Page 4 of Good Half Gone

As soon as the front door closes behind me, Cal flings himself across the living room and into my arms. He’s small for eight, sweet and softhearted. Everyone says he looks like me, and that’s mostly true. He has my blue eyes and rosebud mouth, but his hair is dark and wavy. My shaggy, smart boy. I wrap my arms around him, glad to be home. It’s the same greeting I get every night—pure joy.

“You got a letter,” he says. “It’s on the table in the kitchen. Gran keeps picking it up and looking at it.”

“Uh-oh,” I say, glancing into the kitchen. Gran is at the sink, washing the dinner dishes by hand even though we have a dishwasher. I eye her tense little shoulders and feel a surge of hope. Could it be? I applied for four internships at the prompting of my professor, but there was only one I was interested in taking. It was the internship Gran had begged me not to apply for.

“Is she upset?” I whisper.

Cal nods, he’s wearing his most serious expression. “She called off work tomorrow.” His voice is low. “She wants you to take her to see the island where you’re going to work.”

The island? Did I hear that right? My heart speeds up. I’m shaking as I reach out to ruffle his hair. I lean down to give him a kiss.

“Thanks, little informant.” He darts off—probably back to his iPad. I hang my things on the hook by the door and slip into the bathroom Cal and I share to wash my hands. By the time I step into the kitchen a few minutes later, Gran has my dinner on the table and she looks ready to argue. Propped against my water glass is a business-size envelope, crisp and official. The return address: Shoal Island.

“Oh my god.”

Gran leans against the counter, pale and staring. I rip it open, too afraid to blink.

“I’m in…” I say. “Gran…”

When I look up, she has her eyes closed like she’s on a ride she wants to get off.

“Don’t do that, Gran, this has always been the plan.”

“Your plan,” she snaps.

“The only plan…” I shoot back.

“I don’t want this for you. You are living her life, not your own.”

We glare at each other with identical pond-scum eyes, refusing to blink.I will never have to wonder what I’ll look like when I’m older; I look just like Gran. We have the same heart-shaped face and heavy bottom lip. She knows I’m right. That’s the only reason she’s not arguing back.

“Everything is going to be okay,” I tell her. “I have things under control…” It is a bold statement but I believe it. Gran nods at the floor, turning back to the dishes. When she lets it go, I sigh in relief. My body relaxes back into the chair and I pick up my fork.

The truth is, I don’t want Gran getting close to that place. Not because it is evil. I don’t believe places can be evil. He is evil, and he is there, tucked away like a rotting tooth. It took me a long time to find him. The nights when Gran wanted to know why I wasn’t on a date or out with friends, I was stationed in front of my laptop, looking for him. Searching, always searching. And then I had found him. He was in a private facility, a hospital for the mentally ill.

Living out his days on an island didn’t sit well with me. I needed to lay eyes on him—hear him speak, feel his vibe. Did he care? Did he think about what he’d done?

I liked to imagine another version of myself: wholesome and hopeful. A woman who had a sister. I imagine she’d have outgrown her annoyance with me by now. Maybe we’d go to concerts together, or the movies—we never had time to find common ground. And now I’d never know.

I wash my dishes in the sink this time with Gran watching me from the table. Cal’s TV shows are playing in the living room; he’s pretending to listen, but I know it’s our conversation he’s after. I can feel Gran’s eyes on my back.

“Thanks for the dinner.”

“Iris,” she says as I’m walking out. “Cal needs his mother.”

I pause.

“He’ll get her. I’m almost finished with this.”

Chapter2Past

“Yo, Pipes, Mycousin’s friend thinks you’re hot.”

Piper glanced up from her phone, her eyes glazed over. She was texting, but when Dupont didn’t go away, she slid her phone into the back pocket of her jeans and sighed. “What now?” Her eyes bounced off of him and to the crowd of students making their way out the front doors. The burden of having a popular sister…

Dupont stepped in front of her, blocking her view so he could have her full attention.

“My cousin’s friend. He wants to know if you want to hang out at the mall sometime.”

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