!”
&nbs
p; “Fred Weasley,” Kate whispered.
“Following commands isn’t his strong point,” said Nolan. “Fred, come!” Instead, the dog tore around the cypress trees behind Kate and Pree and disappeared down a dune.
“You . . .”
Before Kate could finish her thought, before she could even figure out what the thought might become, Fred ran back into sight, raced toward them, and promptly blasted into Pree’s knees, knocking her over into the sand.
“Fuck,” said Nolan. “I’m sorry! He’s harmless!”
“Jesus, Pree. Are you okay?” Kate knelt next to her.
Pree sat up, brushing sand off her elbows. She gave a laugh of delight as Fred stuck his nose under her chin and then barreled off again. “He’s fun. And cute.”
“That hideous beast is not cute,” said Kate. Fury filled her along with relief that she recognized the emotion, knew the anger for what it was. “Fred Weasley?” She stood, brushing the sand from her jeans with rapid, brutal strokes. “You stole that.”
“What?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. Did you follow us here? What’s your dog’s name?”
“What are you doing here?” he countered.
“What are we doing here? Bullshit. What is your dog’s name?”
“You heard me.” Nolan’s voice was low.
“You stole that name.”
Nolan shook his head. “I didn’t. It was as much mine as it was yours. You could have gotten an orange dog, too, you know.”
“That was Robin’s name. And you’re allergic. I was going to get a dog someday . . . I had that name reserved.” Her voice broke. “You don’t deserve it. You have no right.”
He ignored her glare and leaned over the girl. “You sure you’re all right?” He turned his head and looked for Fred Weasley, who was still careering up and down the dunes. “My dog’s an idiot. And clumsy.”
“He seems nice. Just fast,” said Pree.
“I’m Nolan Monroe,” he said.
Kate jumped in before Pree could speak. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, c’mon, Kate. I’m walking my dog. On my beach.”
No, she didn’t believe it. There were no coincidences. He must have followed them, and if he’d done that . . . “Were you at the house?”
Nolan opened his mouth as if to answer, then turned his head in the direction of a wild yelp. Fred flew through the trees, partway down the sandy trail toward the water and then back up. He barreled back toward them just as a small brown terrier ran through the trees. With a growl, the terrier threw itself at Fred and the two dogs snapped, clacking teeth and frothing spit.
Nolan launched himself toward them. “Fred, no!”
It escalated quickly as the terrier’s owner, a woman wearing pale pink sweats, ran around the path’s curve into sight. She yelled, “No, no! Rosie bites!”
The terrier was now attached to Fred’s front paw. Fred spun and tried to shake the other dog loose while Nolan came in closer, Pree just behind him. A brindled boxer drawn by the noise jumped into the melee.
Kate yelled, “Pree, don’t!”
“Grab them by the back legs,” said Nolan. “Back legs! Then pull!”
The noise was terrifying, vicious growls marking the battle. Nolan and Pree lunged together, Nolan grabbing the boxer by the back legs, Pree taking the terrier. That left Fred still barking, confused. Fred bared his teeth and aimed at the smaller dog, but Pree whirled at the wrong time and Fred’s mouth grazed Pree’s ankle instead. She yelped, but kept hold of the terrier while kicking Fred away.
“Fuck! I’m sorry!” yelled Nolan. “Did he bite you?”
“Back up,” said Kate. “Pree, get out of there!”
The woman in the pink sweats grabbed her dog out of Pree’s hands. “I told you, she bites!”
Nolan flung the boxer away from him and lurched forward to take Fred by the collar. The fight was over as quickly as it had started. Pree looked white but stood in place. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” said Nolan. He shook Fred. “What the fuck, dog?” He snapped the leash on Fred’s collar and tied him quickly to a low branch on the cypress.
“Are you hurt? Did he get you?”
“No,” said Pree. “His mouth brushed me but he didn’t bite. Just slobbered a little.”
Nolan said, “I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I’ll never walk him off-leash again.” He looked at Kate. “He almost bit your . . . your daughter.”
The word floated in front of them.
“That dog obviously loves off-leash. You can’t do that,” said Pree, who was staring at Fred, who was sitting patiently on his leash under the tree. “He’s a nice dog.”
Nolan said, “You don’t know him.”
“Is he a nice dog?” she asked.
“The nicest dog in the world.”
“You’re . . .” Pree started. “You’re him. Robin’s father.”
The sentence buzzed like neon. Kate realized Pree hadn’t meant to make them both jerk upright the way they did. Her voice, soft and a little unsteady, sounded merely as if she were trying out the words.
“You’re Kate’s daughter.” Nolan, too, was practicing saying it. It was a challenge directed at Kate, but she kept her eyes on a plastic bag caught in the cypress just above his head. It snapped, shredded and brittle. “She had you in those years we were apart.”
Pree nodded.
“Jesus, Kate. I had a Chia Pet then.”
“It’s what I was . . . what I was trying to tell you yesterday.”
Nolan lifted an eyebrow and strode past her. He held out his hand. “I want to introduce myself again. I’m Nolan Monroe.”
“I’m Pree Carleton.”
Kate’s daughter and her ex-husband shook hands. No, she would think of it in the right words: Kate watched her daughter, Pree, shake hands with her father. Kate shivered in the damp fog. “We should talk,” she said.
Nolan looked at her. “You think?”
“Come over.”
“Now?” A challenge colored his voice cobalt. “Come to the house now?”
Kate stood straighter. “Not now. Tonight. For dinner.” They could talk, all of them. This would be the time. She would finally be able to put this right (if right were a thing that could actually happen, could actually come out of all of this). Nolan hadn’t asked who Pree’s father was. But soon, so soon, he’d ask.
And Kate would make it right. She’d correct the lies, all of them. Even if it pushed Pree and Nolan away forever—and it would, of course—she would make things right. Finally.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Thursday, May 15, 2014
10:45 a.m.
Nolan walked last, behind the two women. That determined walk—they both had it. Their feet landed fully and pushed off the sand purposefully. They were practically the same height, Kate and Pree, Pree only an inch or so taller, and if Pree’s curls weren’t so vividly colored and just a bit shorter, their hair would be almost identical.
The cold salt wind slapped against his cheeks.
The last time Kate and he had been here together was two weeks before Robin had come home from USF for the last time. He’d been sleeping off a new medicine in his hospital bed and the health aide assigned to him said he wouldn’t wake for hours and that she’d stay with him every minute—she said they should go out, do something together. In unspoken agreement, they came to the beach. Once they were down the trail, on the sand, the waves crashing in, sending cold spray against their faces, Kate had started to run south, her feet bare, her curls tangling in the wind. Nolan chased her, never trying to stop her, just trying to keep up. A half mile, maybe a mile down the beach, she’d veered right, dashing into the waves.
No one swam here. No one surfed here. The tides were too dangerous, the current too strong. She knew it. She’d told Robin a million times it wasn’t safe for him to go in.
Nolan had gone after her. She’d battled the waves, but they beat her backward,
relentlessly, until he could catch her, putting his arms around her. They fell twice on their way back in, huge waves knocking them over, but Nolan hadn’t broken his hold on her. Not once. She wasn’t going anywhere without him, and sure as hell neither of them was going without Robin.
He’d been so furious by the time he’d dragged her out that he’d released her to the sand and moved away from her, many yards, before dropping down himself. He’d breathed hard, trying to figure out what to say to her when he could finally speak again.
Kate had gotten up, dripping water and tears, and had walked up and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. She’d never hit him before and later told him she’d never hit another human being in her life. “You shouldn’t have,” she said, her voice breaking.
“Shouldn’t have saved you?” Nolan rubbed his cheek and tried to look around her, anywhere but at her face. “Screw you.”
“Shouldn’t have let me have him in the first place, just to lose—” She’d sobbed, dropping to her knees, then rolling to her side, still streaming water.
He’d gathered her to himself, cradling her sand-coated form in his lap, and they’d sat there in the cold wind until both of them were shaking so hard they could hardly drag themselves up the path to the car. They’d never spoken of it, not a word. And they’d never come back here together as a family.
Kate had had another child. She’d kept the fact from him somehow. Why? That’s what escaped him entirely. But there would be time for that later.
Now he walked behind her daughter.
Chapter Thirty
Thursday, May 15, 2014
7 p.m.
It was weird, all of it. Not bad weird. It actually felt good, Pree thought. Just odd. The three of them, in this big backyard in Oakland, grilling burgers. Just like anyone else, just as Pree had done about a million times with the moms growing up. As if it was normal.
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