by Lisa Duffy
“I feel like you think it’s some sinister plot.” Lillian pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and plops down. “And you know—it’s not. If anything, it’s pathetic.”
She runs her hands through her hair and sighs, looks at him. “First, I lost my job. I was a counselor at a house for girls with mental-health issues. There was a girl in the overnight program. A teenager. But older—wiser. Manipulative. She reminded me so much of my own dau—” She pauses, shakes her head. “Of a younger Ann. I wanted to get this kid to see what her choices were doing to the people around her. Her poor parents. It was unprofessional of me.” She threw up her hands. “And then it was like dominoes. Lose the job. Landlord hikes the rent. Boyfriend decides he’s not into monogamy, as it turns out. And out of the blue, I get a call from Agnes, inviting me to a Fourth of July party. When I got here, we started talking. She asked me about my life, and it all just came out. She asked if I wanted to stay here for a bit. To get back on my feet. I’ve always wanted to come back here. And I actually thought it was a nice offer. A genuine offer.”
“And now?”
Lillian closes one eye. “Let’s just say I’m feeling as though I was invited here under false pretenses. She’s not exactly shy about telling me I should be Sky’s legal guardian.”
“Because you’re her grandmother?” He stands up straighter, crosses his arms. “Or because you’re not gay? Or black?”
Lillian doesn’t flinch at the question. Her expression tells him she’s asked herself these same things. “I don’t know. She’s never said anything to me. But then again, I made it clear when I moved in that I thought you were wonderful—I think you’re wonderful.”
“But still, you’re here, Lillian. You must have known this would complicate things.”
“They’re already complicated, Leo.”
“I find it hard to believe that you didn’t come here to be closer to Sky—”
“Of course I did. I came to be closer to Sky and the daughter I wanted to be close to but wasn’t. I want to see what her life looked like with my very own eyes. Ann didn’t want me here. But I wanted to be here. I wanted things to be different between us.”
He wants to leave it alone. But he has to know what happens next. “And what about what Sky wants? Have you thought of that?”
“Yes, I have. And it’s simple. I’d like her to get to know me. And I’d like to get to know her.”
“Which is exactly the problem, Lillian. Sky doesn’t feel the same way. She’s asked me to be with you when you see her. And if you think I’m going to force her to see you alone, you’re mistaken.”
Lillian stands, puts her arms across her body. “I don’t have a problem with that. I think when she gets to know me, she’ll change her mind,” she says confidently. “I’m glad she feels as close to you as she does.”
He nods. “The two of us have settled in. We’re good.”
Lillian tilts her head. “The two of you? I thought you were married?”
“I am.” He clears this throat. “I meant the three of us. Me, Xavier, and Sky. We’re all doing good.”
She nods slowly, but he can tell she doesn’t believe him. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t like to lie.
“So you’re taking the summer off?” he asks, changing the subject.
“Off? Oh, no. I’d go crazy if I didn’t work. I actually just heard about a job at a pet-boarding place in town. In the large-dog room. Hopefully the barking doesn’t make me crazy.”
He looks up when she says crazy, remembering what he’d wanted to ask her.
“I know you said you don’t like to talk about the past. But Sky overheard Brian say that Ann wasn’t taking her medication. Not that it matters—I mean, she’s gone. But at some point, I don’t know if Sky will want to talk about it. The more information I have, the better. Do you know if she was sick?”
Lillian blinks. Her face blank. He doesn’t think she’s going to answer him when she shakes her head.
“I wouldn’t know,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry.”
He nods. “Right. I should get back to Sky,” he says and turns to leave.
“Wait. Maybe you guys can come for dinner? I make a mean lasagna.” She gives him a hopeful look.
He hesitates. “Look—Sky is my first concern. I think it’s best if you see her on her own turf. I want her to feel safe. And comfortable. Keep it casual. I’ll do a cookout at our house.”
“Of course,” Lillian says. “I think we both want the same things. But if Sky asks to see me, I hope you won’t stand in the way. I’m sure I have some rights. Legally. I’m not expecting it will come to that.”
She says this politely. But there’s a hint of that tone in her voice again. The resolve.
He says goodbye, leaves her standing in the kitchen. His hand is on the knob when he hears his name.
He turns to see her standing in the hallway.
“I wasn’t a very good mother. When Ann was Sky’s age, I was always out somewhere. She was left with babysitters often. I got sober when she was in high school. But I missed a lot. Probably didn’t notice things that I should have.” She leans her head against the wall, closes her eyes. When she looks at him, her eyes are wet. “I’m looking forward to a do-over. Sober this time. Anyway. I’m sorry I’m not more help to you about Ann. I’m really sorry.”
He nods, slips out the door. Not entirely sure if she is apologizing to him. Or her late daughter.
The one whose life she came here to see with her very own eyes.
25
It’s another week before she can go back to the cliff to finish her painting. The rain kept her away two days. Then Leo made her go for her checkups at the doctor and the dentist the next day, and by the time they got home, she wasn’t exactly feeling all that creative.
Then she decided she might as well wait for Frankie to come home so they could go out to the cliff together.
Which is only one of the reasons her heart sinks when Frankie’s mother’s car pulls in the driveway and she opens the front door, waving wildly even though she can’t actually see Frankie through the tinted windows of the huge SUV.
Then Frankie gets out and it takes her a minute to see that Frankie is missing an arm.
Or not exactly missing. It’s just not hanging by her side where it should be. Instead, it’s in a sling across her body.
“I broke it, and I don’t want to talk about it, so don’t ask,” Frankie grumbles, walking past her into the house.
“What do you mean, don’t ask? Are you crazy—that’s your painting hand!” She follows Frankie to her bedroom and shuts the door.
Frankie plops on the bed, her body bouncing off the mattress.
“Exactly. Don’t remind me.” After a minute, Frankie sits up, looks at Sky, forces a smile. “Hi, by the way. I missed you.”
“Yeah, me too. Now talk. There’s no way you’re not telling me what happened.”
Frankie sighs. “That’s the thing. There’s nothing to tell. It’s not some great story.”
“Who says it has to be a great story?”
“Maybe not great. But at least not embarrassing.” Frankie plops down again, throws her good arm over her face.
Sky sits on the bed next to her, speechless. Frankie doesn’t get embarrassed. Or not that Sky’s ever seen.
“Like on a scale of one to ten. How embarrassing?”
“Eleven and a half. Maybe a twelve.” Frankie sits up. “I fell out of my bunk.”
“I thought you weren’t allowed to be on the top bunk anymore.”
“I wasn’t! It was the stupid lower bunk. My feet must have caught in the sheet or something. I woke up, and I was flat on my face, my arm underneath me.”
Sky winces, imagining it. She’s lost count of Frankie injuries from sleepwalking. Last year, she came home from camp with a concussion because she’d fallen out of the top bunk. The year before that, a fat lip and a chipped tooth. Then they got smart and put her on the bottom bunk.
Apparently, that was just as dangerous.
“Now I can’t paint. Can’t surf. I’m not even allowed to go in the water.” Frankie is close to tears. Sky is disappointed too—she’s been waiting all month to go surfing with Frankie. But she forces her voice to be light and cheery.
“The waves have been awful,” she lies. Truthfully, they’ve been the best she’s ever seen. “Besides, I’ve been dying to show you something. Come on.”
She stands and motions for Frankie to follow her. Frankie stares at her before she finally stands up, and trudges behind Sky.
They walk outside to the path leading to the tree house. Frankie is quiet while they walk through the woods. Sky fills in the silence, telling her everything that’s happened since she left.
How Xavier hasn’t been back to the island since Frankie left, and Joe and Leo found a bunch of her father’s empty bottles down in the basement, and Leo seemed surprised that her parents fought, and now Leo wants to sell the house and build a new one down the street where he grew up—
“Wait—what house?” Frankie interrupts.
“Old Mrs. Pearse’s. It’s Leo’s.”
Frankie stops. “The haunted one? You told him no, right? Because if you move there, we’re having every sleepover at my house. No way I’m stepping foot in there.”
“He said we’d knock it down. Plus, you can see the water out back.”
“I’m skipping camp next year. All I did was learn how to draw noses and fall out of my bunk and break my arm.”
“Noses like on your face?”
Frankie starts walking again. “What other kind is there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe an animal’s nose. Like a dog or a bird.”
“A dog has a snout. Birds have beaks.” Frankie laughs.
She rolls her eyes. “At least you’re smiling now. Know-it-all.”
“Where are we going?” Frankie asks.
They’re at the cliff now, and Sky steps onto the path that runs along the rocky edge.
“Look.” She points to the tree, the easel leaning against it.
Frankie’s eyes light up. She walks over and runs her hand down the wood, looks at Sky.
“Joe?” she asks, and Sky nods.
“He also made a box so we can leave our paintings out here to dry.”
Sky leans down and flips open the top of the box, relieved that the painting wasn’t ruined in the storm earlier this week. Joe said it was weather-tight, but the wind and rain had almost blown the shutters off the house, and she worried the box had flown away in the gusts.
She picks it up and turns the painting to face Frankie before she even looks at it. It’s not very good—she remembers she’d painted only the lighthouse and even then, the railing wasn’t quite right. But she wants to get better. And Frankie can help her.
“See?” she says to Frankie. “I followed your advice. Started with just one thing.”
Frankie stares at the painting, glances up at Sky, then back down at the paper. “Wow. That’s um—you’re really…” Her voice trails off.
Sky sighs. “You said to keep trying. So, I’m trying—”
“Talented,” Frankie interrupts. “I was about to say talented.”
Sky lets out a snort. “Don’t be sarcastic.” She shoves the painting in the box and reaches in her backpack, digging out a fresh piece of paper. “That’s why I have you to teach me. And what’s better is that your arm is broken, so you can’t just do it for me like you usually do—”
She stands, speechless.
Frankie has dug her painting out of the box and is holding it up. But it’s not Sky’s picture. Not all of it, at least.
The lighthouse is the only thing she recognizes. And even that is different—the railing the perfect shade.
Now there is an ocean surrounding the lighthouse, so deep and layered, she wants to reach out and touch it. She can almost feel the water slipping through her fingers. The salt air on her skin.
Clouds hang above, and she instinctively looks up, and yes—they are as real on the paper as they are before her eyes. Brilliant white in shapes that change and shift depending on how she gazes at the picture.
She can’t find her voice. She just looks at Frankie and swallows.
“What?” Frankie says, looking from Sky to the painting. “I’m not kidding. You’re really talented. This is really good.”
Sky shakes her head.
“Oh, all right. I get it. You think I’m jealous or something. Look—it’s amazing, okay. I always knew you had it in you—”
“That’s not mine,” Sky whispers. Her head is spinning. She leans over, puts her hands on her knees, breathes deep.
“What do you mean it’s not yours?”
Sky straightens. “I mean this is mine.” She points to the lighthouse. “That’s all I painted. And I couldn’t get it right—the railing was off, and the colors were wrong. So, I put it in the box. I haven’t been out here since.”
Frankie screws up her face. “Maybe Joe did it,” she offers.
“Joe helped me make the easel. He kept saying he can’t draw a straight line.”
“Leo?” Frankie asks, but Sky can already tell Frankie knows he didn’t do it.
Something occurs to Sky, and a shiver runs through her.
“Remember that clapping we heard?” she whispers, stepping closer to Frankie. “What if it’s him. Or her. Them! What if they’re watching us?”
Frankie looks over her shoulder. “Cut it out with the creepy voice. You’re freaking me out.”
“I’m freaking you out? There’s someone following us, and you’re blaming me?”
“Okay, stop. First of all—nobody is following anyone. You always have to go to the worst-case scenario—”
“Everyone who gets chopped into pieces in a horror movie acts like nothing is wrong—”
Frankie slaps a hand over Sky’s mouth and glares at her. “We’re not going to talk about anyone getting chopped up. Okay? Calm down and listen. If I take my hand away, you’re going to stay quiet. Yes?”
Sky nods, and Frankie drops her hand.
“What I was trying to say was that whoever is doing this isn’t exactly a serial killer. They’re fixing a painting! Let’s just relax about it.”
Sky folds her arms across her body, looks over her shoulder again. “It’s still creepy.”
“I don’t know. I think it’s kind of cool.” Frankie studies the painting. “I think we should see if it happens again.”
She takes a sheet of paper out of the backpack with her good arm and hands it to Sky.
“What do you want to paint?” she asks while Sky clips the paper to the easel.
“Oh, let’s see. Chainsaw murderer chasing two girls through the woods. Because that’s going to be us.”
Frankie ignores her, hands her a paintbrush, and reaches into the bag for the paints.
“Let’s see how good this mystery artist really is. Is this your school backpack?” she asks, and Sky nods. Frankie unzips the front pocket, reaches in, and straightens.
“Ever do a portrait?” she asks, holding up Sky’s school ID.
“I can’t do a lighthouse. You think I can paint myself?”
“Nope. And that’s what I’m counting on. Clip it to the top.” She hands Sky the picture. “We’re only going to paint the shape of your face and your hair. Nothing else. I can sketch it with my left hand but you’re going to paint. The mystery artist can do the rest.”
They spend the next hour on the painting. Frankie tracing it lightly in pencil. Sky going over it with paint.
When they’re done, she packs up the paints but leaves the picture and the school ID right where they are on the easel.
They’re walking away when Sky stops, looks back at the painting.
“Bye, unfinished me,” she says to the picture, and Frankie laughs, pulls her away. As they walk through the woods, the image stays in Sky’s mind.
The outline of her head. The brown loose curls. Featur
es that are missing. Her very own face, waiting to become whole.
26
She knows they know. Heard every word they said from where she hid, safely tucked away in a massive scrub bush.
She heard them walking through the woods from her chair in front of the shed. She knew where they were going—she’d only finished the painting early this morning, while the sun was barely a sliver on the horizon.
She’d brought the painting back to her house when she first found it. She’d just wanted to study it. Be as close as she could to the small hands that had held the picture. Then she couldn’t stop from putting a little of herself on the paper. Her only chance to be with the girl in any real way. Even if it was just through both of them sharing the same vision.
She wanted to sign the painting when she was done. To leave proof that she existed. But she’d promised her best friend all those years ago. Told Mac that she’d never tell their secret.
She’s never kept any promises. Ever. Except this one.
Which is why she puts the picture back when it’s done. No initials. No signature. Just the faceless, nameless touch of a woman clinging to the last thread of her existence.
Now, she slips soundlessly to the easel when she knows the girls are gone. She carefully removes the picture and holds it gently to her middle. It’s what she’s holding in her other hand that has her heart racing, her breath caught.
She brings it to her face, presses it to her lips before she tucks it in her back pocket.
The only thing on her mind this morning was death.
Tonight, she’ll light a candle. Set the paper on the table. Wet her brushes and arrange her paints.
And look at the face on the small laminated ID card until she can draw each feature by memory. She won’t look away until it’s a living thing inside of her. Filling her body, breathing her air.
Until finally, she’s complete.
27
She’s setting up her classroom on Thursday, getting ready for the kids to come back to school when there’s a knock on the door.